![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
British actress, Sarah Mayer’s light and racy attitude to the bathing arrangements after judo training sessions in Japan in the 1930s belies a dangerous and volatile time in Anglo-Japanese relations. This paper seeks to demonstrate that her pioneering achievement as the first western woman to be awarded a black belt in Japan, was part of the political machinations of the day. As Japan campaigned for the 1940 Tokyo Olympic Games, the use of Mayer’s image and persona to promote not only nationalism, but internationalism and modernity, was related to a rift forming in the League of Nations. Mayer’s story shows the use of sport as a political tool. Originally developed as part of a wider doctoral thesis on the contribution of Mayer to the history of judo, and using mainly primary source research, this article charts Mayer’s life leading up to and following her time in Japan, detailing how her position in society and her work as an actress and theatre entrepreneur impacted on the development of women in judo. Understanding the history of women in judo is integral to an understanding of the sport itself and this paper hopes to contribute to the scant literature in the field.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Amanda Callan-Spenn has recently completed her PhD at the University of Wolverhampton. Her research looks at the role of women in the development of judo.
Notes
1 Jim Riordan, ‘Introduction’, in The International Politics of Sport in the 20th Century, ed. Jim Riordan and Arnd Krüger (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), x.
2 Arnd Krüger, ‘Strength through Joy: the Culture of Consent under Fascism, Nazism and Francoism’, in International Politics, ed. Riordan and Krüger, 67–89.
3 Yamaguchi Kaori, 女子柔道の歴史と課題 [Women’s Judo: History and Challenges] (Tokyo: 日本武道館, 2012); Mizoguchi Noriko, ‘女子柔道の誕生: 講道館神話の分析' [The Birth of Women's Judo: An Analysis of the Kodokan Myth], (Thesis for Ph.D. University of Tokyo, 2015).
4 Michel Brousse and Nicolas Messner, Judo for the World (Paris: International Judo Federation 2015), 150; Bianca Miarka, Juliana Bastos Marques, and Emerson Franchini, ‘Reinterpreting the History of Women’s Judo in Japan’, International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 7 (2011): 1016–29.
5 Mike Callan, Conor Heffernan, and Amanda Spenn, ‘Women’s Jūjutsu and Judo in the Early Twentieth Century’, International Journal of the History of Sport 35, no. (2018): 530–53.
6 Jennifer Hargreaves, Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women’s Sports (London: Routledge 1994).
7 Birth Certificate, Winifred Sarah Tapping, Wandsworth, 16 October 1896 [1d:610] General Register Office, UK.
8 ‘The Coliseum Theatre’, The Gloucestershire Echo January 10, 1922, 4.
9 Birth Certificate, Robert John Mayer, Kensington, 3 November 1897 [1a:64] General register Office, UK.
10 Lewis and White (Solicitors), Appointment of new trustee, 2 December 1930, held in the Mayer family collection.
11 Photographs in the Mayer family collection show the couple entertaining members of the social elite at Quarr House.
12 Budokwai list of members 1918–1928, B.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
13 ‘Brains against Brawn’, Gloucester Advocate (NSW), January 24, 1936, 4.
14 Maggie Tatarkowski, ‘Japanese Art and its effect on the Art Nouveau Movement in Britain’, in The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922, ed. Phillips Payson O'Brien (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 213.
15 S.S. City of Baroda, Liverpool, Departure 21 December 1933, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890–1960 [online] www.Ancestry.com (accessed August 2019); Sarah Mayer, seven letters addressed to G. Koizumi re her training visit to Japan, February 1934–January 1935, and associated ephemera, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
16 See, Phillips Payson O’Brien, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004); Ian Nish and Chihiro Hosoya, eds., History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600–2000, 5 vols. (London: Macmillan, 2000–2003).
17 Murashima Shigeru, ‘The Opening of the Twentieth Century and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1895–1923’, in History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, Volume 1, ed. Nish and Kibata (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 160.
18 Thomas W. Burkman, Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914–1938 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2008), xiii.
19 Ibid.
20 Antony Best, ‘The “Ghost”of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance: An Examination into Historical Myth-Making’, The Historical Journal 49, no. 3 (September 2006): 811–31.
21 Sandra Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931–1933 (London and New York: Routledge, 2003).
22 Burkman, Japan and the League of Nations, xii.
23 Ikuo Abe, Yasuharu Kiyohara, and Ken Nakajima, ‘Fascism, Sport and Society in Japan’, International Journal of the History of Sport 9, no. 1 (1992): 1–28.
24 Shun Inoue, ‘The Invention of the Martial Arts: Kano Jigoro and Kodokan Judo’, in Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modem Japan, ed. S. Vlastos (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1998), 163–73.
25 Naoki Murata, ed. and Nancy H. Ross, trans., Mind over Muscle: Writings from the Founder of Judo, Jigorō Kano (Tokyo, New York and London: Kodansha International, 2005).
26 Kōbe University ‘History of the Judo Club’, www.kobe-judo.com/2009-04-12-07-21-55 (accessed August 2019) [in Japanese].
27 Letter Two from Sarah Mayer to Gunji Koizumi 27 June 1934, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
28 Images of the Kodokan 10th dan recipients can be found at www.kodokanjudoinstitute.org/en/doctrine/palace/ and brief biographies can be found in successive issues beginning with, Motohashi, Hanako. ‘講道館柔道十段物語 講道館最初の十段 山下義昭’ [The Story of Kōdōkan Judo Tenth Dan (1) Yamashita Yoshitsugu], Judo [Kōdōkan Publication] 80, no. 4 (2009): 10–8 [in Japanese].
29 Letter Three, Sarah Mayer to Koizumi Gunji 23 July 1934, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
30 Letter Four, Sarah Mayer to Koizumi Gunji, 12 September 1934, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
31 Japanese press cuttings attached to the Sarah Mayer letters and referred to in such, no name of newspaper or date shown, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
32 Alex Bennett, ed. and trans., Jigorō Kano and the Kodokan: An Innovative Response to Modernisation (Tokyo: Kōdōkan Judo Institute, 2009), 182.
33 The Organising Committee of the XIIth Olympiad Tokyo 1940, ‘’Report of the Organising Committee on its Work for the XIIth Olympic Games of 1940 in Tokyo until the Relinquishment (Paper prepared by the Organising Committee in English), held in LA84 archive, www.la84foundation.org (accessed January 2020).
34 Sandra Collins, The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 2
35 The Organising Committee of the XIIth Olympiad Tokyo 1940, ‘Report of the Organising Committee on its Work for the XIIth Olympic Games of 1940 in Tokyo until the Relinquishment’.
36 ‘Ladies, why don’t you try judo?’ Judo Magazine, October 1934, Kōdōkan Museum and Archive, Tokyo.
37 Letter Seven, Sarah Mayer to Koizumi Gunji, 9 January 1935, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
38 ‘Kōdōkan 50th Anniversary of Establishment’, Judo Magazine, January 1935, 4–14, Kōdōkan Museum and Archive, Tokyo [in Japanese].
39 Letter Six, Sarah Mayer to Koizumi Gunji, 27 November 1934, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
40 ‘Mrs Mayer is Ikkyū not Shōdan’, Judo Magazine, April 1935, 40, Kōdōkan Museum and Archive, Tokyo [in Japanese].
41 Mizoguchi et al., ‘The Fusion and Creation of Physical Culture and Media Globalization of Sports Culture’, Bulletin of Shizuoka University of Arts and Culture 10 [in Japanese]: 80–1. Miss Kosaki is also known as Osaki/Ozaki Kaneko. I have chosen to use the spelling and name used by Naitō in her biographical work through interview with Miss Kosaki, see Yōko Naitō, おんな三四郎８３歳宙をとぶ 女性黒帯第一号 [The Female Sanshiro at 83 years Takes to the Air]. (Tokyo: エフエー出版, 1996) [in Japanese].
42 Syd Hoare, A History of Judo (London: Yamagi Books, 2009), 96.
43 ‘Foreign News: Jujitsuing Railman’, Time, April 29, 1935, np; A search of American newspapers through www.newspaperarchive.com produced, for example; Lowell Sun 30 April 1935; Port Arthur News 1 May 1935; El Paso Herald Post 3 May 1935 (accessed April 2017).
44 See, Roger March ‘How Japan Solicited the West: The First Hundred Years of Modern Japanese Tourism’, in Tourism: Past Achievements, Future Challenges, ed. Ian McDonnell, Simone Grabowski and Roger March (Sydney, NSW: University of Technology Sydney, 2007), 843–52; Carolin Funck and Malcolm Cooper, Japanese Tourism: Spaces, Places and Structures (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2013), 35–6.
45 Koichi Nakagawa ‘Prewar Tourism Promotion by Japanese Government Railways’, Japan Railway & Transport Review 15 (1998): 22–7.
46 John H. Maurer and Christopher M. Bell, eds., At the Crossroads Between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference in 1930 (Anapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 2014).
47 ‘Wrestling Match Between Japanese Cabinet Minister and English Woman’, New Zealand Herald, July 18, 1935, 10.
48 Gennifer Weisenfeld, ‘Publicity and Propaganda in 1930s Japan: Modernism as Method’, Design Issues 25, no. 4 (2009): 13–28.
49 Japanese press cuttings attached to the Sarah Mayer letters and referred to in such, no name of newspaper or date shown, C.64, Richard Bowen Collection, University of Bath.
50 Examples include, ‘English Woman Ju-Jutsu Champion’, Yorkshire Evening Post, April 10, 1935, 8; ‘Unprecedented Honour’, Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, April 10, 1935, 11; ‘Jiu-Jitsu Champion’, Nottingham Evening Post, April 10, 1935, 1; ‘Champion at Ju-Jitsu’, Portsmouth Evening News, April 10, 1935, 9.
51 ‘Nazis Avenge a “Hero”’, Nottingham Evening Post, April 10, 1935, 1.
52 Adrian Bingham, ‘Enfranchisement, Feminism and the Modern Woman: Debates in the British Popular Press, 1918–1939’, in The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender, and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945, ed. Julie V. Gottlieb and Richard Toye (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 51.
53 Divorce Papers for Sarah Winifred Benedict Mayer and Robert John Mayer, 1935, J77/3463/5658, The National Archives, UK.
54 Hakone Maru, London, Arrival 30 June 1935, UK Incoming Passenger Lists [online] www.ancestry.com (accessed July 2019).
55 Österreich in Bild und Ton, ÖBuT-Ausgabe 35a/35, 1935, The Austrian Film Museum, Vienna; ‘Paremad Judo-Võistljad Maailmas’, Sakala, July 22, 1935, 3.
56 ‘How I Met the Fuhrer’, The Eastbourne Gazette, January 20, 1940, 6.
57 Daily Mirror editions ‘She Knows What to Do!’ 30 October 1937, 11; ‘Smile to Defend Yourself!’ 6 November 1937, 11; ‘She Smiled at a Stranger!’ 13 November 1937, 13; ‘The Attack that Every Woman Fears!’ 20 November 1937, 11; ‘Attacked by her Friend!’ 27 November 1937, 11; ‘Attacked by a Thief in her Bedroom!’ 4 December 1937, 11; ‘How to Hold a Man When He’s Down!’ 11 December 1937, 13.
58 Shani D’Cruze, ‘Intimacy, Professionalism and Domestic Homicide in Interwar Britain: The Case of Buck Ruxton’, Women's History Review 16, no. 5 (2007): 701–22, doi:10.1080/09612020701447749.
59 Ian Nish, ed., Anglo-Japanese Alienation 1919–1952: Papers of the Anglo-Japanese Conference on the History of the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 27–56.
60 Sarah Tapping, ‘Having a Bath in Japan’, The Sunday Express, August 6, 1939, 10.
61 Sebastian Swann, ‘The Tientsin Incident 1939: A Case-Study of Japan’s Imperial Dilemma in China’ (Thesis for Ph.D., University of London, 1998), 43.
62 See for example, Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of The Second World War, 1938–1939 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 354; Kyozo Sato, ‘Japan's Position before the Outbreak of the European War in September 1939’, Modern Asian Studies 14, no. 1 (1980): 129–43.
63 Antony Best, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936–1941 (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 79–86; Watt, How War Came, 356.
64 ‘No War This Year’, Daily Express, August 7, 1939, 1.
65 Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alienation 1919–1952, viii.
66 The Security Service: Personal (PF Series) Files 1913–1983, KV2, The National Archives, UK.
67 Jon Pardoe, ‘British Writing on Contemporary Japan’, in The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations 1600–2000: Social and Cultural Perspectives, ed. Gordon Daniels and Chushiki Tsuzuki (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 301.
68 Lincoln Allison, ed., The Changing Politics of Sport (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993), 4–5.
69 Murata, Mind over Muscle, 59 and 63.
70 Gordon Daniels, in Gordon Daniels and Chushichi Tsuzuki, eds., The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations 1600–2000: Social and Cultural Perspectives (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 12.