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Abstract
The International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) held its inaugural tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 6–10 September 1933. It was the first in a series of triennial (later four-yearly) tournaments that would run for the next 50 years, bar 1939–1945, and that came to be regarded as the women’s world field hockey championships. Until 1975, however, there was no title to be won or trophy to be lifted – a unique situation among major team sports. Influenced by the post-World War I peace movement and wary of anything that smacked of professionalism, the IFWHA organized its tournament more like a festival: the social aspect was at least as important to the players and administrators as results on the pitch, although teams competed fiercely for the best results. At a time when that other great festival of sport – the Olympic Games – was increasingly the focal point of international rivalries and political grandstanding, IFWHA’s Copenhagen tournament represented an alternative vision for elite sport. That it was entirely female-run only adds to its importance as a sporting milestone, and the women who organized and played in it deserve wider recognition for their role in the progress narrative of women’s sport.
Disclosure Statement
Notes
1 Two American Spectators, ‘The Social Side and Lighter Side’, Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA), Catalogue of the Papers and Correspondence of the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA) 1895-1997, Section B/1/3, University of Bath Archive, Bath, England (hereafter UoBA).
2 Ibid.
3 Great Britain Hockey, ‘11 of the Best: Alex Danson-Bennett’s Memorable Moments’, February 2020, www.greatbritainhockey.co.uk/latest/news/11-of-the-best-alex-danson-bennett-s-memorable-moments (accessed December 2023). Pollard holds the record of 115 international goals with Alex Danson-Bennett.
4 Two American Spectators, ‘The Social Side and Lighter Side’.
5 Ibid.
6 AGM minutes, May 1925, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA.
7 Jean Williams, A Contemporary History of Women’s Sport, Part One: Sporting Women, 1850-1960 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 26, 15496.
8 Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/3, UoBA.
9 Janet Petrilla Shaner, ‘The History and Development of the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations’ (Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1975); John McBryde, ‘The Bipartite Development of Men’s and Women’s Field Hockey in Canada in the Context of Separate International Hockey Federations’ (Master’s thesis, University of British Columbia, 1986); Jo Halpin, ‘“The Game is the Thing”: Amateurism, the English and the 1953 IFWHA Tournament in Folkestone’ (Master’s diss., De Montfort University, 2013); Janet Beverley, ‘More Than a Game: Australian Women’s Hockey, 1896-2000 – Feminism, Practical Feminism and Communitas’ (PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2022).
10 AGM minutes, May 1922, AEWHA, Section A/2/3, UoBA; Honorary Secretary’s Report, AGM minutes, May 1924, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA.
11 Joëlle Kuntz, Geneva and the Call of Internationalism: A History (Lavis: LEGO, 2011), 4768; Ingrid Sharp and Matthew Stibbe, ‘Introduction: Women’s International Activism During the Inter-war Period, 1919-1939’, Women’s History Review 26, no. 2 (2017): 16372.
12 AGM minutes, May 1922, AEWHA, Section A/2/3, UoBA.
13 Report of the Triennial Conference Geneva 1930, IFWHA, Section B/1/1, UoBA.
14 Nancy Tomkins and Pat Ward, The Century Makers: A History of the All England Women’s Hockey Association 1895-1995 (Shrewsbury: AEWHA, 1995), 76; Luke Gibbon and Tara Finn, ‘What’s the Context? 1 December 1925: Signing the Locarno Treaties’, History of Government Blog, December 2015, history.blog.gov.uk/2015/12/01/whats-the-context-1-december-1925-signing-the-locarno-treaties (accessed April 2023).
15 Atalanta, ‘The Out-of-Door Woman’, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, November 1929, 468.
16 ‘GWI History’, Graduate Women International, graduatewomen.org/who-we-are/our-story/gwi-history (accessed April 2023).
17 Kathleen McCrone, Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation of English Women 1870-1914 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky, 1988).
18 Heather Mayall, ‘A Ripping Time – Lasting Friendship Through Hockey’, University of Bath website, 2021, www.bath.ac.uk/library/cabinet-of-curiosities/story/61 (accessed April 2023); Marjorie Pollard, Fifty Years of Women’s Hockey (Letchworth: St Christopher Press Ltd, 1946).
19 Minutes of All England Ladies Hockey Association AGM, November 1895, AEWHA, Section A/1/1, UoBA.
20 Mayall, ‘A Ripping Time’; Pollard, Fifty Years of Women’s Hockey.
21 AGM Minutes, May 1924, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA.
22 McCrone, Playing the Game, 137.
23 Melanie Baumer, FIH operations manager, email correspondence with author, March 2023.
24 Honorary Secretary’s Report, AGM minutes, May 1924, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA; Baumer, email correspondence. Teams that sent letters of support to the inaugural IFWHA meeting of 8 March 1924 were Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland and Switzerland, ‘in addition to the Colonies’ [presumably Australia and South Africa]. The FIH meeting was attended by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Spain and Switzerland.
25 Joanne Halpin, ‘“Will You Walk Into Our Parlour?”: The Rise of Leagues and Their Impact on the Governance of Women’s Hockey in England 1895-1939’ (PhD diss., University of Wolverhampton, 2019), 47.
26 Halpin,” Will You Walk Into Our Parlour?”, 4553.
27 Eustace White, ‘Mrs Gavin’s Golf Play’, Newcastle Chronicle, October 1922, 9.
28 ‘History of Hockey’, Fédération Internationale de Hockey, www.fih.ch/hockey-basics/history (accessed April 2023).
29 Sheila Mitchell, ‘Women’s Participation in the Olympic Games 1900-1926’, Journal of Sport History 4, no. 2 (1977): 20828.
30 AGM minutes, May 1925, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA.
31 Report of the Triennial Conference Geneva 1930, IFWHA, Section B/1/1, UoBA.
32 Ibid, 7. The other FIH delegates were Albert Croset (Switzerland) and Magdalene Galvao (Germany).
33 Ibid, 7, 212. The FIH and IFWHA eventually merged in 1982.
34 H G Armfield, ‘General Report of the IFWHA Since 1930’, IFWHA Report 1933, Section B/1/2, UoBA.
35 Halpin, ‘Will You Walk into Our Parlour?’.
36 Ibid, 6.
37 Responses to Questionnaire Sent to National Hockey Associations 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/4, UoBA; ‘Sports Grounds. “A World Problem”: Copenhagen Hockey Conference’, Sydney Morning Herald, December 1933, 4.
38 Mark Ellner, ‘A Critical Look at Women’s Role in Physical Education and Sport in the 1930s’, Educational Considerations 45 no. 2 (2020): 7.
39 Lyn E Couturier, ‘Dissenting Voices: The Discourse of Competition in The Sportswoman’, Journal of Sport History 39, no. 2 (2012): 274.
40 Ibid, 269.
41 Couturier, ‘Dissenting Voices’, 274.
42 Ibid, 275.
43 Marilyn Constanzo, ‘“One Can’t Shake Off the Women”: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch 1901-10’, International Journal of the History of Sport 19, no. 1 (2002): 367, 47.
44 Ibid.
45 Joanne Halpin, ‘The Game is the Thing’: Amateurism, the English and the 1953 IFWHA Tournament in Folkestone (Master’s diss., De Montfort University, 2013), 1718.
46 For an account of the AEWHA team’s 1914 tour to Australia and New Zealand, see Geoff Watson, ‘“See These Brilliant Exponents of the Game”: The England Women’s Hockey Team Tour of Australia and New Zealand, 1914’, International Journal of the History of Sport 33, no. 17 (2016): 210522.
47 Report of the Triennial Conference Geneva 1930, IFWHA, Section B/1/1, UoBA.
48 Ibid.
49 Report of the 3rd Triennial Conference Philadelphia 1936, IFWHA, Section B/1/5, UoBA.
50 Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/3, UoBA.
51 Janet Owen and Ware Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’, Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1933, 14; IFWHA, Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, UoBA B/1/3; US Mission Denmark, ‘Envoy Ruth Bryan Owen’, US Embassy and Consulate in the Kingdom of Denmark, dk.usembassy.gov/envoy-ruth-bryan-owen (accessed June 2023).
52 19061930: The National Football Team is Born, DR, January 2011, www.dr.dk/sporten/1906-1930-fodboldlandsholdet-fodes (accessed June 2023).
53 Two American Spectators, ‘The Social Side and Lighter Side’, 18; Janet Owen and Ware Torrey, ‘US Hockey Misses Please in Europe’, Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1933, 31.
54 Owen and Torrey, ‘US Hockey Misses Please in Europe’. Heup, heup was said to be the Danish expression for ‘go ahead’, ‘let’s go’, and ‘hoorah’.
55 ‘Irish Women’s Hockey: Raising Funds for Danish Visit’, Northern Whig, November 1932, 5; Dora Lurie, ‘US Girls Hockey Team Sets Sail’, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 1933, 17.
56 Owen and Torrey, ‘US Hockey Misses Please in Europe’. The Egyptians’ presence at the tournament prompted English player Joan Warwick to raise a team to tour Egypt in 1934, in keeping with the IFWHA purpose of furthering the best interests of the game among women of all nations. ‘Women’s Hockey Tour’, London Daily News, November 1934, 16.
57 Newmark401, ‘Magdalena Rollin Coquerque (1903-94) – An Early Dutch Sports Star’, August 2018, Tennis Forum website, www.tennisforum.com/threads/magdalena-rollin-coquerque-1903-1994-an-early-dutch-sports-star.420531 (accessed June 2023).
58 LKK, Canters, ‘Mence’ (Margaretha Clementina Canters), March 2013, Tennis Forum website, www.tennisforum.com/threads/biographies-of-female-tennis-players.497314/page-17 (accessed June 2023).
59 ‘Women’s Tournament at Copenhagen’, Guardian, September 1933, 3.
60 ‘Inter-county Athletics’, Cheltenham Chronicle, August 1927, 13.
61 Jane Claydon, ‘In Celebration of the United States Field Hockey Centenary 2022: The Part Played by Dartford Old Students in the Development of Women’s Hockey in the United States of America’, August 2022, bergmanosterbergunion.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/USFH-Centenary-29th-August-2022-web.pdf (accessed June 2023).
62 Bente Rosenbeck, ‘Signe Prytz’, April 2023, Danish Women’s Biographical Lexicon, kvindebiografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Signe_Prytz (accessed June 2023).
63 ‘American ladies’ hard lesson’, Guardian, November 1920, 4.
64 Lurie, ‘US Girls Hockey Team Sets Sail’; Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’.
65 Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/3, UoBA.
66 ‘International Hockey’, Gloucester Citizen, March 1933, 9.
67 Hockey Field, September 1933, 5.
68 Ibid.
69 Articles about the tournament were found on the British Newspaper Archive, Newspapers.com, Trove, and the German and Danish newspaper archive websites, although language and subscription difficulties prevented more than a cursory search of the latter two sites.
70 Raf Nicholson, ‘“Our Own Paper”: Evaluating the Impact of Women’s Cricket Magazine 1930-1967’, eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/30619/3/Women%2527s%20Cricket%20magazine%20article%20version%202.pdf (accessed December 2023).
71 Hilda Loveman, ‘Barnard Behind the By-lines’, Barnard College Alumnae Monthly, no. 6 (March 19415.
72 Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’.
73 Owen and Torrey, ‘US Hockey Misses Please in Europe’.
74 Ibid.
75 Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/3, UoBA.
76 Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’.
77 Ibid.
78 Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’.
79 AGM minutes, May 1925, AEWHA, Section A/2/4, UoBA.
80 Halpin, ‘Will You Walk into Our Parlour?’, 16779.
81 H G Armfield, ‘IFWHA Second Triennial Conference, Copenhagen, 5th-10th September 1933’, Hockey Field, October 1933, 9.
82 Ibid, 8.
83 Ibid; H D Krumbhaar, ‘Difference in Rules in Various Countries’, Report of the 2nd Triennial Conference Copenhagen 1933, IFWHA, Section B/1/3, UoBA.
84 Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’; Two American Spectators, ‘The Social Side and Lighter Side’, 201.
85 ‘Copenhagen 1933’, Hockey Field, September 1933, 6.
86 Two American Spectators, ‘The Social Side and Lighter Side’, 22.
87 Armfield, ‘IFWHA Second Triennial Conference’, 9; Owen and Torrey, ‘Foreign Hockeyists Honor Yankee Girls’.
88 C I H, ‘Who’s who in the sports world: 3 – Dr Nora Campbell’, Scotsman, December 1938, 14.
89 Williams, A Contemporary History of Women’s Sport, 26.
90 Tomkins and Ward, The Century Makers, 2014.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jo Halpin
Dr. Jo Halpin is a professional journalist, whose main area of research is women’s field hockey, particularly in the UK and Ireland up to the mid-twentieth century. She has published in Sport in History.