One of our wonderful volunteers Mark Evans has recently had an article published as a chapter in Playing Pasts, the online magazine for sport and leisure history. “Women’s League Hockey and its Early Development” forms one of several chapters on the history of different sports, so anyone interested in sports history might find the book interesting – and it’s free to read.

Needless to say, we’re delighted for Mark. It is deserved recognition of his dedication to his research and his enthusiasm for volunteering with us.

Click here to access the magazine.

Mark says:

“My research interest in women’s leagues arose from an initial enquiry from The Hockey Museum in relation to the ‘English Cup’. Two photographs were sent to the museum asking for information about the Cup and I began to look into its history and the teams that played in the competition.

The competition was run by the English Ladies Hockey Leagues Association (ELHLA) which looked after the interests of the women’s hockey leagues in the North of England and particularly in the South Lancashire area. I began to look into the history of women’s league hockey which was thought to be a small part of the hockey scene because competitive hockey was frowned upon and had been largely banned, especially in the South. However, we now know that league hockey was more important than was initially thought and to date I have found evidence for around 30 leagues in England. Many of the teams in the leagues were church based, works based or school based with past pupils wanting to continue playing hockey.

I am continuing my research into the history of league hockey and am currently looking into the history of the Northern Counties Women’s Hockey Tournament. It was created for counties but involved some leagues which had been given county status.”

Bolton Sunday School Social League Champions: Fletcher Street Wesleyans, 1915-16.

There are several other research projects currently in or around THM sphere that I’d like to highlight:

• Hockey’s Military Stories is a broad research project investigating hockey players who have died in conflict. We’ve recently welcomed Kathryn Draper aboard to help us with this.
• Our research into British hockey festivals continues apace and we’ve welcomed Ian Smith, Paul Mitchell and Steve LeMottee following recent appeals for assistance.
• James Ormandy continues his remote research working on articles such as “Men’s Hockey in Cheshire before 1914” and “Hockey: The Clergymen’s Game”.
• Our PhD student David Lewis-Earley continues to attack his doctoral research with great enthusiasm. “An Oral History Of England And Team GB Women’s International Hockey Representatives, 1951-2016” is taking excellent shape.
• Nikhilesh Bhattacharya has completed his PhD thesis titled “When We Were Champions: Nation-Building, Hockey and the Anglo-Indian Community of Calcutta”. It now resides in the THM library.
• Judy Smith has been busy editing transcriptions of THM’s oral history interviews (an on-going programme of lived history research) so that they can soon be shared online.
• We recently published two significant obituaries following excellent research into the lives of the late Audrey Appleby and Balbir Singh Senior by Katie Dodd and Nikhilesh Bhattacharya respectively. Former THM Trustee Dil Bahra also penned a personal commemoration of Balbir.

Mike Smith, THM Curator
01.07.2020