Last Updated December 1, 2008

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Females at Play

A Working Chronology

Note: This list was derived from version 10 of the full Protoball Chronology, which was uploaded in December 2008. (Search terms: wom*n, girl, ladies, maid, wench) Additional relevant entries may have been added to any later versions of the full Chronology; not all entries on this subchronology are necessarily identical to those on the most recently updated full Chronology. Readers are encouraged to suggest or perform updates. Please send notes about omissions, mistakes, typos, etc, to lmccray@mit.edu.

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1300s.3 -- Stoolball Said to Originate Among Sussex Milkmaids

“Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14^th century, originating in Sussex [in southern England].  It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. Traditionally it was played be milkmaids who used their milking stools as ‘wickets.’ . . . “ Later forms of the game involved running between two wickets, but “[o]riginally the batsman simply had to defend his stool form each ball with his hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit.  The game later evolved to include runs and bats.”

Source: Wikipedia entry on “Stoolball,” accessed 1/25/2007.  Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry 1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball.  It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding dates or the early non-running nature of the game.  The Wikipeidia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not see 1330 as the likely year of stoolball’s appearance.

1613.1 -- His and Her Stool-ball Banter: Play or Foreplay?

“Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth?

Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great luck at it.

Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well?

Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game

Ward:  What, have you, woman?  I must have you learn to play at trap too, then y’are full and whole.”

Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and Other Plays [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999], page 135.  The play itself is generally dated 1613 or 1614.  Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/2004

1614.1 -- Poet Yearns to “Goe to Stoole-Ball-Play”

Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168.  Stanza 79 reads “I would I were an honest Countrey Wench/ . . . / And for a Tanzey, goe to Stoole-Ball-Play.”  Tansy cakes were reportedly given as prizes for ball play.

1616.1 -- Translation of Homer Depicts Virgins Playing Stool-Ball, Disturbing Ulysses’ Snooze

Chapman, George, The whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168.  Chapman describes a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while Ulysses sleeps nearby:  “The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide off th’ other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpools.  At which, out shriekt all/And with the shrieke, did wise Ulysses wake.  It is not reported how other translators have treated this scene.

1619.1 -- Bawdy Poem Has Wenches Playing “With Stoole and Ball”

Anonymous, Pasquils Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the Sellar, You Are Presented witwh a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who credits RH, page 74.  “It was the day of all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty weekes the[sic] rew the sport.”  Block notes that “Barley-Break” [not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally spring courtship rituals in the English countryside.

1630c.3 – City Women’s Shrovetide Customs Include Stooleball

“In the early seventeenth century, an Oxford fellow, Thomas Crosfield, noted the customs of Shrovetide as ‘1. frittering. 2. throwing at cocks. 3. playing at stooleball in ye Citty by women & footeball by men.’” Shrovetide was the Monday and Tuesday [That Tuesday being Mardi Gras in some quarter] preceding Ash Wednesday and the onset of Lent.

Griffin, Emma, “Popular Recreation and the Significance of Space,” (publication unknown), page 36. The original source is shown as the Crosfield Diary for March 1, 1633, page 63.

Thanks to John Thorn for supplementing a draft of this entry. One citation for the diary is F. S. Boas, editor, The Diary of Thomas Crosfield (Oxford University Press, London, 1935).

1634.1 -- Play Attributed to Shakespeare Cites Stool-ball

Fletcher, John, and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170.  A young maid asks her wooer to travel with her.  “What shall we do there, wench?”  She replies, “Why, play at stool-ball; what else is there to do?”  Block mentions that doubts have been expressed as to authorship.

1677.1 -- Almanac’s Easter Verse Mentions Stool-ball

“Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk.”

W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677.  An almanack after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174.

1694.1 --Musical Play Includes Baudy Account of Stoolball

D’Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don Quixote [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175.  Block sees a “long, silly, bawdy rap song” in this play.  It starts “Come all, great, small, short tall, away to Stoolball,” and depicts young men and women becoming pretty familiar. It ends “Then went the Glasses round, then went the lasses down, each Lad did his Sweet-heart own, and on the Grass did fling her.  Come all, great small, short tall, a-way to Stool Ball.”  Sounds like fun.

1711.1 – Betty Was “a Romp at Stool-Ball”

“James before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough wrestler . . . ; Betty [was] a publick Dancer at May-poles, a Romp at Stool-Ball. He was always following idle Women, she playing among the Peasants; He a Country Bully, she a Country Coquet.”

Steele, Spectator number 71, May 22, 1711, page 2. Provided by John Thorn, emails of 6/11/2007 and 2/1/2008. The implication of the passage appears to be that women who played a game like stool-ball were unlikely to be chaste.

1715.1 – Men Top Women in “Merry-Night” of Stoole Balle

“The Young Folks of this Town had a Merry-Night . . . . The Young Weomen treated the Men with a Tandsey as they lost to them at a Game at Stoole Balle.”

T. Ellison Gibson, ed., Blundell’s Diary, Comprising Selections from the Diary of Nicholas Blundell, Esq. (Gilbert G. Walmsley, 1895), diary entry for May 14, 1715, page 134. Note: “Tandsey” presumably refers to tansey-cakes, traditionally linked to springtime games.

1720.2 -- Holiday in Kent: Cricket, Stool-Ball, Tippling, Kissing

In 1907, a kindred spirit of ours reported [in a listserve-equivalent of the day] on his attempts to find early news coverage of cricket. He reports on a 1720 article he sees as “the first newspaper reference I have yet found to cricket as a popular game:”

“The Holiday coming on, the Alewives of Islington, Kentish Town, and several adjacent villages . . . . The Fields will swarm with Butchers’; Wives and Oyster-Women . . . diverting themselves with their Offspring, whilst their Spouses and Sweethearts are sweating at Ninepins, some at Cricket, others at Stool-Ball, besides an amorous Couple in every Corner . . . Much Noise and Cutting in the Morning; Much Tippling all Day; and much Reeling and Kissing at Night.”

Alfred F. Robbins, “Replies: The Earliest Cricket Report,” Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, September 7, 1907, page 191. Provided by John Thorn, 2/8/2008, via email. He reports his source as Read’s Weekly Journal, or British-Gazeteer, June 4, 1720, and advises that he has omitted phrases not “welcome to the modern taste. Accessed via Google Books 10/18/2008.

1733.1 -- Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat

The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [London], page 637, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 177.  Block calls this account “the most complete and detailed portrayal of the game to date.”  It provides the earliest reference to the use of a bat, describes a game that does not involve running after the young ladies hit the ball, and includes a description of the field and the assembled audience.

1740s.1 – Intervillage Cricket Played by Women in Surrey and Sussex

Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 88.

1747.2 – Well-Advertised Women’s Cricket Match Held, with 6-Pence Admission

In July 1747 two ladies’ sides from Sussex communities played cricket at London’s Artillery-Grounds, and the announced admittance fee was sixpence. At a first match, according to a 7/15/1747 news account, play was interrupted when “the Company broke in so, that it was impossible for the [match] to be play’d; and some of them [the players? – LM] being very much frighted, and others hurt . . . .” That match was to be completed on a subsequent morning . . . . “And in the Afternoon they wil play a second Match at the same Place, several large Sums being depended between the Women of the Hills of Sussex, in Orange colour’d Ribbons, and the Dales in blue!”

This item was contributed by David Block on 2/27/2008. David notes that the source is a large scrapbook with thousands of clippings from 1660 to 1840 as collected by a Daniel Lysons: “Collectanea: or A collection of advertisements and paragraphs from the newspapers, relating to various subjects. Publick exhibitions and places of amusement,” Vol IV, Pt 2, page 227, British Library shelfmark C.103.k.11. David adds, “Unfortunately, Lysons, or whoever assembled this particular volume, neglected to indicate which paper the clippings were cut from.”

1748.1 – Lady Hervey Reports Royals’ “Base-ball” in a Letter

Lady Hervey (then Mary Leppel) describes in a letter the activities of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales:

“[T]he Prince’s family is an example of innocent and cheerful amusements All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with. The ladies, as well as gentlemen, join in this amusement . . . . This innocence and excellence must needs give great joy, and well as great hope, to all real lovers of their country and posterity.”

[The last sentence may well be written in irony, as Lady Hervey was evidently known to be unimpressed with the Prince’s conduct.]

Hervey, Lady (Mary Lepel), Letters (London, 1821), p.139 [Letter XLII, of November 14, 1748, from London]. Google Books now has uploaded the letters: search for “Lady Hervey.” Letter 52 begins on page 137, and the baseball reference is on page 139. Accessed 12/29/2007. Note: David Block, page 189, spells the name “Lepel,” citing documented family usage; the surname often appears as “Leppell.” In a 19CBB posting of 2/15/2008, David writes that it is “George III, to whom we can rightly ascribe the honor of being the first known baseball player. The ten-year-old George, as [Prince] Frederick’s eldest son, was surely among the prince’s family members observed by Lady Hervey in 1748 to be ‘divert[ing] themselves at base-ball.’”

1798.1 – Jane Austen Mentions Girls’ “Baseball” in Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen mentions “baseball” in her novel Northanger Abbey, written in about 1798 but published in 1818, after her death.  “Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books . . . . But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; so read all such works as heroines must read. . . “

Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey [London, 1851], p.3.  This novel was written in 1798 and first published in 1818.

1811.6 -- Women Cricketers Play for Large Purse

Two noblemen arrange for eleven women of Surrey to play eleven women of Hampshire for a stake of 500 guineas a side.

Ford, John, Cricket: and Social History 1700-1835 {David and Charles, 1972], pp. 20-21.  Ford does not give a reference for this event.

1819.1 -- Science Text Uses Base-ball Heuristic Example

“Emily: In playing at base-ball, I am obliged to use al my strength to give a rapid motion to the ball; and when I have to catch it, I am sure I feel the resistance it makes to being stopped; but if I did not catch it, it would soon stop of itself.

“Mrs B.: Inert matter is as incapable of stopping itself as it is of putting itself in motion.  When the ball ceases to more, therefore, it must be stopped by some other cause or power; but as it is one with which your are as yet unacquainted, we cannot at present investigate its powers.”

Jane H. Marcet, Conversations on Natural Philosophy [Publisher?, 1819], page?  Note: Men Mendelson,  a retired professor at Marquette University, originally located this text, but attributed it to a different book by Mrs. Marcet.  David Block found the actual 1819 location.  He adds that while it does not precede the Jane Austen use of “base-ball” in Northanger Abbey, “I still consider the quote to be an important indicator that baseball was a popular pastime among English girls during the later 18^th and early 19^th centuries.”  David Block posting to 19CBB, 12/12/2006.

1824.3 -- English Novel Cites Base-ball as Girls’ Pastime

Mitford, Mary Russell, Our Village [London, R. Gilbert], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 191.  “Better than playing with her doll, better even than base-ball, or sliding or romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father’s knee.”  Block notes that this novel was published in New York in 1828.

1827.6 – For Good Health: Cricket for the Blokes, Bass-ball for the Lasses

“With the same intention [that is children’s health], the games of cricket, prison bars, foot ball, &c. will be useful, as children grow up, and are strong enough to endure such exercise.

“With regard to girls, these amusements may be advantageously supplanted by bass-bal, battledore and shuttlecock, and similar and playful pursuits.”

William Newnham, The Principles of Physical, Intellectual, Moral, and Religious Education, Volume 1 (London, 1827), page 123. Uncovered and provided by Mark Aubrey, email of 1/30/2008.

1830s.13 -- “Baseball” Found in Several Works by Mary Russell Mitford

“Everyone knows of Jane Austen’s use of the term baseball in her novel Northanger Abbey [see item #1798.1].  I recently came across, online, an 1841 anthology of works by the English essayist Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1865).  A search revealed five uses of the work “baseball.”  What is intriguing is that every reference seems to assume that “baseball” -- whatever it is -- is a familiar rough and tumble game played by girls (and apparently girls only) between the ages of 6 and 10 or so..

“Mary Mitford seems to have a pretty good idea of what the girls are playing, when they play at “baseball” -- but it seems to have little or nothing to do with the sport we now call by that name.  Does anyone know what it was?

The “baseball” usages:

[] “The Tenants of Beechgrove:” --  “But better than playing with her doll, better even than baseball, or sliding and romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father’s knee:

[] “Jack Hatch” -- see item #1828.9 above for two references.

[] “Our Village [introduction]”: “ . . . Master Andrew’s four fair-haired girls who are scrambling and squabbling at baseball on the other.”

[] Belford Regis:  “What can be prettier than this, unless it be the fellow-group of girls . . . who are laughing and screaming round the great oak; then darting to and fro, in a game compounded of hide-and-seek and baseball.  Now tossing the ball high, high amidst the branches; now flinging it low along the common, bowling as it were, almost within reach of the cricketers; now pursuing, now retreating, jumping shouting, bawling -- almost shrieking with ecstasy; whilst one sunburnt black-eyed gipsy throws forth her laughing face from behind the trunk of an old oak, and then flings a newer and gayer ball -- fortunate purchase of some hoarded sixpence -- among her happy playmates.

Submitted by Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown12/6/2006:

1837.4 -- Trap-ball Found in Book of “Many Exercises and Exercises for Ladies”

Walker, Donald, Games and Sports; Being an Appendix to Manly Exercises and Exercises for Ladies [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 201.  Most of this text covers gymnastic routines, but trap-ball is also included. Note: Is this an early use of the term “manly” in sports?

1840.9 -- Englishman Sees Base-ball as Commonly Played by Adult Men and Women

Blaine, Delabare P., An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports [London, Longman, Orme, Brown, and Longmans], page 131, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 204.  The book’s slight treatment of ball games states: “There are few of us of either sex but have engaged in base-ball since our majority.”

1855.17 – In Novel, a Girl is Chided for Preferring Playing Bass-Ball To Chores

A very strict school mistress scolds the title character: “You can’t say three times three without missing; you’d rather play at bass-ball, or hunt the hedges for wild flowers, than mend your stockings.” A.M.H. [only initials are given], “The Gipsy Girl,” in The Cabinet Annual: A Christmas and New Year’s Gift for 1855 (E. H. Butler, Philadelphia, 1855) page 93. Provided by David Block, email of 2/27/2008. This 13-page tale is set in England, and the girl is described as being eight or nine years old.

1853.7 – Didactic Novel Pairs “Bass-Ball” and Rounders at Youths’ Outing

“The rest of the party strolled about the field, or joined merrily in a game of bass-ball or rounders, or sat in the bower, listening to the song of birds.” A Year of Country Life: or, the Chronicle of the Young Naturalists (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1853), page 115. Provided by Richard Hershberger, 1/30/2008.

As a way of teaching nature [each chapter introduces several birds, insects, and “wild plants”] this book follows a group of boys and girls of unspecified age [seriously pre-pubescent, we think] through a calendar year. The bass-ball/rounders reference above is one of the few times we run across both terms in a contemporary writing. So, now: are there two distinct games or just two distinct names for the same game? Well, Murphy’s Law, meet origins research: the syntax here leaves that muddy, as it could be the former answer if the children played bass-ball and rounders separately that [June] day.

Richard’s take: “It is possible that there were two games the party played . . . but the likelier interpretation is that this was one game, with both names given to ensure clarity.” David Block [email of 2/27/2008] agrees with Richard. Richard also says “It is possible that as the English dialect moved from “base ball” to “rounders,” English society concurrently moved from the game being played primarily played by boys and only sometimes being played by girls. I am not qualified to say. [Note: Protoball will review its evidence on that in version 11 of the Chronology.]

Trap-ball receives one uninformative mention in the book [Ibid, page 211], and, perhaps being seen as a more central tenet of Christian knowledge, cricket receives three references [Ibid, pages 75, 110, and 211]. The first of these, unlike the bass-ball account, separates English boys from English girls after a May tea party: ”Some of the gentlemen offered prizes of bats and balls, and skipping-ropes, for feats of activity or skill in running, leaping, playing cricket, &c. with the boys; and skipping, and battledore and shuttlecock with the girls.” [Note: If you insist on using the number of references as a yardstick of approved knowledge, you will want to know that “tea” receives 12 mentions.]

1861.2 –Stoolball Played, in Co-ed Form

“Stoolball was played at Chailey [Sussex] in 1861. Major Lionel King . . . first saw stoolball in the early ‘sixties, while still a very small boy. He watched a game in a field belonging to Eastfield Lodge, Hassocks [Sussex], and both men and maidens were playing” Russell-Goggs, in “Stoolball in Sussex,” The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 322. Note: Russell-Goggs does not give a source for this report.

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