Born: 25 May 1855, United Kingdom
Died: 7 November 1905
Country most active: International
Also known as: Florence Douglas
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Lady Florence Dixie, an English explorer and writer, daughter of the Marquis of Queensberry, and married to Sir Alexander Dixie in 1875.
She explored Patagonia 1878 – 1879, was war correspondent for the London Morning Post in the Boer war 1880 – 1881, and was instrumental in securing the liberty of Cetawayo, King of Zululand. In later years she was a champion of women’s rights.
Her books include: Across Patagonia, A Defense of Zulu-land and its King, The Child Hunters of Patagonia, etc.
The following, written by Margot McCuaig, has been republished with permission from the Dangerous Women Project, created by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
Women have been playing football for at least as long as men, from as far back as the 1700s. Records exist of women playing football in Scotland in 1628 but it was in the late 19th century that the game began to grow in popularity. The first women’s football international in the world was played on the 10th of May 1881 in Edinburgh, when a Scottish side took on an English select. Albeit an unofficial international, Lily St Clair’s goal for a victorious Scotland is recorded as the first goal scored in the history of women’s football.
Whilst the women were revelling in developing ownership of a game that emancipated them from the restrictions of domestic responsibilities and passive ladylike exercise, the authorities were less favourable. In 1894, the British Medical Journal published a report in response to the increasing popularity of women’s football. It was damning. ‘Football should be damned out of hand as dangerous to the reproductive organs and breasts because of sudden jerks, twists and blows.’
Undeterred at attempts to discredit the women’s game, another Scot, the aristocratic poet, writer, women’s rights activist and adventurer, Lady Florence Dixie from Dumfries, was leading the way in the development of organised football in Britain. In October of 1894, she published her intention to create a ‘British Ladies Football’ team in a London newspaper.
The club founders engaged the services of an enthusiastic captain, Mary Hutson. Dubliner Mary played under the clever, attention-grabbing pseudonym of Nettie Honeyball. ‘Nettie’ understood the importance of influential role models such as Lady Florence Dixie (Lady Florence was a well-known ‘celebrity’, her brother was instrumental in bringing down Oscar Wilde) and together they strove to develop the women’s game and advocate equal rights for women.
Lady Florence Dixie was a curious and extraordinary Scot with a desire to make the world an equal place for women. The objective of her women’s football team was to use the sport as a means to create opportunities for women in a tense Victorian society constricted by entrenched gender bias and gross unfairness and inequality. With her captain, the aptly named Nettie Honeyball in tow, Lady Florence’s team, comprised of middle class ‘ladies’, began a campaign that continues, albeit on a different platform with a different agenda, to this day. A diverse agenda, but the similarities are there. It is still about empowerment. It is about dangerous women who dare to challenge.
Florence Dixie was resolute in her ambition to deliver equality for women. In an interview a year after the formation of her club she was clear about her objective. “I founded the association last year, with the fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the ‘ornamental and useless’ creatures men have pictured. I must confess, my conviction on all matters, where the sexes are so widely divided, are all on the side of emancipation, and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament and have a voice in the direction of affairs, especially those which concern them most.”
With such unequivocal leadership in the form of Dixie, the early pioneers of the game remained resolute in their desire to develop the game further and in 1896 a new team emerged led by the ambition of honorary Scot, Mrs Graham.
Mrs Graham played alongside Nettie Honeyball before forming the Mrs Graham’s XI. Like Florence Dixie, she would also become a key figure in women’s football. Helen Graham also played under a pseudonym. Born Helen Matthews, such was her determination to transgress, she travelled alone from Montrose in Scotland, in a period when travel was expensive and arduous, to play football in London. A dangerous act in itself.
In a broader sense, women in football were regarded with distrust. They were dangerous. These transgressors were a threat to the cultural, historical and masculine value systems carved into the male football establishment. The critical foundation of a concerted campaign to exclude women from football was solidified in 1902 with a warning from the Council of Football Association to their FAs not to play charitable matches against women’s teams. This momentum grew and support for women’s football in the form of facilities was effectively banned in 1921. This restriction would remain in place in an official capacity until the 1970s. As a result, the game stalled dramatically but the First World War provided a fresh impetus for women in both society and the workplace with the formation of women’s football teams in munitions factories throughout the country.
New pioneers went on to pave the way for equality with Dick Kerrs Ladies, Edinburgh Ladies and munition factory teams in Scotland such as Beardmores Forge drawing large crowds and a growing respect for a game that was beginning to develop an identity in its own right. This was a game of women’s football, not a game where women where trying to be men …
Nancy “Cannonball” Thompson, Rose Reilly and Edna Neillis continued to pioneer and transgress, following in the footsteps of Lady Florence Dixie, Nettie Honeyball and Helen Graham. Their passion for equality has altered history.
IW note: Dixie was also a political activist who claimed to have been the target of an assassination attempt. Although she was an avid hunter in her younger years, she later recognised the cruelty of such activities, publishing The Horrors of Sport in 1891, and became Vice-President of the London Vegetarian Association.