Women's Centenary - Celebrating 100 years of Women's Rowing in Australia

Upstream, Against the Current The Story of Women’s Rowing in Australia

YWCA women’s coxed four, Sydney.

Photo credit: Australian National Maritime Museum.

100 years of Women’s Rowing in Australia Two momentous events set the formal beginning to women’s rowing in Australia.

They occurred during the same week in May 1920 in Brisbane, Queensland.

The Women’s Four-Oared Championship of Australia was first contested at the Brisbane Regatta in conjunction with the men’s King’s Cup, and was the first occasion when a Championship Ladies’ Fours event was incorporated into an interstate program.

A valuable silver trophy was donated by the United Licensed Victuallers’ Association of Queensland for annual competition for the ladies’ fours championship.

Although formally it was the ULVA Trophy it was usually, and affectionately, called ‘Bertha’. Atop the trophy stands a young oarswoman holding an oar and wearing the rowing fashion of the era: a wide-brimmed hat, sailor top, billowing bloomers and lace-up shoes and stockings.

The Australian Ladies’ Rowing Council was formed on 13 May 1920 two days before the regatta. It had been founded at the instigation of the Brisbane Ladies’ Rowing Club, which had suggested to clubs and associations in other states the necessity of such a Council being formed ‘…for the furthering of interstate contests and the conducting of them under one set of rules and regulations’. Representatives from South Australia, NSW and Queensland were present at the meeting chaired by Miss E. Marks of Queensland.

Later called the Australian Women’s Rowing Council, it was amalgamated with the Australian Rowing Council in 1984, some 64 years later.

The first suggestion that an Australian women’s crew participate in the Olympic Games was made in 1920.

But women’s rowing did not become an Olympic event until 1976.

UVLA Trophy, often known as ‘Bertha’.

1920 was the year in which it was first suggested than an Australian women’s crew should compete in the Olympic Games.

As it was there were no women’s events at the Olympics until 1976.

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Cassie Woolley McRitchie on Albert Park Lake 1901.

Unknown photographer, Australian National Maritime Museum

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Women had been rowing for work, sport and pleasure for at least forty years before 1920 and there were ladies’ rowing clubs in every state. They were quite separate from the men’s clubs, though the men and women socialised together. Most men’s clubs did not allow women members and state rowing associations would not affiliate any club that did.

It is not surprising that 1920 was the year that these rumbling insurgencies against the “natural order of things” began. The consequences of the First World War changed life in every way. Perhaps the most apparent example of this was the transformation of women’s clothing, one part of a slow process of selfempowerment that would resonate in all aspects of life.

Each decade of the twentieth century brought greater freedom and more exasperation with the limitations put on women, including rowers, in every way Women could row so long as they did not present themselves as equals. It was not until the 1960s that women were able to demand to properly participate in the sport. But even in 2020, 100 years since the formation of the Australian Ladies’ Rowing Council there are still problems of visibility and recognition especially at elite level. The 2020 Olympics (to be held in 2021 at the time of writing) will be the first time that there will be parity in rowing events for men and women.

The establishment of the Women’s National Training Centre and the number of schoolgirls and masters women involved in rowing is evidence of progress, yet there are still barriers, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. Perhaps the bicentenary celebrations in 2120 will tell a different story of this century.

Dorothy Arnold who stroked the 1920 winning South Australia crew with the ULVA Trophy.

Acknowledgements - Dr Judith Buckrich - Margot Foster - The Australian War Memorial - Andrew Guerin - A ll the women who told us stories of their rich rowing history

Images are provided from the Andrew Guerin & Rowing Australia collections unless otherwise stated.

Dame Edith Campbell Walker -Vice President of the Sydney Rowing Club in 1895.

Flickr local studies collection

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Members of the Sydney Ladies Rowing Club, 1935.

The South Australian/ Mannum Rowing Club Crew - winners of the first ULVA Trophy in 1920.

12 members of the Sydney Ladies Rowing Club, 1935.

Courtesy Abbotsford Rowing Club

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1938 Cartoon of the visiting British Ladies Crew.

Kath Bennett (nee Suhr) on the Yarra River in 1968 with the Herald and Weekly Times Trophy for the Lightweight Women’s Single Sculls.

1969 Victorian Women’s Coxed Four: L - R: Kath Suhr (later Bennett), Pam Murray, Nanette Geer, Pauline Gilbertson and Margaret Agnew.

1980 - Lightweight rowers win gold.

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The 1980 Moscow Olympic Games Women’s Coxed Four crew and reserve.

Anne Chirnside, Verna Westwood, Pam Westendorf, Sally Harding, Susie Palfreyman and Pauline Kahl, with Olympic swimming legend, Dawn Fraser, whom they named their boat after.

Australia’s Lightweight Women’s Four.

Amanda Cross, Pam Westendorf, Sally Ninham and Rebecca Joyce celebrate winning silver at the 1990 World Rowing Championships.

1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games Australia’s Women’s Coxed Four Bronze Medallists.

Robyn Grey-Gardner, Karen Brancourt-Pollock, Sue Chapman-Popa, Margot Foster and Susan Lee.

The 1989 Junior World Champions with then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.

1992 - Australia’s Lightweight Women’s Four celebrate winning gold. L-R: Deidre Fraser, Marina Cade, Virginia Lee and Liz Moller.

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Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games - Australia’s Women’s Four Front row: Emy Snook, Megan Marcks (nee Still), Jodie Dobson and Kate Allen (nee Slatter) Back row: Andrea Coss (reserve) and coach Paul Thompson.

1992 Barcelona Olympic Games Australia’s Women’s Four - Bow to Stroke: Jodie Dobson, Emmy Snook, Megan Marcks (nee Still) and Kate Allen (nee Slatter).

1993 Women’s Pair World Championship Silver Medallists Victoria Toogood and Alison Davies.

1996 Atlanta Olympic Games Coxless Pair Gold Medallists Kate Allen (nee Slatter) and Megan Marcks (nee Still).

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2001 World Rowing Champions - Australia’s Women’s Eight Back row: Joanne Lutz, Julia Wilson, Jane Robinson, Victoria Roberts and Kristina Larsen; Front row: Jodi Winter, Emily Martin, Rebecca Sattin and Carly Bilson.

1920 -2020

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2002 World Rowing Champions, Australia’s Lightweight Women’s Quadruple Scull. Bow: Zita Van der Walle, 2: Marguerite King (nee Houston), 3: Miranda Bennett, str: Hannah Every-Hall

Kim Brennan, nee Crow, wins gold in the Women’s Single Scull at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

2005 World Rowing Champions - Australia’s Women’s Eight. Sarah Tait, Robyn Selby-Smith, Sonia

Mills, Kate Hornsey, Emily Martin, Fleur Chew, Pauline Frasca, Sarah Heard and coxswain Elizabeth Patrick

2006 World Rowing Champions in the Women’s Double Scull Liz Kell and Brooke Pratley.

2008 Beijing Olympic Games - Australia’s Lightweight Women’s Double Scull. Amber

Halliday and Marguerite King (nee Houston).

2008 Beijing Paralympic Games silver medallists in the PR2 Mixed Double Scull John Maclean and Kathryn Ross

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