Women’s rugby union is now one of the fastest growing sports in the UK. Successful World Cup competitions and domestic leagues have transformed the profile of this area of the game with superstars emerging such as England’s Ellie Kildunne.
But over a century ago it was the original hotbed of rugby union, Newport, that produced the UK’s first women’s team. The photograph above (from World Rugby Museum) is a picture of Newport Ladies in December 1917. During the First World War when other forms of rugby were not permitted it was women’s rugby union that briefly flourished in order to raise funds to support the war effort.
Sylvia Mason and Cathrin Stevens’ research indicates that two munitions teams were formed at the National Cartridge and Box Repairing Factory in Newport to play against one another during this period. Huge quantities of used and damaged shell cases and ammunition boxes were brought in to the factory on the South Dock by ship to be restored. It was a massive undertaking, employing between 2,000 and 3,000 workers, most of them women, and covering 13 acres.
The Newport teams played nine exhibition matches including in Cwmbrân and Abertillery and their success inspired the formation of a Cardiff side. In a match on January 14 1918 in Newport they are wearing the black and amber colours of the town.
On 29 September 1917 the two Newport munitions teams played the first recorded women’s rugby match at Cardiff Arms Park. The match ended three all, attended by thousands and refereed by a prominent Welsh official, R Pollack of Newport who commended the teams as being better than some of the men’s teams he had officiated.
Another match, on 17 November 1917 appears to have taken place between the two Newport munitions teams at the Pill Athletic Grounds but reports are not available. The photograph relates to a fixture in December 1917 at the Cardiff Arms Park between a Newport side and a Cardiff side. Newport won six – nil.
Historian Gwyn Prescott notes “The encounter between Cardiff and Newport that day was therefore a significant event and it has long enjoyed a strong claim to being the first genuine game of women’s rugby played in the public arena.…The Cardiff players were mostly employees of Hancock’s brewery, while Newport’s team was drawn from the staff of Lysaghts iron works.” The latter reference may well be incorrect .
On 15th March 1918 Barry Dock News reported that two munitions teams from Newport played at Jenner Park in front of 4,000 as part of fundraising of over £100,000.
There is also reference in another newspaper article to a cup match replay between ladies teams from Swansea and Newport at Llanelli (Halfway Park) on 4 May 1918.
Despite the surge in activity and the interest created it seems the armistice and the return of men’s rugby ended the first chapter of development and it was another six decades and more before it was revived by a new era of pioneers such as Newport’s own Lisa Burgess.
