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GPS Location |
Latitude = -23.7032
Longitude = 133.8771
Lat: 23 degrees, 42.2 minutes South
Long: 133 degrees, 52.6 minutes East
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Home  Exhibitions
Australia's women pioneers of the sporting field
Organised sporting events and clubs for women began developing in Australia around the mid-nineteenth century.
For example, the first women's croquet club was formed in Kapunda, South Australia in 1868 while by 1892 a women's golf club was established in Melbourne and another in Geelong a year later. It was here in 1894 that the first Australian women's golf championship was held and won by Evelyn MacKenzie.
Following the introduction of the Safety bicycle to Australia in 1887, cycling became a popular sport albeit somewhat daring for women who wore the new "rational" dress or bloomers, and women's bicycle clubs were established nationwide. Dot Morrell won the world's first women's bicycle race in Auburn, NSW in 1888 while Sarah Maddock was the first Australian woman to achieve a long distance cycle ride from Sydney to Bega in 1893 and was the first woman to cycle from Sydney to Melbourne the following year.
The first recorded women's cricket matches in Australia date back to the goldrush days - in 1855 in NSW and in Bendigo, Victoria in 1874. On 8 March 1886 a match at what later became the SCG between the Siroccos and the Fernleas, captained by sisters Nellie and Lily Gregory included amongst the players Rosalie Deane, the first Australian woman to be recorded in Wisden. The first women's Test match was played in Brisbane in December 1934 and Una Paisley was the first Australian woman to score a Test century in the 1948-9 series. Born at Nepabunna Mission, South Australia in 1933, qualified nurse Faith Thomas was the first and only Aboriginal woman to play cricket for Australia in a match against England in 1958.
Lawn tennis had been popular since the late 1870's but women were prevented from competing internationally until 1919 when Lily Addison became the first Australian woman to play at Wimbledon. Daphne Ackhurst was amongst one of the first teams to tour overseas in 1928 and the same year the first Australian woman to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals. In 1939 Malla Molesworth became Australia's first female professional tennis coach while in 1963 Margaret Court (née Smith) was the first Australian woman to win the Wimbledon tennis single title.
Women have had extraordinary success at both the Olympic and the Empire (later Commonwealth) Games. The first events for women (swimming) were introduced at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics while women's athletics were added at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. Clare Dennis was the first Australian woman to compete in the Empire games in 1934, winning gold in the 200 yards breaststroke in London.
Some first Australian women in the sporting world...
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