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ABSTRACT
This article seeks to redress the lack of research on women’s roles as riding instructors and sport coaches in Britain. During the long nineteenth century, women were enmeshed in professional equestrian activities, and their activities had momentous consequences on the practice of equestrianism as a whole. Women were needed to teach riding to other women because women rode differently from men – on a different saddle and in different clothes. These differences created a space, and a need, for a new kind of female businesswoman, coach, and sporting authority, and enabled a new kind of sporting liberation.
KEYWORDS:
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 ‘Ladies on Horseback’, Manchester Courier, December 31, 1892, 10 (reprinted from Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News).
2 Giles Worsley, The British Stable (New Haven, CT: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2004), 2.
3 Erica Munkwitz, ‘“The Master is the Mistress”: Women and Fox Hunting as Sports Coaching in Britain’, Sport in History 37, no. 4 (2017): 395–422.
4 ‘Introduction’, Federico Grisone, The Rules of Riding, Elizabeth MacKenzie Tobey and Federica Brunori Deigan, eds. (Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, 2014); E.M. Kellock, The Story of Riding (London: David and Charles, 1974).
5 Worsley, The British Stable, 52 and 283.
6 Ibid., 52. As Worsley argues, these buildings are not French imports: ‘there is no evidence of riding houses in France before they were built in England’ (67).
7 Richard Berenger, The History and Art of Horsemanship, Volume II (London: T. Davies and T. Cadell, 1771), 165.
8 Worsley, The British Stable, 54.
9 Ibid., 10.
10 Ulrich Raulff, Farewell to the Horse: The Final Century of our Relationship (London: Allen Lane, 2017).
11 ‘T.S.’, Lectures on Horsemanship (London: Unknown Publisher, 1793), 8.
12 John Lawrence, A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses, Volume 1 (London: T.N. Longman, 1796), 333 and 383.
13 George Greenwood, Hints on Horsemanship to a Nephew and Niece, or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding (London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1861), 2.
14 Charles Hughes, The Compleat Horseman; or, The Art of Riding Made Easy (London: F. Newbery, 1772), 8.
15 Worsley, The British Stable, 71.
16 Thomas Almeroth-Williams, ‘Horses & Livestock in Hanoverian London’ (PhD thesis, University of York, 2013), 278.
17 Worsley, The British Stable, 178; Charles Dickens Jr, Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879 (London: Charles Dickens, 1879), 225.
18 ‘Vieille Moustache’ [Robert Henderson], The Barb and the Bridle: A Handbook of Equitation for Ladies (London: ‘The Queen’ Office, 1874), 2.
19 Anonymous [Mrs. J. Stirling Clarke], The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide; The Habit and the Horse: A Treatise on Female Equestrian (London: Day and Son, 1857), 10. As Clarke writes, ‘there is a degree of decision in the hand of a lady accustomed to country life, and who consequently commenced her equestrian exercises in childhood, that becomes a sort of free-masonry between herself and her horse’ (11).
20 On new class audiences for manuals, see David C. Itzkowitz, Peculiar Privilege: A Social History of Foxhunting, 1753–1885 (Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1977), 59–60; Adrian Harvey, The Beginnings of a Commercial Sporting Culture in Britain 1793 1850 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 40–41; Amanda Gilroy, ‘The Habit and the Horse, or, the Suburbanization of Female Equitation’, in Green and Pleasant Land: English Culture and the Romantic Countryside, ed. Amanda Gilroy (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 45–55; and Erica Munkwitz, Women, Horse Sports and Liberation: Equestrianism and Britain from the 18th to the 20th Centuries (London: Routledge, 2021).
21 George Reeves, The Lady’s Practical Guide to the Science of Horsemanship (Bath: Myler and Son, 1838), 57–8.
22 Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, iv.
23 John Adams, An Analysis of Horsemanship (London: James Cundee, 1805), 103.
24 ‘Vieille Moustache’, The Barb and the Bridle, 15–16. Mrs. Clarke emphasised, ‘instructors should be individuals qualified by nature and education, to render it an elegant, no less than healthful, recreation’ (Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, 6).
25 Captain M*****, The Handbook of Horsemanship: Containing Plain Practical Rules for Riding, Driving, and the Management of Horses (London: Thomas Tegg, 1842), 2.
26 Samuel C. Wayte, The Equestrian's Manual; or the Science of Equitation (London: W. Shoberl, 1850), 3; Reeves, The Lady's Practical Guide to the Science of Horsemanship, 8.
27 ‘Vieille Moustache’, The Barb and the Bridle, 48.
28 Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, 5.
29 Almeroth-Williams, ‘Horses & Livestock in Hanoverian London’, 279.
30 Ibid.
31 Adams, An Analysis of Horsemanship, volume 2, 85.
32 Ibid., 99.
33 The Economic History of Britain since 1700, Volume 1: 1700–1860, Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 17–18; Mike Huggins, ‘Forms of Competition in Proto-Modern Eighteenth-Century English Sport: A Tentative Typology’, Sport in History 41 (2021): 469–95.
34 Dennis Brailsford, A Taste for Diversions: Sport in Georgian England (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1999), 148.
35 Almeroth-Williams, ‘Horses & Livestock in Hanoverian London’, 291; The Oracle, January 29, 1795, 1.
36 Hughes, The Compleat Horseman, title page.
37 Ibid., one image previous to title page, and the other between pages 12–13.
38 ‘Hughes, Charles 1747–1797, proprietor, manager, equestrian’, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Vol 8; ‘Hughes’s Riding-House’, Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, April 8, 1772, 1; Hannah Velten, Beastly London: A History of Animals in the City (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), 134.
39 In his book from 1783, Mr. Carter noted ‘the business I have had for these twelve years’ (Mr. Carter, Instructions for Ladies in Riding, by Mr. Carter (London, 1783), iv).
40 Ibid., vii.
41 Ibid., v.
42 Almeroth-Williams, ‘Horses & Livestock in Hanoverian London’, 291; The Oracle, January 29, 1795, 1.
43 Advertisement: ‘Ladies Horses’, The World, June 10, 1788, 12.
44 Advertisement: ‘C. Carter’, Morning Post, November 9, 1779, 1. According to Carter, ‘no gentlemen are admitted while the ladies are riding but their friends. A commodious room with a fire, to receive them’ (Carter, Instructions for Ladies in Riding, viii).
45 Advertisement, Morning Post, all through 1871.
46 Dickens, Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879, 237.
47 M. Horace Hayes, Among Men and Horses (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894), 325.
48 John Allen, Principles of Modern Riding, for Ladies (London: Thomas Tegg, 1825) 14, 25, 91.
49 Advertisement, Morning Post, all through 1871. Although, according to Renton Nicholson, ‘If the lady happened to be remarkably handsome, Allen accompanied her personally’. See Rogue’s Progress: The Autobiography of ‘Lord Chief Baron’ Nicholson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 82 (originally published in 1861).
50 Almeroth-Williams, ‘Horses & Livestock in Hanoverian London’, 291.
51 Frances Ann Kemble, Records of a Girlhood (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1879), 232.
52 Kemble, Records of a Girlhood, 232–3.
53 Kemble, Records of a Girlhood, 233.
54 Hermione Hobhouse, Prince Albert: His Life and Work (London: Hamish Hamilton, Ltd., 1983), 35.
55 Satirist; or, the Censor of the Times, April 1, 1838, 101.
56 The Dublin Almanack (Dublin: Pettigrew and Oulton, 1842), 375.
57 Nathaniel Parker Willis, Loiterings of Travel, Volume 3 (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1840), 211.
58 ‘Personal News’, The Examiner, July 14, 1839, 441.
59 ‘Personal News’, The Corsair, August 13, 1839, 331.
60 ‘Vieille Moustache’, The Barb and the Bridle, 20.
61 Munkwitz, Women, Horse Sports, and Liberation, 103.
62 Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, 6.
63 Ibid., 22–8.
64 ‘Impecuniosus’, the author of Unasked Advice: A Series of Articles on Horses and Hunting (London: Horace Cox, 1872), found it difficult to mention petticoats in an acceptable way (21), although ‘Vieille Moustache’, did not (14).
65 Wayte, The Equestrian's Manual, 80.
66 Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, 5–6.
67 ‘The London Riding School’, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, March 29, 1902, 10. Riding mistress Eva Christy affirmed the same in 1904: ‘Miss Christy maintains, and rightly, that to teach side-saddle riding one must be a practised rider in the side-saddle, for how can anyone impart to another person that which they cannot do themselves? One who has only ridden on a man's saddle can have no experience of the difficulties of the side-saddle, and the art of managing the riding habit must, perforce, be equally beyond his knowledge.’ See ‘A Riding Mistress: Miss Eva Christy on Her Profession’, Daily Mirror, November 26, 1904, 12.
68 Mrs. [Nannie Lambert] Power O’Donoghue, Ladies on Horseback (London: W. H. Allen, 1881), 11–12.
69 Samuel Sidney, The Book of the Horse (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, Limited, 1875), 336.
70 Alice M. Hayes, The Horsewoman: A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding (London: Hurst and Blackett, Limited, 1893), 60. The Queen article appears on 17 June 1893.
71 London Evening Standard, August 20, 1852, 4.
72 ‘Our London Letter’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, May 16, 1861, 5. Later historians mistakenly identified the woman as another ‘pretty-horsebreaker’, the courtesan Catherine Walters, known as Skittles.
73 Wray Vamplew calls these ‘dark entrepreneurs, those who corrupted sport or tarnished its image for economic ends, but who, in doing so, attracted audiences and improved the quality of the performances witnessed’. See Wray Vamplew, ‘Products, Promotion, and (Possibly) Profits: Sports Entrepreneurship Revisited’, Journal of Sport History 45, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 183–201.
74 Public Opinion, December 5, 1863, 641. Also, Clare Journal, and Ennis Advertiser, December 3, 1863, 3.
75 Advertisement: ‘RIDING MASTERS, Owners of RIDING SCHOOLS and Others’, Field, September 6, 1873, 8.
76 In 1805, John Adams encouraged ladies to be taught leaping (An Analysis of Horsemanship, 107), and The Young Ladies’ Book directed ladies to jump at riding schools, even if they did not plan on hunting (454–55).
77 Richmond Herald, April 30, 1898, 6.
78 T.F. Dales, Fox-Hunting in the Shires (London: Grant Richards, 1903); C.R. Acton, Sport And Sportsmen Of The New Forest (London: Heath Cranton, 1936).
79 Bournemouth Graphic, March 7, 1907, 15.
80 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, September 28, 1907, 2.
81 ‘New Riding School for Bexhill’, Bexhill-on-Sea Chronicle, May 29, 1909, 3.
82 ‘Marriage of Miss Dorothy Attwood’, Bexhill-on-Sea Chronicle, February 6, 1909, 5.
83 ‘Mr. H. Lane’s Riding and Driving School’, Bexhill-on-Sea Chronicle, March 6, 1909, 5.
84 ‘Today’s Tittle-Tattle’, Pall Mall Gazette, July 17, 1889, 6.
85 Max E. Ammann, Equestrian Sport at the Olympic Games, 1912–2008 (United Kingdom: Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), 2012), 22–3; Velten, Beastly London, 118.
86 Sherra Murphy, ‘Victorian Horse Shows: Spectacle, Leisure, Commodity’, Journal of Victorian Culture Online (June 18, 2020), https://jvc.oup.com/2020/06/18/victorian-horse-shows/#_ednref1.
87 Bournemouth Graphic, March 7, 1907, 15.
88 Ibid.
89 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, September 28, 1907, 2.
90 For example: ‘The “Hove (Brighton) Gazette” of last Saturday’s date, in dealing with the Sussex Agricultural Show, says: “By the way, Master Samuel Youles rode in Class 27 – that for child’s hack – and most deservedly won the first prize and a handsome silver cup. This pretty and neat little rider, who made a captivating picture on horseback, and was voted one of the features of the show, was mounted on a chestnut pony called “Tots”. He is a pupil of Miss Gertie Murfitt, the popular riding mistress in connection with Messrs. Samuel Young, the well-known jobmasters”. Master Youles is grandson of Mrs. Youles, of Nene Parade, and Miss Murfitt is the daughter of Mr. Wm. Murfitt’. ‘A Neat Rider’, Cambridgeshire Times, July 26, 1912, 5.
91 ‘Vieille Moustache’, The Barb and the Bridle, 3.
92 Ibid., 161.
93 ‘A Woman of No Importance’ [Amy Charlotte Bewicke Menzies], Memories Discreet and Indiscreet (London: Herbert Jenkins Limited, 1917), 189.
94 Justice, April 6, 1907, 5.
95 Sussex Daily News, November 7, 1916, 1.
96 ‘A Riding Mistress: Miss Eva Christy on Her Profession’, Daily Mirror, November 26, 1904, 12.
97 Advertisement: ‘RIDING MISTRESS and TRAINER of LADIES’ HACKS’, Field, December 16, 1876, and December 23, 1876, 1.
98 In 1891, W.A. Kerr advised girls to learn to ride astride. See W.A. Kerr, Riding for Ladies (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1891), 4.
99 ‘Should Women Ride Astride?’ Votes for Women, March 27, 1914, 3.
100 Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, July 26, 1920, 6.
101 Southend Standard and Essex Weekly Advertiser, December 24, 1908, 3.
102 York Herald, August 11, 1900, 9.
103 ‘Riding Mistresses’, Montrose Standard, November 12, 1920, 5.
104 Munkwitz, Passim.