1816.12

Oxfordshire Churchman Urges Base-Ball Fields for Girls

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags	English Base Ball, FemalesEnglish Base Ball, Females
Location
City/State/Country:	Watlngton, Oxfordshire, England
Modern Address
Game
Immediacy of Report
Age of Players	YouthYouth
Holiday
Notables
Text	Base-ball, as an outdoor means of recreation for girls, was praised by an English churchwarden in a manuscript history of the Oxfordshire village of Watlington. The writer, John Badcock, made his point despite having it almost swallowed within an unusually convoluted sentence: “It is contrary to reason and common sense to expect that the most sober-minded, if wholly restrained from a game of cricket, or some other amusement--& the other sex from base-ball, or some recreation peculiar to themselves, & exclusively their own, would fill up every leisure hour of a fine summer's evening better, or perhaps so well, in any other way.” Mr. Badcock went on to argue that the lord of the manor, or some other landowner, should take a section of otherwise unusable land and create appropriate playing fields for boys and girls."
Sources	An Historical & Descriptive Account of Watlington, Oxfordshire, by John Badcock (1816), handwritten manuscript in the collection of the Oxfordshire History Centre, PAR279/9/MS/1, (former reference: MSS.D.D.Par.Wat-lington c.11)
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External Number
Submitted by	David Block
Submission Note	Email of 9/16/2020
Has Supplemental Text

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