CROQUET PEOPLE:  Lily Gower - "Championess" of England

Lily Gower, circa 1904
(History of Croquet, Prichard)

(click to enlarge)

In July 1898, at the Budleigh Salterton Croquet Tournament in Devon, the reigning Champion of England, Mr. C.E. Willis [inventor of the Willis Setting used today], was beaten by "a lady, tall, upright, very young," and "of very delicate figure"^*1 who had "never played in public before."^*2  Later in the year she repeated the feat at the Maidstone Challenge Cups, which were held at Wimbledon because of a typhoid scare, and caused the doubters to reconsider their earlier pronouncements that the Budleigh Salterton result had been a fluke. During this meeting, she won all three events - the Open Challenge Cup, the Ladies' Challenge Cup, and the All-Comers' First prize - not a bad first season's work. This young lady was Lily Gower, the daughter of Erasmus Gower of Castle Malgwyn near Cardigan, and she went on to become one of the three all-time great women players.

"C. Gower and baby"
Lily Gower's first photograph?
(National Library of Wales)

Although she was brought up in Wales, Lily was born in Scotland, the eldest of six children. Her mother, Catherine Vans Agnew, was from Barnbarroch in Wigtownshire, and she had returned there to be with her mother for the birth. Lily arrived at 7:40 in the morning of the 5th October 1877, and was named Lilias Mary after her two grandmothers. There is a pair of photographs in the National Library of Wales marked "C. Gower and baby" on the reverse, taken by C.S. Allen of Tenby. The handwriting matches that of Catherine Gower, so the baby may well be Lily. Like most of her class at the time, Lily Gower did not go to school, but was educated at home by governesses, one of whom married Tom Mathias, a local photographer.

Lily Gower at Castle Malgwyn, circa 1893
(© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

Within a year of winning at Budleigh Salterton, she had become the Lady Champion of England and warranted a chapter to herself in Arthur Lillie's book, 'Croquet Up To Date'. In it, he describes how Lily came to learn the game. "Mrs. Gower, her mother, had been an enthusiastic croquet-player for many years and had passed on her zeal to her daughter. At a distance of eight miles from Castle Malgwyn there was a Lawn-Tennis and Croquet Club at Newcastle Emlyn. There the mother and daughter used to play. One day a book on croquet, issued by Messrs. Longman, got into the daughter's hands, and a short time afterwards she drove over to the club. Astonishment, not umixed with derision, was the result, for the young lady, instead of 'going to her hoop', as was the primitive custom at Newcastle Emlyn, played to leave the break for the next ball, and sometimes was observed to make a meaningless shot into a corner of the ground. In point of fact, she was busy learning the game."^*3

Lily Gower by "J. Mathias"
(Croquet Up To Date, Arthur Lillie, 1900)

As well as having a chapter devoted to her as one of the great players, she also wrote part of it herself. Entitled 'Four-ball and Three-ball Breaks', she begins "I have been asked to write on this subject. Unfortunately it is difficult to say anything very novel."^*4  However, this does not stop her writing a lengthy and very informative treatise on the subject. An interesting observation of her writing from today's point of view is the fact that she refers to her imaginary player as "he", as if women never played the game.

There are also two full-length photographs of Lily Gower in this book, one of them taking pride of place as the frontispiece. According to the attribution under the picture, it was taken by one J. Mathias. Now, at this time there was an amateur photographer called Tom Mathias who lived in Pontrhydyceirt, just around the corner from Castle Malgwyn. He was a prolific photographer and took hundreds of pictures of the people of the Teifi valley, rich and poor. Amongst the collection of his extant photographs in Scolton House Museum, there is a view of Castle Malgwyn House and a picture of Lily's sister, Evelyn, on horseback. He was even married to the Castle Malgwyn governess, so it is more than likely that it was Tom Mathias who took the frontispiece photograph.

Lily Gower by Russell & Sons, Wimbledon
  (Croquet Up To Date, Arthur Lillie, 1900)

Whichever Mathias took the photograph, it is an interesting picture because it may have been taken on the lawn in front of Castle Malgwyn House. Compared to the other photograph in Lillie's book, she appears to be much younger. She has the look of a teenage girl and appears to be shorter. In the view of Castle Malgwyn by Tom Mathias, the croquet lawn is clearly visible in front of the house. It is very nearly a full-sized lawn of 28 by 35 yards and, as this became the standard size in 1897, it suggests that the lawn was levelled out after this. The extract from Arthur Lillie's book, above, says "One day a book on croquet, issued by Messrs. Longman, got into the daughter's hands, and a short time afterwards she drove over to the club."^*5  Now, Lillie modestly fails to mention that the book in question was his own 'Croquet - Its History, Rules and Secrets', which was only published in 1897. If she had to travel to Newcastle Emlyn to practise her shots, it suggests that the Castle Malgwyn lawn had not then been laid. Also, D.M.C. Prichard, in his 'History of Croquet', says that before Budleigh Salterton in July 1898, Lily Gower had never "previously played on a full-sized court".^*6  However, in the autumn of 1898, 'The Field' published an article on the Maidstone Challenge Meeting at Wimbledon. While talking about Lily Gower's tactics, it mentions the fact that "Two weeks ago she made an unfinished break of 74 at Castle Malgwyn in South Wales."^*7  Does this mean that the Castle Malgwyn croquet lawn had been laid after her success at Budleigh Salterton to celebrate her victory?

In 1899, she repeated her success with the Maidstone Challenge Cups and also became the "Championess" of England. She then went on to win the title in 1900 and 1901 to make it three in a row. Also in 1901, she was the only woman entrant in the ten-player Championship Cup at Sheen House, where she came second. Two years later, she was runner-up in the Open Championship of 1903, then won the title in 1905 by beating the reigning champion and her future husband, R.C.J. Beaton, in the final.

The Croquet Lawn, Castle Malgwyn, circa 1906. One of only two full-sized courts in Wales today?
(© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

Reginald Beaton was, like Lily, a top-class croquet player and his bearded face appears in many of the group photographs of the Edwardian period. D.M.C. Prichard describes him as follows:- "Of slight build with a black Mephistophelian beard, bowing a little from the shoulders with an oddly loping walk, Beaton was not an exciting player, but he had a machinelike accuracy..."^*8  He was a timid-looking man, who gives the impression of trying to merge into the background in these pictures, and this impression is reinforced by his letters to his future father-in-law. In September 1905, when he was asking for the hand of Lily in marriage, he wrote "I don't know that I have much to recommend me - beyond playing croquet and music, I am not much good." The following month, having received a satisfactory reply, he added "My one hope is that I may not prove disappointing on further acquaintance."

Lily Gower at Sheen House in 1901
(History of Croquet, D.M.C. Prichard)

They married early the following year and moved to Richmond Hill near London, where she continued to play croquet during the first years of her marriage, becoming a formidable team in the Doubles with her husband. She also won the Men's Medallion in 1907 (they had changed the name to exclude women, but had forgotten to change the rules!), and was runner-up to her husband in the Irish Championships of 1909.

R.C.J. Beaton at Roehampton in 1903
(History of Croquet, D.M.C. Prichard)

She appears to have withdrawn from top-level croquet between the years 1912 and 1920. Four of these years were, of course, interrupted by the First World War, but the births of her two sons around this time may also have kept her away from the lawns. Although she came from a wealthy family, she does not appear to have received any allowance from her father, so it is likely, therefore, that she had to stay at home and be more of a mother than most women of her class at the time. However, there does not appear to be any sign of her husband on the courts either during this period.

In 1920, they were back with a vengeance, winning the Mixed Doubles Championship. She won the Ladies Champion Cup in 1922, was a semi-finalist in the Open Championship the following year, and runner-up in the Ladies Champion Cup in 1924. Her husband played in the Champion Cup for the last time in 1923 and died suddenly in early 1925. His early death, however, did not keep Lily off the courts and in 1927 her name appeared once more on the Women's Championship Roll.

At this time the great D.D. Steel, who won the Ladies' Championship 13 times in 15 years, was in full flow. Lily was runner-up to Miss Steel in 1927, then won the trophy the following year, 26 years after her previous success. In 1929, she made the final for the third consecutive year, losing once more to D.D. Steel. That same year she won the Doubles Championship with Col. Du Pre, a feat that they were to repeat nine years later. Lily Beaton's last top-level success was as late as 1948, when she won the Peel Memorials at the age of 71, fifty years after her very first major victory, and she was still entering major tournaments in 1956, just three years before her death in 1959.

John Solomon, the Open Champion through most of the 1960s, recalled Lily Beaton in 1997. "I am probably one of the few people to have played against or with people who played before the war, in the 30s or even 20s." he said in the inaugural "Solomon Lecture" at Bristol. "Indeed a person I knew very well for many years and whom I played on several occasions actually won the Ladies Championship in 1899, almost 100 years ago. She was then Miss Lilias Gower and I think she was about 18 at that time and she won it 3 years in a row. I knew her as Mrs. Beaton and my partner Pat Cotter christened her (privately to me) 'the brown bomber' or 'the blue bomber', for she appeared to have only two dresses, both identical in design, one brown and the other blue. She was very easy to get on with and was still a useful player - her handicap was -0.5 - in 1950."^*9

*1 - The Ladies Field 1898, quoted in Croquet Up To Date edited by Arthur Lillie, 1900, p. 92.
*2 - ibid., p. 85.
*3 - ibid., p. 86.
*4 - ibid., p. 96.
*5 - ibid., p. 86.
*6 - The History of Croquet, D.M.C. Prichard, 1981, p. 67.
*7 - The Field 1898, quoted in Croquet Up To Date edited by Arthur Lillie, 1900, p. 90.
*8 - The History of Croquet, D.M.C. Prichard, 1981, p. 70.
*9 - The Croquet Gazette, Jan/Feb 1998. The whole speech is available on-line in the Croquet World Online Magazine.