Fishing and football: working class women’s activism in ‘60s Hull

By Abbie Hastie

In October 1968, a women’s football team from Hull played a match at the Boulevard, home of rugby league team Hull FC, against a team from Manchester. As well as a symbol of Hull’s role as a hub of nascent women’s football, the match raised money for the Hull Trawler Women’s Association, an organisation set up by the Headscarf Revolutionaries, a group of fishermen’s wives, calling for safer practices in Hull’s dominant industry [1]. The match raised over £228, the equivalent of £4120 today, which supported the group in their continuing activism on behalf of fishing communities. This match illustrates the solidarity between working class women in Hull in the late 1960s, and the commitment of Hull’s female footballers to the communities they came from. The solidarity and strength of these working class women was crucial in their activism, which achieved real change quickly, and embedded it both locally and nationally. Such activism was as important as the liberal feminism of the urban middle classes, which has often dominated the historical memory of the 1960s.

The activism of the Headscarf Revolutionaries arose from tragedy.  On the 10th January 1968, two trawlers, the St Romanus and the Kingston Peridot set sail from Hull on a normal trip, fishing in the North Sea. By the 26th, radio communications with both ships were down and the alarm had been sounded. On the 30th, just twenty days after they set sail, news had reached Hull that they were lost. Out of their grief and shock, local women set up a group to harness their concerns and lobby the fishing companies for change. They were concerned with dangerous staff shortages and wanted a radio operator on board every ship [2]. Their tactics were direct. One of their leaders, Lilian Bilocca, attempted to stop trawlers she believed to be undermanned from leaving St Andrew’s Dock. She then set up the Hessle Road Women’s Committee alongside Christine Jensen, Mary Denness and Yvonne Blenkinsop which held meetings of concerned family members and local communities [3]. One such meeting ended with scores of women storming the offices of trawler owners, demanding full crewing of ships, mandatory radio operators, better weather forecasts, improved training, more safety equipment and ships with medical facilities to follow the fleet [4].

They put these requests in a Fishermen’s Charter and gathered 10,000 signatures in 10 days, which led to a meeting with trawler owners on the dock on the 5th February. This meeting was held as the news of the loss of a third ship, the Ross Cleveland, broke. The next day, the women travelled to London to meet with ministers. They remained steadfast in their assertive tactics, with Bilocca threatening to picket Harold Wilson’s private home if their demands were not granted. After the meeting ministers ordered the trawler owners to adhere to new safety arrangements immediately.

Their activism led to the enactment of the Fishing Charter, which regulates the industry to this day. Their story is well-known in the city of Hull, with a mural in the former fishing community of Anlaby Road, and a play celebrating their achievements during Hull’s year as City of Culture. 

While the Headscarf Revolutionaries fought for workplace regulation, other Hull women had been fighting injustice on the football pitch. Women’s football had been banned across England by the FA in 1921, who argued that football was not a suitable sport for women to play [5]. Some women’s matches continued in spite of this ban, including a 1962 fixture in Bridlington [6], but the game was vastly diminished from its heyday during the First World War because women could not play on the pitches of men’s clubs. 

Despite these draconian rules, by the late ‘60s women’s football was growing once more in Hull. Local firms, particularly in the east of the city, had private sports pitches which were readily available for women to play on, allowing them to circumvent the ban. The first women’s team to be founded was in 1963 at Reckitt and Colman (a large pharmaceutical firm), and their first match was a derby of sorts against medical manufacturers Smith and Nephew [7]. This match was organised by Flo Bilton, a worker at Reckitt’s and goalkeeper, who later became the secretary of the nascent Hull league, which was formed of these two sides and teams from other local factories. Bilton set up the Hull Women’s FA in 1966 [8] alongside the formation of other local Women’s FAs around the country. A national Women’s FA to coordinate and lobby for the women’s game was set up in 1969 [9]. This body challenged the FA’s authority over English football for the first time since 1921, crucial to the ban’s cancellation in late 1969.
The story of the city’s female footballers is not quite the fairytale success story of Bilocca and her comrades, and the initial success of the ban’s cancellation was just the first step in the normalisation and popularisation of women’s football. This process was slower and bumpier, and football in Hull struggled in the 1970s, shrinking in size and taking in teams from elsewhere in Yorkshire [10]. Both nationally and in Hull, the game struggled heavily until the 21st century, when professionalisation and greater media exposure brought more fans, stability and success to the sport. 2022 saw the Lionesses’ European Championship victory, which made them England’s first major trophy winners since 1966. They would not have got there without the dedication and activism of Hull’s female footballers.

Bibliography

1. ‘Children’s Treat was women’s goal’, Hull Daily Mail, 5 October 1968, pp. 5/16

2.  https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2017-03-05/hull-fishermens-safety-campaigner-mary-denness-dies

3. https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2017-03-05/hull-fishermens-safety-campaigner-mary-denness-dies

4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-35735318

5. FA Consultative Committee statement, 1921, The FA Collection, National Football Museum Archive, Preston

6.  ‘Women’s Football’, Hull Daily Mail, 17 March 1962, pp. 8/12

7. Sue Lopez, Women on the Ball: A Guide to Women’s Football. London, England: Scarlet Press, pp.75, 1997

8. Dave Day and Margaret Roberts, ‘From Butlins to Europe’, pp. 17

9. East Kent Times and Mail, 15^th December 1967, ‘A Top Line-Up for Women’s Football in Kent’, pp. 8/14

10. ‘Bylines’, Women’s Football: The Official Magazine of The Women’s Football Association, No 4, November 1978