They Run with Surprising Swiftness
The Women Athletes of Early Modern Britain
Peter Radford
subjects:
Women have battled for a place in the male-dominated world of sports throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, overturning obstacles and highlighting the changing position of women in societies around the world. This has become one of the defining stories of our age and the central story of women’s sports. They Run with Surprising Swiftness tells a different and much older, forgotten story with many of the same themes.
Sports have never been the sole preserve of men; women athletes have always been there. As this book shows, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Britain, women of all ages ran, fought, rode, played football, cricket, tennis, and other sports. They competed in tough, head-to-head events that required extraordinary endurance and skill. Though not labeled "athletic" at the time, these women performed feats that in our age would certainly earn that descriptor. They Run with Surprising Swiftness recognizes these remarkable athletes and their achievements and aims to restore them to their rightful place in the long history of women in sport.
- Neil Carter, De Montfort University, Leicester, author of Cycling and the British: A Modern HistoryA pioneering book based on original and painstaking scholarship. The sheer weight of the research and its meticulously written details will challenge preconceived popular and academic notions about the role and status of women in early modern British society. The book will not only be of interest to sports historians but will also provide fresh insights for scholars of women’s history and early modern history in general. Radford is a leading authority on this subject for this time period. This is a labor of love.
This study by a former Olympic medallist turned sports historian presents an astonishing dimension of the long eighteenth century that even most lifetime scholars of the period have probably never glimpsed. It is an admirable demonstration of how the historically marginalized and then forgotten can be recovered by the patient accumulation of small details, closely scrutinized and carefully interpreted.- Yvonne Noble · The Eighteenth Century Intelligencer
- Devoney Looser · Early Modern WomenThey Run with Surprising Swiftness deserves to be widely recognized as a significant achievement. It documents, for the first time, a great deal of forgotten history of early modern women in sport...Radford’s groundbreaking book is poised not only to inspire future scholars; it will also surely prompt more welcome discoveries about previously unnoticed and unheralded women athletes of centuries past.
- Liz Wilkinson · Journal of Sport HistoryWhat Radford does particularly well is bring forward the athletic talent and competitiveness of early modern British women through analyses of the variety of media coverage, broadly defined, of the races, games, bouts, and matches. That coverage yields details about the crowds who watched, the competition, promoters, and the prizes they offered, and the athletes themselves. It is remarkable how Radford traces not just one-off races but, in some instances, the long careers of the women. . . His is an especially important contribution for women and gender studies. In a field where sport is vitally important historically and in the present, comparatively little attention has been given. Few Women and Gender Studies (WGS) programs or foundational texts include even the barest mention of societal shifts that have happened within or because of women’s efforts in athletics. Radford’s text offers up an abundance of evidence that we should be including sport in foundational classes in WGS courses.
- Katie Taylor · Nordic Sport Science ForumThroughout the book, the meticulous level of research really stands out. There are an extraordinary number of references, from diverse sources, that add to the richness of the book. This attention to detail and the use of various sources allow Radford to trace the careers of some athletes rather than a book full of one-off events. . . They Run with Surprising Swiftness makes a highly valuable contribution to the field . . . Like many histories, it tells us a lot about society in general and, as such, makes the book relevant to those interested in sport and society in the early modern period. It is written in an accessible and engaging way that will make the book both interesting and helpful to academics (of all levels) and the general public.
Peter Radford is an Olympic medallist and world record holder, Professor at the University of Glasgow and Brunel University, and author of The Celebrated Captain Barclay: Sport, Money and Fame in Regency Britain.
