early female cavers

[thehungrytroglobite]

Does anyone know what the earliest record of a female caver in the UK is? Or if not the earliest, then feel free to share early mentions anyway. Interested in anything before 1940. I've found lots about Mabel Binks but I'm sure she can't have been the only one / there must have been others before her

 

[andybrooks]

Mossy Powell's exploits were impressive.

 

[JohnMCooper]

Penelope "Mossy" Powell was diving in Wookey Hole circa 1935.

 

[langcliffe]

Kath Mabel Gilbert, as in Kath's Way, was caving regularly with the BSA before the war, as were several other women. See the BSA records which you can find online. There's a remarkable photo of her taken by Simpson in her underwear in a pool in Giant's or Peak Cavern. There is absolutely no ripple on the surface, so she must have been motionless for several minutes before the photograph was taken.

 

[andybrooks]

In "A Glimmering in Darkness", Graham Balcombe quotes from his own 1934 diary as follows: "My sister Phyllis was no mean caver and had had many exploits on Mendip; I think she was one of the first to do Swildon's without ladders."

 

[mikem]

1939 Mrs J Hooper (Ali Moody's mum?) & again in 1940s, plus a couple of Misses:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

1937 Mrs Hooper and 1939 miss Tudor:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

1926-1928 Mrs Foley:

Lost Johns’ Cave – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

1913 Mrs. Stobart, Miss Capper, Mrs. & Miss Payne, 1919 miss pilley:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

 

[mikem]

Mrs. Barran, Miss Booth, Mrs. Boyes & miss Slingsby 1906 (descent of Gaping Gill); Mrs. & Miss Payne 1907 (& 1913 with miss Bowden, as well as one above, which was actually 1914 not 1913); miss Stevenson 1910; miss Ingleby also 1910; Mrs. Brown 1911; Mrs. Ellis 1922: Women were definitely caving before this, but rarely get mentioned by name:
"Another feature of the YRC, which is not peculiar to the YRC and which has recently caused controversy in other English clubs, is the absence of female members. The 1902 constitution[38] does not explicitly exclude those of the fairer gender. The exclusion is implied: “V. Before any person is eligible for election, he …” Although ladies are not eligible for membership, it is clear from the pages of the YRC Journal that they have always been welcome attenders at caving meets. Perhaps they attended only the private meets?"

A Speleological Appreciation of the YRC on the Occasion of its Centenary 1892 – 1992 – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

 

[andybrooks]

Not quite before 1940, but I think those young ladies who accompanied Bob Leakey into Mossdale deserve mention.

 

[mikem]

"The second point from the Lost Johns article concerns the female sex. The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club has never had female members, but there is ample evidence of women being present at early potholing meets and they did not play merely a passive role. Obviously they acted as the commissariat [food] but when, for example, Boyd had his accident, it was Mrs. Payne who ministered to him on the surface and in the description of the exploration of Little Hull Hole, Roberts paid tribute to Miss Bowden. Roberts, I think, was feeling a bit peeved because the weather was wonderful and certain stalwarts preferred to sun themselves while he and Stobart struggled underground, and here I quote…
“The result was that during the time Stobart and I were engaged in the arduous task of rigging the first pitch and passing the ladders through the window, we were surprised by Miss Bowden, who had most gallantly travelled alone from the pool along the eerie passage”. From then on Miss Bowden played her full part in the exploration and in the arduous task of dragging out the ladders."

The Golden Age of Yorkshire Potholing – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Miss Bowden became Mrs Stobart (1913 mere gill):

Little Hull Hole, Penyghent – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Mrs Payne 1905-1907:

Reminiscences Part 1 1902 to 1909 – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Mrs and miss Payne 1907 mere gill:

The Siege Of Mere Gill – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Miss Stevenson and Mrs Payne in sunset 1909, and Mrs Williamson elsewhere 1910:

Sunset Hole – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Reminiscences Part II. The YRC – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Mrs Brown's 1911 explorations:

Diccan Pot, Selside – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

1906 Gaping Gill trip:

Further Explorations In Gaping Ghyll Hole – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Who was miss Booth? Although: "The first lady to descend Gaping Gill was Miss L.E. May Johnson of Bradwell, Derbyshire. She attended a meet of the Leeds Ramblers Club in August 1904[6] , and for some time used to go out with the famous Derbyshire caver and climber, J.W. Puttrell[7]"

Gaping Gill and the Mysterious Miss Booth June 1906 – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Later letter about it not being Mary Booth:

Letters – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Miss Northcote, Miss Margesson, Miss Mabel Buckley, Miss Hilda Wright, Messrs. Wynne-Edwards and Fricker (Leeds Grammar School boys), Mrs. Wynne-Edwards - Gaping Gill 1911:

Chippings – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

12 ladies also descended gaping gill over 2 days in 1927:

https://www.yrc.org.uk/journal-and-...c-journal-1929-vol-5-no-18/journal-v5n18p300/

Edit: final link updated at request of @mikem

 

[mikem]

So, first lady to the bottom of Gaping Gill, as mentioned above, does appear to be Miss Johnson on the August bank holiday Monday:

Gaping Ghyll In 1904 – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Later - Mabel Binks accident and "Now that the pot-holes are getting well known, and some of them even hackneyed, the era of mass excursions seems to have set in. We hear of forty people reaching the Vestry in Lost Johns’, and of fifty going down Swildon’s Hole. At the British Speleological Society’s meet at Gaping Gill, Whitsun Week, 1937, 356 people were sent down and there was folk-dancing, etc. in the Main Chamber. On good authority we learn there were 70 at the bottom at one time. A wooden ladder gave them access to the East Passage. The volunteer crew of the Craven Pot-holers at the winch worked down 253 in the week-end. The charges were, 7s. 6d. members, 10s. od. non-members booked, 15s. not booked. A very large profit must have been made."

Chippings – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

 

[davel]

1913 Mrs. Stobart, Miss Capper, Mrs. & Miss Payne, 1919 miss pilley:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Might the 1919 'Miss Pilley' be Dorothy Pilley (1894–1986), the mountaineer?

 

[mikem]

Quite possibly.

Miss Johnson took photos of GG in 1908:

Safety at Jib Tunnel and Gaping Gill – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Miss Lovett 1921?, GG boulder chamber pot:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Miss Coote 1937 DYO:

Cave Exploration – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

Dan-Yr-Ogof and the Welsh Caves – The Yorkshire Ramblers' Club

www.yrc.org.uk

 

[mikem]

There are various other Misses during the 1940s.

Might the 1919 'Miss Pilley' be Dorothy Pilley (1894–1986), the mountaineer?

If it was, then it doesn't sound like she particularly enjoyed it - but certainly the right time frame:
"Discovering the hills had been a happy accident for Dorothy. Her first ever encounter with a mountain happened in September 1914, on her twentieth birthday when her Aunt took her to Snowdonia for a fortnight. In her diary she records: “The cottage has splendid views of a giant mountain with a torrential stream running down its face.” A week later, after a few tentative forays and soggy picnics, she went out, late in the afternoon, alone: “Wander about and afterwards get caught in the twilight and have to come down the bare rock in the dark.” This deliberate courting of physical danger, body pressed against the rock, incomprehensible to many, was to Dorothy life-affirming. Not only life-affirming, but a rescue from the brink. After leaving school in 1912, her authoritarian father had spent the next two years extinguishing her desires to forge any kind of career for herself. He guarded her virginity jealously, like a dragon guarding its gold. She wanted to be a gardener, then an Egyptologist, and then, when war broke out, she wanted to volunteer to help with agricultural work but her father said no to everything. He aspired for her instead, the life of the middle-class housewife confined to a well-upholstered drawing room. Arguments, headaches and black moods are recorded in her diary as she gradually realised that for a young woman in 1912, life would mean a continuous battle for even small freedoms. This experience of the mountains represented a small ray of light in a world she would describe as being “stuck in a dark sub-terranean cave”. Exposing herself to danger, suspending her body from the end of a rope above a void, leaping fathoms-deep glacial crevasses by moonlight helped displace the suffocation she felt."

Rebel Women

Why I wanted to investigate the lives of rebel women of the past

whitstableviews.com

I have read her book 'Climbing Days' (1935) and don't remember any mention of caves, although I wasn't looking for them at the time.

 

[mikem]

Actually in "A Speleological Appreciation" she is listed as Miss D Pilley, visiting hull pot, sell gill and hardrawkin (the others often weren't even given initials, unless their husband's were used).

Although most of above were in Yorkshire, apart from those already distinguished, Mrs Hooper was Devon and miss Tudor in south Wales.

 

[mrodoc]

There is a passage in Baker's Pit cave in Devon called Winifred's Wriggle named after John Hooper's wife Winifred who first pushed it. There is a photo of her in Cullingford's book.

 

[mikem]

Winifred was also listed in YRC by her husband's initial.

Dorothy Pilley was a committee member of the FRCC and their London section treasurer by 1921 (one of the few clubs accepting women members at that time).

Stephen A. Craven wrote an article "Male Chauvinism at Alum Pot" about May Johnson not being listed as present in 1908 (same year as her 2nd visit to GG, although first part of title doesn't even appear on cover of 2020 journal), and there is also a photo of her at Eldon hole in 1904 - he also gives her full name Lilly Ellen...:

https://www.yrc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/YRCJ-12-22-Winter-2004.pdf

 

[mikem]

Of course you may also find something in the issues of cave and karst science that I just listed for S.A. Craven on "history of caving in the dales" thread. He does mention Miss Clara Carling playing with her brothers in Goyden Pot, and Mrs Bradley accompanying her father, Thomas Eglin (of Eglin's Hole) during the 1800s, plus sketches by Emily Lloyd show women in the caves, as part of:
Caves and Karst Science Vol 33 (1) p.33-40 Craven S.A. An introduction to the speleo-history of upper Nidderdale, Yorkshire, UK, to the early nineteen-sixties

& BCRA comes up with:
"Cave and Karst Science 33 (3) 2006 - Index of
Notable also was Lily Ellen May Johnson (1879-1963), who went down the English caves Eldon Hole (6Im) in 1904, Gaping. Gill (103m) in 1904 and 1908 and Alum ..."
Although I can't find her mentioned in that issue, so presumably it's 34 (1), his "History of cave exploration in the Northern Pennines of England: the work of the clubs, 1892 – 1945 (pp23-32)"!
Both of these are available from (you need to be registered, but the earlier ones aren't online):

Cave and Karst Science

Issue 51(3). Now available online and on paper.

bcra.org.uk

 

[Tim Pickering]

Not quite pre-40's, but if, during your foray into the rich realms of female cavers, you happen to stumble upon any information about Leslie Alverston, please do give me a shout. The extent of my knowledge is that she was the first to set foot in Battlefield, White Scar Cave, in 1971 (not Hilda Guthrie); she dated Johnnie Russom, and that she may have emigrated to New Zealand at some point.

 

[Steve Clark]

Not quite pre-40's, but if, during your foray into the rich realms of female cavers, you happen to stumble upon any information about Leslie Alverston, please do give me a shout. The extent of my knowledge is that she was the first to set foot in Battlefield, White Scar Cave, in 1971 (not Hilda Guthrie); she dated Johnnie Russom, and that she may have emigrated to New Zealand at some point.

You may already be aware, but I think she features in the Sid Perou film about Simpson Pot - "What a Way to Spend a Sunday".

It's on youtube.

 

[Martin Laverty]

Eli Simpson's photo album for 1933/4 has a photo of Miss Montagu in GG Pool Chamber [via https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Eli_Simpson_Archive or, better, https://archives.bcra.org.uk/archive.php?level=image&collection=bsa&document=ES003&item=4&zoom=1 ] She is the likely model in several other photos, but that one explicitly names her.
The BCRA Online Archive of BSA Records has lots more references to Miss [Adeline Elizabeth] Montagu (1875-1952), who was from a rich family in Doncaster, moved to Leeds, and then Windermere. She was instrumental in ensuring that BSA continued through the second world war, which is presumably something to do with the naming of Montagu Cavern in Lancaster Hole...