Pioneering women bowlers celebrate club's 90 years

A women-only bowls club that started after men would not allow them to play on their green has celebrated its 90th anniversary.

Ipswich Ladies Bowls Club was officially launched on 4 May 1936 when women from the local club became frustrated by the men blocking them.

Current members marked the milestone on Tuesday with an opening drive, cake, and celebrations at its home at Marlborough Bowls Club in Lansdowne Road.

Elaine Wright, 79, who has just finished her role as president at the club, said she believed it was one of very few women only clubs in existence in the county.

"Bowls has always been a man's game or was originally very much a man's game," Wright explained.

"The men would only let the ladies on the greens when they didn't want to use it, so they were struggling to find time on the rinks.

"So they got a bit fed up of this and they actually had to start going to other clubs to borrow rinks.

"In the end they decided they'd set up their own club somewhere else or they'd find another green somewhere else."

In November 1935, a letter was sent to all the ladies of the Ipswich Bowls Club by K Hare, which partly detailed how many members felt "a separate existence" would be better for the women.

They decided to hire the bowling green in Dalton Road and raised money over the winter to pay the agreed annual rental fee of £25 before they launched in May the following year.

Over the decades the club changed location, but has been in its current home since 1970.

Wright, who has been at the club for nearly 30 years, said it was lovely to see all the women during the celebrations as well as many more from other clubs.

But she said she had seen the sport change as women's roles changed in society.

"Unfortunately we're down to maybe 15 bowlers," she continued.

"We don't have new members because ladies aren't housewives anymore, they're working.

"You don't have ladies that can come and bowl on a Monday to Friday afternoon."

Despite the sport's reputation of attracting older players, Wright highlighted 30-year-old Katherine Rednall from Stowmarket, a renowned bowler who has claimed Commonwealth Games medals and World medals.

Wright encouraged women of all ages to get involved in the sport and said it was a game that you could get "terribly hooked" on.

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