Lily Gower, birth name Lilias Mary Gower (5 October 1877 — 29 July 1959) was a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the W ...

player, a four-time winner of the Women's Championship."Lily Gower - "Championess" of England"

By Allen Parker, ''South West Area News Letter'', 2002 Issue 20 She was one of the three women who have won the

Open Championship The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...

, winning in 1905. She had won her very first public tournament at

Budleigh Salterton Budleigh Salterton is a seaside town on the coast in East Devon, England, south-east of Exeter. It lies within the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and forms much of the electoral ward of Budleigh, whose ward population at t ...

, in 1898 and won the Ladies Championship for the next three years. In 1901, she started entering tournaments with men and in that year she won the Open Gold Medal, with a controversy. In semi-final her opponent (a man) accused her of "

spooning Spooning or choreic hand is flexion and dorsal arching of the wrists and hyperextension of the fingers when the hands are extended sideways palms down. Spooning is a recognized clinical sign in pediatric neurology during standard evaluation of t ...

". This sparkled heated discussions as to whether this was a gentlemanly way to do. "Lily Gower"
in: ''The History of Croquet'', by D.M.C. Prichard (1981) During her peak she was also three times Open Gold Medalist (contestants being both men and women) and even Men's Gold Medalist. The latter case was a result of confusion in rules: after "Open" and "Women's" were renamed into "Men's" and "Women's", the inadequately modified rules contained a loophole which allowed women to enter the "Men's Gold" contest. In 1906 she married Reginald CJ Beaton, who was also a leading croquet player. As an administrator she served on the Council of the

Croquet Association The Croquet Association, which was formed as the United All England Croquet Association in 1897, is the national governing body for the sport of croquet in England. Until 1974 the association was responsible for croquet in the whole of the Unit ...

between 1939 and 1954.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gower, Lily English croquet players 1877 births 1959 deaths