Violet Winifred Leslie Henry Anderson (15 December 1882 – 20 June 1935), known professionally as V. Henry-Anderson (with or without the hyphen), was a Scottish-born golfer and partner of poet

Elsa Gidlow Elsa Gidlow (29 December 1898 – 8 June 1986) was a British-born, Canadian-American poet, freelance journalist, philosopher and humanitarian. She is best known for writing ''On a Grey Thread'' (1923), the first volume of openly Lesbian litera ...

Early life

Violet Winifred Leslie Henry Anderson was from Blairgowrie,

Perthshire Perthshire (locally: ; gd, Siorrachd Pheairt), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, ...

, the daughter of Isaac Henry-Anderson and Katherine Blyth. Her father was a solicitor and secretary of the Blairgowrie Golf Club before he went bankrupt in 1904 and left his family."North Berwick's Golfing Pioneers"
North Berwick Golf Club website. Violet Henry-Anderson moved to Canada as a young woman with her brothers Godfrey and Edward in 1908. They settled in Montreal. She sold her knitting to pay her tuition at secretarial school.Hamish Copley
"Elsa Gidlow’s Circle – The Women Around Her"
''The Drummer's Revenge'' (November 18, 2010).

Career

V. Henry-Anderson learned to play golf in her youth in Edinburgh. At age 12 she won a prize playing in a mixed foursome with her brother at Blairgowrie,"The Sportswoman"
''Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News'' (May 25, 1907): 518. where she won the Watson gold medal twice in 1900. In 1906 she won Lady Annesley's Challenge Cup. She was the only non-Irish medalist (semi-finalist) at the Ladies Championship in Newcastle, County Down, in 1907, and was considered "quite to be reckoned in the first flight of lady golfers" by a commentator at the time. In Canada, she helped to popularize golf as a women's game, first as a member of the Royal Montreal Ladies Golf Club. In 1909 she won the

Canadian Women's Amateur Championship The Canadian Women's Amateur is Canada's annual national amateur golf tournament for women. It is open to women from all countries and is played at a different course each year. History The first championship was held from October 14 to 17, 1901 at ...

. In western Canada she won the Vancouver Ladies Golf Championship three times in four years, between 1917 and 1920, and the Ladies City Golf Championship in 1922.

Personal life

Violet Henry Anderson was called "Tommy" by friends. She was in a relationship with actress Mona Shelley; they lived together in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

and New York City before they separated. Henry-Anderson and poet Elsa Gidlow were partners for about thirteen years, from 1922. "We were profoundly sure of our right to be as we were, to love and live in our chosen way, we were happy in it", recalled Gidlow of her time with Henry-Anderson, many years later. They moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

together in 1926.Guide to the Elsa Gidlow Papers, 1898–1986
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. Violet Henry-Anderson, a heavy smoker, died there in 1935, from lung cancer, aged 53 years. Gidlow described Henry-Anderson's death as "like an amputation of a part of myself".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henry-Anderson, Violet Scottish female golfers LGBT golfers Scottish LGBT sportspeople Scottish lesbians Lesbian sportswomen Deaths from lung cancer in California People from Blairgowrie and Rattray 1884 births 1935 deaths