Betty Archdale      

Helen Elizabeth Archdale, MBE, who died on January 11, 2000, aged 92, was captain of the pioneering England women's team that toured Australia and New Zealand in 1934-35. The tour did much both to raise the status of women's cricket and to heal some of the damage done to Anglo-Australian cricket relations by Bodyline two years earlier. Betty Archdale herself earned much of the credit: "...her forthright yet engaging personality made her a popular figure to whom the sizable Australian crowds responded warmly," according to Wisden Australia. She was also a capable batsman, who twice made important 32s in a low-scoring series that England won. Instead of leading England again on the planned 1939-40 tour, she was commissioned in the WRNS and, after the war, emigrated to Australia. There she switched from a career in law to education, becoming principal of Sydney University Women's College and then head of Abbotsleigh Girls School, where she introduced sex education - and cricket. Betty Archdale also became a TV and radio personality, well-known for her witty and sensible approach to problems. In 1997 she was voted one of Australia's 100 Living Treasures and, in 1999, one of the first ten female honorary members of MCC. Her mother was a leading suffragette, imprisoned in 1912, and Betty was said to have collected stones for her to throw.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack