Archdale was the captain of England team that toured to Australia for the 1st time.
Born on 1907, Archdale grew up watching her mother, Activist Helen Archdale who held multiple position during the World War 1. Betty, in her young age, used to collect stones for her mother to throw at windows and used to visit her mother in prison after she was sent to jail for breaking Whitehall’s window. Her mother later died in 1949.
Betty learnt cricket at her school in Hampshire. She then went on do BA Economics and Political Science, studied law where she specialized international law.
In 1934/35, Australia invited England as well as NZ for Test series. The latter rejected but England accepted the offer and began their journey soon. After travelling over a month, the women reached Australia and promised to rewrite the controversy caused by the England men’s team for using Borderline technique.
The tour had three Tests and were three-day matches. Margaret Pedan lead a considerably young side that was beaten by experienced England team with the final Test being a draw.
While Betty had normal tour, another Betty- Betty Snowball- had a great tour with 192. However, the tour belonged to Myrtle Maclagan who became the 1st woman centurian and ended the tour with 20 wickets and 253 runs. This was the beginning.
For Betty though, she played only 5 Tests in her career. In 1941, she became WRNS operator and received an Order of British Empire for saving the lives of Nurses during WW2.
She later moved to Australia, became the principal of Sydney University’s women’s college. In 1958, she became headmistress of private girl’s school.
Her biggest achievement was breaking down the system of education. She brought in sex education as mandatory, reformed curriculum by adding physics and cutting back on British, in favour of Australian, history. She abandoned hats and gloves from uniforms. She continued to fight for educational rights and retired in 1970s.
She then was awarded life time membership from MCC and was voted as one of the ‘National Treasure’ of Australia. She passed away on January 1, 2000. She was 92 at that time.
