Christiana Willes — The Sister Who Bowled Roundarm in the Garden, 1810s

Women's cricket in southern England had been continuous since at least the 1740s. The Willes family at Tonford were typical of the small Kent gentry who played mixed cricket on private grounds. Christiana was unusual mainly in the technical influence she had on her elder brother's professional cricket.

John Willes's first attempts at roundarm in senior cricket came around 1806-07; he was already adept at the action when he tried to introduce it. The technical work — the higher arm, the more pronounced shoulder rotation — was done in the years before that, in the family barn at Tonford with Christiana as a regular bowling partner.

Christiana Willes was baptised on 20 February 1786 at Headcorn, Kent, the daughter of William Willes and Sarah Snelling. The family inherited the manor of Tonford near Canterbury in 1794. She and her elder brother John (born 1778) grew up playing cricket together; the family barn at Tonford was a winter practice space that allowed both bowling and batting. Christiana, like several early-nineteenth-century gentlewomen of cricketing families, was a competent player. Her son Edward Hodges, in a 1907 article, recorded that she had thrown the ball to John in the barn, with an action higher than the underarm legal at the time, because the throw was easier and more controllable in confined space. Hodges's account mentioned neither crinolines nor any wardrobe difficulty; the popular story that Christiana bowled roundarm because her skirts prevented underarm has been traced to a later writer. What Hodges did report — and what Haygarth had recorded earlier — was that John picked up the action from his sister and adopted it in matches, where it proved highly effective. Christiana married a man named Hodges and lived to 1873, dying in her 87th year. She is now formally credited in MCC and Wisden histories as a foundational figure in the development of roundarm bowling.

“It was my mother's skill in throwing the ball to him for practice in the barn at Tonford.”

John Willes left senior cricket in 1822. Christiana married, raised a family and lived quietly at Tonford for the rest of her life. Roundarm was legalised in 1828 and overarm in 1864 — both reforms tracing back to the technical work the Willes siblings had done in the family barn.