Marjory Gosset (27 May 1879 – 12 December 1965) was a noted hockey player in the early years of the 20th century.

Birth and education

Marjory Surtees Gosset was the third daughter and youngest child of James Surtees Phillpotts and Marian Hadfield Phillpotts née Cordery. Her siblings included the Icelandic scholar Bertha Surtees Phillpotts and

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

hero Brian Surtees Phillpotts. She grew up at

Bedford School Bedford School is a 7–18 Single-sex education, boys Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the county town of Bedford in England. Founded in 1552, it is the oldest of four independent schools in Bedford run by the Harpur Trust. Bed ...

where her father was headmaster, but was educated at home, to a large extent by her mother.

Sporting career

Marjory Phillpotts (as she then was) started playing hockey at Bedford in 1896. At that time the standard hockey stick had a rounded face rather than a flat one and the ball had a covering of tightly wound string.''Prominent Lady Hockey Players and Officials'' in ''The Sports Mail'', London, 22 February 1930 In 1899 she joined Bedford Hockey Club and began her sporting career. She played for the Midlands from 1899 to 1903 and for England from 1900 to 1903. In 1903 she captained the

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

team against

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. As a hockey player in 1897 There was then a gap in her career while she married the industrial statistician

William Sealy Gosset William Sealy Gosset (13 June 1876 – 16 October 1937) was an English statistician, chemist and brewer who worked for Guinness. In statistics, he pioneered small sample experimental design. Gosset published under the pen name Student and develo ...

and moved to

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

where her husband and also her brother Geoffrey were employed at

Guinness brewery St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is ...

.''A Phillpotts Scrapbook'', Roger Gwynn (editor), 2018 in 1910 Mrs Gosset resumed her hockey career. She was selected for Leinster in that year, and also for Ireland. She played for Ireland in 1910, 1912, 1913 and 1914 and captained the team in the last two of those years. She was in fact unusual, if not unique, in having captained the national teams of both England and Ireland at different times in her career. After another gap of nine years Mrs Gosset joined the Optimists Hockey Club, for which she played until the early 1930s, by which time she was over fifty years old. In addition to her playing career Marjory was a selector for the Leinster Hockey Association and Ireland and honorary secretary for the Umpires Association. She also served the

Girl Guides Girl Guides (or Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) are organisations within the Scout Movement originally and largely still for girls and women only. The Girl Guides began in 1910 with the formation of Girlguiding, The ...

movement as a commissioner and in other roles.

Family

Marjory Gosset had three children. The eldest, Harry Gosset (1907–1965) was a consultant paediatrician; the second, Bertha Marian Gosset (1909–2004) was a geographer and worked for some time as a nurse; the youngest, Ruth Gosset (1911–1953) married the Oxford mathematician Douglas Roaf and had five children, Dermot, Brigid, Rachel, Jane and

Michael Roaf Michael Douglas Roaf (born 20 May 1947) is a British archaeologist specialising in ancient Iranian studies and Assyriology. Roaf studied the archaeology of Western Asia at University College London, and wrote his doctoral thesis, ''Sculptures ...

Later years

Marjory Gosset remained vigorous and active until after her mid-eighties, outliving two of her children. She died in Oxford in 1965.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gosset, Marjory 1879 births 1965 deaths English female field hockey players Irish female field hockey players Ireland international women's field hockey players Irish women referees and umpires Women field hockey umpires Sportspeople from Bedfordshire Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting

Marjory Marjory is a female given name, a variant spelling of Margery or Marjorie Marjorie is a female given name derived from Margaret (name), Margaret, which means pearl. It can also be spelled as Margery (name), Margery, Marjory or Margaery. Marjorie ...