Elsie Isabel Banër : 20th century Australian croquet champion / Sue Summers

This book is a contribution towards valuing female sporting champions. The focus is upon Elsie Isabel Barnër, a widely celebrated Australian croquet champion from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. The trajectory of Elsie's career is based upon her rich collection of formal and informal correspondence, newsletter and newspaper cuttings, original photographs, awards, trophies, cups and medals that collectively provide a wealth of information about the evolution of croquet in 20th century Australia. This rich resource - now held as a collection by Museum Victoria - has been supplemented by available literature and hundreds of newspaper articles that featured Elsie during her three-decades croquet career. An account of Elsie's sporting career would be insufficient without a record of Elsie the person, her family background, and her various roles over a lifespan of eighty-three years. It is this additional information that will be of particular interest to close and distant family members and to those institutions that value a record of the whole person, rather than a focus on the public persona alone.