As part of our researcher spotlight series, we highlight individual researchers and their work in more detail.
Our current Featured Researcher is Eleanor Dawson (she/her)
The title of her thesis is: Women, Sport and the Visual in Scottish Sport History, 1840-1940: Regaining Insights from Scottish Heritage Collections
HEI: Glasgow Caledonian University, SGSAH DTP funded.
Supervisors: Professor Fiona Skillen (GCU), Professor Richard Haynes (University of Stirling), Imogen Gibbon (Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Portraiture, National Galleries Scotland) and Rachel Beattie (Curator of Manuscripts and Archives, National Library Scotland)
Below, Eleanor gives a synopsis of her thesis and reflects on her research, her experiences as a doctoral researcher, and the lessons she has learned during this time.
About Eleanor’s Research:
My SGSAH funded PhD research began in October 2025 as a collaborative project stimulated by the conversations from sports historians and curators based in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Stirling. Using the rich collections of National Galleries Scotland and National Library Scotland, my research investigates the visual representations of women in sport in Scotland between 1840-1940, of which there currently exists no formal timeline in the historical narrative.
Figure 1: Women’s Charity Football Match, Edinburgh, 1930s, NGS Accession number: MMK.00855
The field of sports history has been dominated by men’s experiences. As such, the history of women’s sport has been under-researched, partly due to a perceived lack of source material. When reducing the scope from British sports history to a Scotland context, the disparity of women’s representation only increases (with exceptions to limited time periods of specific activities). This is in despite of sport being a significant pillar of Scottish culture and political discourse, as well as women’s participation and media representation today being more prominent than ever.
I am conducting a visual analysis of how women were depicted both by others and themselves while participating in a range of sports. Integrating a variety of mediums from paintings and drawings to photographs and moving image will also allow me to trace the impact of technological changes over my time-period to the methods and purposes behind the documentation of women’s sporting experiences, and how they have come to be preserved in these national collections.
Figure 2: Rachel Beattie and Eleanor Dawson pictured in the 2025 NLS Researcher Report with some collection material, including a scrapbook of photos belonging to 1920s mountaineering women and a watercolour sketchbook depicting Victorian women yachting.
I will be starting the first of four placements with both my partnered institutions in September 2026 to immerse myself in the collections, support the cataloguing of material, and develop some outreach and exhibition work. To both approach the source material, and respond accordingly to the findings, I am intending to redefine ‘Sport’ for the specific needs of my project. Traditionally ‘Sport’ has been limited to a male-centric framework that excludes women from representation and research methods. Therefore, my research will both reform the presence of women within the existing narrative, as well as offer a space to transform the perspective of sport in the first place, making the knowledge we build more inclusive and democratic.
Figure 3: Illustration of women doing archery, by Scottish painter Jemima Blackburn, dated 1840s. NGS accession number: D5359
Figure 4: Image of woman diving from Henry Kirby’s Sketchbook, 1867-1910. NLS Accession number: 12786/1-6
In taking a gendered history approach, my research wishes to assert that women should not be treated as a homogenous group in sporting history, and the diversity of their experiences should be highlighted both as strongly as men’s and validated within their own unique parameters. A large element of this will include challenging myths that have been perpetually taken as fact, which affects modern-day beliefs about the extent and nature of women’s sporting participation, in turn contributing to some negative real-world consequences. Part of this will involve widening the variety of leisure activities that can be classified as ‘sports’ to better reflect women’s histories and get the most out of the material discovered in the galleries and library archives.
The research will support partners by raising the profile and interpretation of their sports collections, encouraging further research and outreach activities related to women’s sport. Combining interdisciplinary approaches to sports history through visual culture and a feminist lens, this will hold wider resonance in the fields of art history, gender history and Scottish cultural history.
Figure 5: Photograph of unidentified golfer, 1900. NGS Accession number: MMK.00834
What sparked your interest in this subject?
My academic and professional background has been in studying historical popular culture and the engagement with this material by museums to increase and diversify participation. After years of working in a range of heritage institutions, I was weeks from leaving my job in the Curatorial team at Manchester United Football Club’s museum when I saw this project advertised. Having just launched the club’s first ever exhibition uncovering the women’s team history, this topic felt tailor-made for me.
When speaking to people about my research I am inevitably asked the question “What sports do you play yourself?”. They tend to be shocked to learn I am not remotely sporty nor competitive. In fact as a young girl I developed an active dislike towards ‘sports’ more generally, but I never questioned why. This only changed in 2019 when I moved to a new city for university to study my history degree. As a connection to the community, culture and identity of my hometown, I found myself drawn to support my local football team and was hooked- I finally ‘got it’. Ever since, sport for me has been redefined as a major part of my life in the most unexpected ways.
This personal anecdote leads me to a fundamental question fueling my research: how and why may women’s experiences and meanings of sport be different to men’s? And why are some experiences legitimized more than others?
As a female football fan and someone who has worked in sports businesses first-hand, I am disheartened yet intrigued by the double standards and marginalization that women experience in the sporting world. Whether I’m at the pub, post office or petrol station, if it comes up in conversation, I am still regularly quizzed even now as a doctoral researcher of sports history on the strength of my knowledge. I find it fascinating how important and intrinsic sport is to all walks of life in society, the emotional and cultural platform it is placed upon, and the power which this holds.
Firstly, I thought this project was a fantastic chance to work with two incredible collections of national significance. Additionally, I think supporting the production of a historical timeline which does not yet exist is not only an honour to be a part of, but the real-world implications of work such as this presents an incredible opportunity that is becoming more relevant every day. In doing so, I hope that by enriching the foundational knowledge of women’s sporting history, I will help mold discussions that women not only deserve to be in these spaces, but have always been involved even if by standards considered unconventional. Therefore, maybe it is the patriarchal framework of sport itself that needs to be further challenged to validate the broader relationship that women have with sport.
What’s the most surprising thing your research has taught you about your subject?
Despite working in sports history environments, I had no prior concept over the sheer extent and diversity of women’s participation in sport prior to the inter-war years myself. After establishing my aims and objectives, I realized the first step of what I want to achieve requires me getting completely ‘up to speed’ with a topic that has been restricted from the public domain, and one in which I thought I knew a lot more about than I realistically did. It is only through this self-reflection that I’ve realized where society’s limitations are today in being educated on women in sport and the lack of critical assessment happening daily on platforms with international influence that perpetuate the problem. It’s made me question quite deeply why and how this information is not readily available, even for those interested in the topic, and what actions I can do through my research and outreach to circumvent this.
What’s the most surprising thing your research has taught you about yourself?
A lot of the questions and ideas that my research has brought up began to stir in my mind a few years ago whilst I was working in other sporting heritage collections. However, it’s only with the freedom of time and opportunity to read about the themes so in depth that this SGSAH PhD has provided me, wherein I’ve been able to reflect and conceptualize my own feelings, thoughts and experiences. It has allowed me to reassess my own situations and formulate stronger opinions through a framework which I didn’t necessarily have prior. I’ve also learnt that I’m even less patient (and unapologetically so) with throwaway comments in the pub about women’s sport than I was before- which is really saying something!
CONNECT WITH Eleanor
Email: Eleanor Dawson