The Minnie Seed Story

01/03/2021  -  1.00

James Dutton

I had always been aware that Minnie Seed was the youngest of the Seed siblings because of a Seed family photo that had pride of place in a family album; but that was literally all I knew about her. Taken around the turn of the century it shows all ten siblings with their parents, dressed up in their finest. She was my mother's aunty, and passed away before I was born, so of course I never had the chance to meet her.

Seed Family Photograph (Author’s Photo)

In 2015, shortly after my mother died, I received a message out of the blue on Twitter saying that Minnie had been a Munitionette footballer during the First World War, and that is when the investigations began. None of the surviving family seemed to know anything about it, and even my mum's old best friend Jean Montgomerie who remembered one of Jimmy's sisters being a footballer thought it had been Maggie, rather than Minnie. 

However, I was lucky enough to be helped at an early stage by Patrick Brennan, owner of the Donmouth website, a real treasure trove of information about the Munitionettes, who sent me a database of all the matches Minnie is known to have played in. Patrick’s The Munitionettes: A History of Women's Football in North East England During the Great War is highly recommended.

But while statistical information was very helpful, in a way it only heightened my need to find out more about Minnie the person, a process that continues to this day. I'm cautiously optimistic that more information will yet come to light from descendants of the extended Seed family with whom I've recently made contact, but here's what I've discovered so far. 

The youngest of the ten Seed siblings, Minnie Mary Jane Seed was born in March 1897 in Marsden, just north of Whitburn on the north east coast. During World War One, it seems she joined the many women volunteering to work in factories making military equipment and armaments for the war effort. In press reports of her early matches for various regional sides she is listed as 'Minnie Seed (Gosforth Aviation)', so she must have worked for the aircraft manufacturer based in the outskirts of Newcastle.

Back home the Munitionette football phenomenon had begun when the newly recruited factory girls started having kickabouts during their lunchbreaks, to let off steam. Deemed to be good for the health and wellbeing of the girls these kickabouts were encouraged by management and gradually, as the girls improved their skills, works teams were formed and regular inter-company matches were organised. These evolved into the regional matches that really began to capture the imagination of the public.

Up to this point, she had played only in low-key works games, but was due to step up a level with her first appearance in a representative side. As it turns out this 20 October 1917 Munitionette's Cup first round tie between her 'Aviation Girls' and Blyth Spartans was cancelled at the last minute because the organisers found the military, not yet aware of the upsides of the women's game, unwilling to sanction it. But Minnie's selection suggests she was well thought of in the women's game, as she was selected from several works teams to represent all the Munitionettes working in aviation in the region.

Her breakthrough was cemented when in February, she was twice selected to represent 'Tyneside Munitionettes' against 'Teesside Munitionettes'. She qualified to play for the Geordie girls despite growing up in Whitburn (Mackem territory) by dint of the fact that Gosforth Aviation was a Tyneside company. Alongside Minnie in both fixtures was one of the legends of women's football, Blyth Spartans’ Bella Reay. 

Next up were appearances for Durham, Wearside Munitionettes and Blyth Spartans Munition Ladies, where Minnie teamed up again with Bella Reay. Held at St James' Park, the match raised funds for the Alnwick branch of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Soldiers and Sailors.

June saw Minnie turning out for 'Walker Naval Yard', and in her next few regional matches, including three for 'North of England' she was listed as Minnie Seed (Armstrong's Naval Yard) or (Naval Yard). Whether Minnie was now working in the shipbuilding industry, or was merely poached by their football team, isn't clear, but both Walker Naval Yard and Gosforth Aviation were Armstrong owned, so either is possible. The practice of poaching players was quite common amongst the more ambitious clubs, with Palmers and Dick, Kerr Ladies in particular taking advantage of the practice, though an Armstrong employee they might claim Minnie was 'one of theirs' whichever side she played for.

Bella Reay featured in several of these games, sometimes as a teammate but quite often as an opponent, scoring all three goals for Blyth Spartans in a 3-0 defeat of Walker Naval Yard followed by both goals in a 2-0 win against Minnie's North of England. A local newspaper covered the match: 

'The game got off to a sensational start, Bella Reay charging through on her own and scoring within the first few seconds with a well-hit drive. The stunned North of England team rallied and worked hard through the remainder of the first half to get an equaliser, but several promising runs by Minnie Seed, the Sunderland international, failed due to her holding on to the ball too long.'

Out of the 30 matches that Minnie is known to have played in, Bella Reay featured in 20, 13 of those as a teammate.  

Many, if not all of these representative matches were charity fundraisers and they proved extremely popular both with spectators and with a Press searching for good news stories to lighten the Great War gloom. The higher profile regional fixtures were played at some of the biggest football league grounds in the country and large sums of money were raised for various disabled servicemen charities.

But it is clear that much of the initial public interest was based on novelty value and perhaps, for some, the prurient value of watching relatively scantily clad ladies charging around a muddy football pitch. And yes, some may have turned up to laugh at their efforts, but unquestionably the standard of football on display though initially poor, improved exponentially with time, as reflected in press articles of the era. Rather than drifting away, as they might have done had this been merely a curiosity, the crowds actually grew as the product on show improved and new stars were created.

Victorian values were still very prevalent in society, with many men feeling it was unseemly for women to be exposing their 'vulnerable' bodies to such arduous physical exertions, even some doctors believing that it was likely to damage their reproductive organs, and affect their fertility, with much debate in the Press at the time. 

Families were often divided over the issue with Molly Walker of Dick, Kerr Ladies being 'treated as an outcast by her boyfriend's family because of their disapproval of her wearing shorts and showing her legs'. [From In A League Of Their Own by Gail J Newsham]. In some of the earlier matches it was not unheard of for the women to receive catcalls, and even more extreme verbal abuse. On one occasion there was even a pitch invasion and the women had to take refuge in their team bus after some of them were harassed and jostled by the encroaching crowd. So, it isn't a given than the rest of the family saw eye to eye with Minnie over the issue of women's football.

Whether the Seeds approved of her footballing exploits or not Minnie was raising funds for charities that helped cater to the needs of injured soldiers like her brother Jimmy Seed, who was gassed twice while serving with the Leeds Rifles. Minnie even played a couple of times for the famous Dick, Kerr Ladies who raised an estimated £10 million (in today's money) for various war related charities. At some of the matches these war wounded were welcomed as special guests and excused the entry fee.

In July 1918, Minnie was selected to represent the North of England against the West of Scotland alongside Bella Reay and another women's soccer legend, 14-year-old Mary Lyons, resulting in a 3-2 win for the English side. This match is now considered by some authorities to be the second ever England women's international. According to a local press report from the time: 

'Women's football had moved on from the days when crowds came to laugh at their efforts, and the game was described as "one of the best of its kind seen at Newcastle... the football was fairly fast and some really clever work was witnessed." The Scottish players in particular approached the game in a robust fashion, and one of their number had to be spoken to by the referee.’

Minnie played in three more notable matches. The first of these was her seven September appearance for a Durham select XI against a Northumberland team that included Bella Reay. Played at the Rockcliffe Ground, Monkseaton, in aid of the local branch of the Comrades of the Great War, the Durham girls ran out winners by three goals to nil.

This contest was followed by what is now considered by some authorities to be the third women's international, a 5-2 victory over Ireland featuring a Mary Lyons hat-trick. The 21 September 1918 edition of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle certainly bills it as a 'Ladies International match'. It was held at St James' Park in front of a disappointing 2,000 spectators, raising just £60 for the Lord Mayor's Relief Fund. The poor turnout may have been the result of the Spanish flu epidemic that was sweeping through the country at the time.

Pandemic or no pandemic, 12 October 1918, saw a repeat of the Durham v Northumberland contest. Once again Minnie played alongside Mary Lyons for Durham and Bella Reay featured for Northumberland, but this time the tables were turned as Northumberland ran out 1-0 winners. The match in aid of the local branch of the Comrades of the Great War was held at the Rockcliffe Ground, Monkseaton.

Minnie continued to play some quite high profile matches in front of big crowds. On 2 November, she turned out in the first of three consecutive matches for the Tyneside Munitionettes on this occasion against their Teesside rivals. 

On 14 December, Brown's were despatched 4-0, and on Boxing Day the highly regarded Whitehaven side were to be the opposition and beaten 3-0

One of Minnie's most notable achievements was winning the Munitionettes Cup in March 1919. She had been poached by Palmer's who built a very strong team that featured Minnie alongside Bella Reay and Mary Lyons in the forward line. Minnie scored a goal in the semi-final 3-2 victory over 'Foster, Blackett and Wilson's' which set up their place in the final at St James' Park. Watched by 9,000 spectators the Palmers side secured the Cup with a tense 1-0 win over 'Browns'. 

Another highlight was turning out for 'Newcastle Girls' (actually made up of girls from the North and the North East) in two matches against the previously undefeated Dick, Kerr Ladies. The first, on 8 March in front of 5,000 fans at Deepdale produced a 1-0 win for Dick, Kerr Ladies and raised £179 for charity.

Newcastle Girls – Minnie is seated on the far right (Author’s Photo)

In May 1919, Minnie played at Ayresome Park for Tyneside Ladies in a 1-1 draw with Teesside Ladies, and this was followed by a derby double in which Minnie captained Sunderland against Newcastle. The first, played at Roker Park, resulted in a 4-1 win for the Geordies in front of a crowd of 10,000, raising £436 for the Haverfield Serbian Distress Fund. The return fixture in front of 9,000 at St James' Park didn't go any better for Minnie and the Mackems, the Newcastle girls triumphing 4-0. On this occasion the beneficiary was the Newcastle (Central) Division of the St John's Ambulance Brigade.

And that, sadly, is the final entry in the Minnie match database. Of course, records from the era are sketchy, so we don't know for sure if this was the end of her footballing adventures, but if this was the case, the reasons are unclear. She was only 22 and wasn't to marry until 1923. 

With men returning from war, women were 'encouraged' out of the factories and back home to roles deemed more suitable for them by the government. Even after the Representation of the People's Act had given women the vote it appeared a backlash against women's wartime emancipation was underway and women who worked, especially married women, were often frowned on. Despite the new Act of Parliament, Minnie still could not vote at this time, because she was under thirty. Men were eligible to vote at 21, although with so many men killed in the war, the differential ages produced a 50/50 gender split in the electorate.

Minnie may well have had to give up her job like many other Munitionettes at that time, and perhaps if she found new employers that may not have been so amenable to her footballing exploits.

Minnie married 'blast furnaceman' Thomas Quayle at Whitburn Parish church on Boxing Day 1923.Minnie and Thomas had one son, Thomas Anthony Quayle, born 30 December 1924 at the Quayle family home in Miles St, Eston, Middlesbrough. 

Minnie's husband Thomas, died in 1939 and she moved to Aldershot to live with her older sister Frances in York Road, on the military base. In an echo of her time in aircraft manufacturing during World War One, records list Minnie as 'Aircraft Worker (balloon)'. It's likely Frances had also moved south when she was widowed to be closer to her brother Angus, who was manager Aldershot FC at the time. 

Very sadly, the death of Minnie MJ Quayle, aged just 51, was registered in December 1948 in Barnsley. At the time of her death Minnie was listed as being a resident of the White Hart Hotel, Barnsley and she passed away at Barnsley's Beckett Hospital, leaving an estate of £150 to Thomas. There is no record of Thomas and his wife Mary having had any children, so it seems Minnie's direct line ends here. Thomas himself died in Barnsley in 1990.

Minnie Seed was just one of the many women who blazed a trail in women's football whose adventures were largely forgotten. Many of her generation, both male and female, drew a line after the war, and just wanted to put it all behind them, but in recent years there has been a real surge in interest in Munitionette football which has shed much more light on the topic; some excellent books have been written and a feature film was planned, although the current pandemic seems to have put production on hold.

But nonetheless, it does seem odd that Minnie's time as a footballer was such a mystery to the remaining family. She wasn't mentioned in Jimmy's autobiography, and in a suitcase full of Jimmy's memorabilia, including photo albums, scrapbooks and hundreds of newspaper articles, there's not a trace or mention of Minnie. You must wonder if perhaps her exploits may not have met with her family's approval at the time, or perhaps Jimmy's wartime experiences and his near exit from the game because of the effects of the gassings, made the memory of Minnie's successes something he didn't necessarily want to dwell on.

Biography

James Dutton worked in the television news industry for forty years and founded the Motion Records record label in the mid-nineties. He was born three weeks early as a result of the shock to his mother of her father, Jimmy Seed, being sacked by Charlton Athletic after 23 years with the club. He was given the middle name ‘Charlton’ as a result. 

To stay in touch with the latest on the Minnie story you can follow @Minnie_Seed on Twitter.

James Dutton, Blog Author