Marea Hartman

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Marea Hartman, Cheam, south London, February 1988

Dame Gladys Marea Hartman

DBE
(22 June 1920 – 29 August 1994) was a British athletics sports administrator. She was one of the longest-serving and most influential sports administrators in 20th century British athletics.

Marea Hartman is credited with the post-World War II integration of British women athletes into full competition and parity with that of their male counterparts.

Amateur Athletic Association
of England, from 1991 to 1994.

Early life

Hartman was born in Clapham in London. Her father was Swiss and had left Switzerland to work in London where he found a position as a caterer.[2] Marea possessed natural ability as a runner and in the early 1930s as a member of Spartan Ladies Athletic Club she was representing her club and her county of Surrey. She left home at an early age lodging in Clapham in south London and working for the paper manufacturers Bowater as a human resources officer devoting her non-work time to women's athletics. Any chances that Hartman would become an International athlete were ended by the onset of war during which conflict she served in the Welfare Division based in London.[2]

Eminent sports administrator

Hartman was one of the few women, along with Dorothy Nelson Neal and Vera Searle, who reached senior positions in the male-dominated world of post-war British athletics. She started off in 1945 as Hon. Treasurer of Spartan Ladies and early in 1950, aged 29, she was elected Hon. Treasurer of the national governing body, the Women's AAA.

She was appointed team manager of the British women's team for the

Melbourne Olympic Games of 1956, holding this position until 1978, a period that encompassed five Olympic Games and a host of other important meetings including the European championships and the Commonwealth Games. In the 1950s female athletics had little or no media profile, and it is to Hartman's credit that she was able to secure sponsorship deals with a number of manufacturers of well-known brands, including Unilever products Bovril and Sunsilk.[1]

Hartman was insistent on equality for women athletes, arguing for their participation in a range of events that had previously been denied to them, and she successfully navigated the sometimes reactionary world of British amateur athletics with skill and sociability. In latter years some athletes saw her as a conservative figure, and in the late 1970s she and fellow sports administrator Arthur Gold were the subject of some fierce criticism from sections of the press primed by elements within British athletics.[3]

It was essentially the new guard versus the old, with Hartman seen by some as part of the reactionary old guard.[4][note 1]

Pierre de Coubertin's spirit of participation was a principle in which Hartman believed (she was never a paid official, carrying out her functions within the sport in an honorary capacity without remuneration), but once she realised that professionalism was not going away, she argued for equality for women athletes in the professional era. In her younger years she was well suited to her role as Team Manager, where she often had to reassure nervously strung international athletes. She was closely associated with the historic triumphs of Mary Rand and Ann Packer at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. After Lillian Board, the 400-metre silver medalist at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Hartman was with Board in Munich shortly before she died in 1970. Hartman was instrumental in the setting up a memorial trophy, the Lillian Board Trophy, awarded each year for outstanding fundraising for cancer.[citation needed]

Hartman was selected Chairwoman of the Women's Commission of the

British Athletics Federation.[citation needed
]

She never married or had children.[5] Actor Douglas Fielding was her nephew.

Honours

She was appointed

Prince Chichibu Award for her impact on women's athletics in Japan.[8]

She was promoted to

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1994 New Year Honours, "for services to Sport, particularly Athletics";[9] she died eight months later from undisclosed causes.[citation needed
]

Positions held

Her official positions included:

  • Hon Treasurer, Women's Amateur Athletics Association (AAA), 1950–60
  • Hon Secretary, Women's AAA, 1960–91; Vice-Chairman 1980–91
  • Team Manager English and British Women's Athletics Teams, 1956–79
  • Member, Women's Commission of IAAF 1958 – 94, Chairwoman, 1968–81
  • Hon Treasurer, British Amateur Athletics Board, 1972–84, Chairwoman 1989–91
  • President Amateur Athletic Association of England, 1991–94
  • President of the British Athletics Federation, 1991–94

Cultural references

References

  1. ^
    Sir Arthur Gold
    :
  2. ^ a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  3. ^ Obituary of Arthur Gold: The Independent 27 May 2002
  4. ^ A Brief History of Handicaps- Tom McNab England Athletics East Region Coaching Journal Vol One
  5. ^ Dame Marea Hartman obituary, Independent Newspaper, London, 31 August 1994.
  6. ^ United Kingdom list: "No. 43854". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1965. p. 17.
  7. ^ UK listing: "No. 47418". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1977. p. 8.
  8. ^ The Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography, Jennifer S. Uglow, Maggy Hendry, McMillian Press 4th edition (UK), (1994)
  9. ^ United Kingdom list: "No. 53527". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 31 December 1993. p. 8.

Notes

  1. ^ Tom McNab, a contemporary coach refers to the old guard as the 'Blazerati' A Brief History of Handicaps- Tom McNab England Athletics East Region Coaching Journal, volume 1.
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