Toupie Lowther

Full name	May Lowther
Country (sports)	United Kingdom
Born	15 April 1874 London, England
Died	(1944-12-30)30 December 1944 (age 69) Pulborough, England
Turned pro	1891 (amateur tour)
Retired	1907
Singles
Career titles	12
Grand Slam singles results
Wimbledon	SF (1903,1906)

May "Toupie" Lowther (alsoToupée; 15 April 1874 – 30 December 1944) was an English tennis player and fencer, active during the late 19th century and early 20th century. During the First World War, she led an all-female English unit of ambulance drivers assisting the French Army and was awarded theCroix de Guerre.

Lowther was born in London, the daughter of Francis William Lowther, born in Italy, and Louise Beatrice de Fonblanque, born in Montreal. She was the sister ofClaude Lowther, MP for Lonsdale. Francis William was the illegitimate son of theWilliam Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale and Emilia Cresotti, an Italian opera singer.^[1] Her maternal grandfather was the historianEdward Barrington de Fonblanque. Two years before Toupie's birth, the Earl of Lonsdale died and left her father a healthy inheritance of £125,000 (equivalent to £14,097,000 in 2023). She was educated in France at the boarding school Les Ruches inAvon, Seine-et-Marne and received a bachelor's of science from theSorbonne.^[2]

Lowther was a gifted athlete.The Times described her as "a brilliant fencer and sportswoman, who could hold her own in anything that required skill and brains."^[2] She was well known as an amateur player in championship women's tennis, and during the tennis season was a regular participant in the British tournaments at Edgbaston, Beckenham, Manchester and Wimbledon as well as on the traditional European circuit. In particular she played frequently at the German Ladies Championships (held at the prestigious Bad Homburg Tennis Club) from 1896–1901 and then in Hamburg (the Eisbahn-Verein auf der Uhlenhorst).^[3]

In 1898, at Bad Homburg she lost to compatriotElsie Lane 5–7, 5–7 after a "brilliant, albeit erratic, Toupée (sic) Lowther who had abandoned her usual play in favour of an uninspired game from base line in two straight sets."^[4] In 1899 she lost a close match in an early round to Charlotte "Chatty" Cooper, (later Mrs Sterry). After leading 5–1 in the second set Toupie lost six games in a row.^[5] However Toupie was finally victorious at Bad Homburg in 1901 defeating Gladys Duddell in the final 6–0, 6–0, a victory described as the result of "patience and perseverance".^[6]

Lowther won the singles event at theBritish Covered Court Championships in 1900, 1902 and 1903.^[7][8] In 1901 she won the singles title at theGerman Championships, held that year inBad Homburg, and received her prize, a goldbrooch, fromKing Edward.^[9] Between 1900 and 1907 she made five appearances at theWimbledon Championships, playing in the singles event. Her best result was reaching the semifinals in 1903, losing in straight sets to eventual championDorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers, as well as in 1906, this time losing in three sets toCharlotte Cooper Sterry.^[10]

She was described with affection by the tennis writers of the time. The brothersReginald andLaurence Doherty invited her to write a chapter entitledLadies' Play for their book Lawn Tennis published in 1903 andGeorge Hillyard, the All England Tennis Club Secretary for many years and husband toBlanche Hillyard in his bookForty Years of First Class Tennis (1924) was glowing in his appreciation: "Here is the extraordinary case of a player whose potentialities were greater than any other English lady who ever walked onto a court, but who, unfortunately was saddled with a temperament which was so hopelessly unsuitable to lawn tennis that it reduced her play.... not one, but at least 2 classes below what her form should have been... It is no flight of imagination to say that had Miss Lowther been blessed with the temperament of a Mrs Sterry or a Mrs Lambert Chambers, she might have been as fine a player as Mlle Lenglen herself."^[11][a]

Lowther was also an outstandingfencer, a keen motorist, weightlifter and practitioner ofjujitsu.^[3] In a fencing article in the July 1899 issue ofHarmsworth Magazine she is described as "Perhaps the most clever among the younger generation of lady fencers...., who may justly be termed the champion swordswoman of the kingdom."^[13] An article inThe Herald in 1901 mentions her as the lady fencing champion of England.^[14] A lesbian, she was known as 'Brother' byRomaine Brooks, and she crossed the alps on a motorbike with her god-daughter Fabienne Lafargue De-Avilla riding pillion.^[15]

During World War I, frustrated with the lack of opportunities the British Army offered women during the war, she organised an all-female team of ambulance drivers, the Hackett-Lowther Ambulance Unit in France.^[2] The unit consisted of 20 cars and 25 to 30 women drivers and operated close to the front lines of battles inCompiègne, France and was attached to the2nd Army Corps of theFrench Third Army.^[16] She was awarded theCroix de Guerre in July 1918.^[2][17][18] Additionally she was the London president of theRelief for Belgian prisoners in Germany committee.^[19][20][21] She returned to London in August 1919 after two-and-a-half years in France.^[2]

Lowther was a close friend ofRadclyffe Hall, author ofThe Well of Loneliness^[22] and Hall drew on some of Lowther's experiences in depicting the life and character of itsprotagonist Stephen.

Toupie Lowther is depicted as a member of a secret society of bodyguards protecting the leaders of the radicalsuffragettes in the graphic novel trilogySuffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons (2015).

She was also portrayed inMurder in Montparnass, aPhryne Fisher novel byKerry Greenwood (2002).

No	Result	Year	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
1.	Win	1891	Aldeburgh Lawn Tennis Tournament	Grass	Miss Carter	6–4, 0–6, 6–4
2.	Win	1895	The Homburg Cup	Clay	S. Pollen	6–2, 6–1
1.	Loss	1896	The Homburg Cup	Clay	Elsie Lane	0–6, 2–6
2.	Loss	1898	The Homburg Cup	Clay	Elsie Lane	5–7, 5–7
3.	Win	1900	British Covered Court Championships	Wood (i)	Edith Austin	2–6, 7–5, 6–4
3.	Loss	1901	Middlesex Championships	Grass	Charlotte Cooper Sterry	3–6, 2–6
4.	Win	1901	The Homburg Cup(2)	Clay	Blanche Duddell	6–0, 6–0
5.	Win	1901	German Championships	Clay	Gladys Duddell	6–0, 6–0
6.	Win	1902	British Covered Court Championships(2)	Wood (i)	Gladys Duddell	6–3, 6–1
4.	Loss	1902	The Homburg Cup	Clay	Charlotte Cooper Sterry	2–6, 6–2, 3–6
7.	Win	1903	Monte Carlo Championships	Clay	Mildred Brooksmith	6–3, 6–1
8.	Win	1903	The Homburg Cup(3)	Clay	Clara von der Schulenburg	1–6, 6–4, 6–0
9.	Win	1903	British Covered Court Championships(3)	Wood (i)	Adine Masson	6–1, 6–0
10.	Win	1904	The Homburg Cup(4	Clay	Elsie Lane	6–2, 7–5
5.	Loss	1905	The Homburg Cup	Clay	Dorothea Douglass	3–6, 5–7
6.	Loss	1906	Baden Baden International	Clay	Dorothea Douglass	4–6, 4–6
11.	Win	1906	Cannes Championships	Clay	Antonie Kusenberg Popp[b]	6–4, 6–4
12.	Win	1906	South of France Championships	Clay	Gwendoline Eastlake-Smith	6–4, 5–7, 6–3
7.	Loss	1907	Cannes Championships	Clay	Ruth Winch	0–6, 1–6
8.	Loss	1907	Welsh Championships	Grass	May Sutton	0–6, 5–7

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• English female tennis players
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• English lesbian sportswomen
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