Millicent Hall

Millicent Hall took up fencing in 1904 at the Ealing Gymnasium before becoming a pupil of professor Felix Bertrand at Salle Bertrand in 1906. The following year she won the inaugural Ladies’ Amateur Ladies’ Foil Championship, which she retained in 1908. When she won it for a third time in 1922, she was 40-years-of-age. She married engineer Leonard Spong shortly after winning her third title and lived in Brussels for a while.

At the 1908 London Olympics, foil was not part of the programme, but was a demonstration event. Hall and fellow Britons John Jenkinson and Robert Montgomerie were three of the 22 competitors from 12 nations chosen to take part. Hall also represented England in a triangular tournament made up of ladies from France and Belgium at Paris in 1911. At the inaugural meeting of the Ladies’ Amateur Fencing Union in 1930, Millicent Spong was unanimously voted as its first president