Beatrice Hill-Lowe

Although she had been competing as an archer at the highest level since the late 1890s, Irish-born Beatrice Hill-Lowe reached her best form in the years leading up to the 1908 London Olympics.

Hill-Lowe won the 1897 Crystal Palace meeting, and then won the first gross score prize at that year’s Grand National Meeting. She won the same prize at the 1899 Northern Championships and followed that with a third best score at the 1902 Grand National Meeting. At the 1906 meeting, she won the coveted Silver Challenge Belt for the most hits, and also had the second highest score behind the winner Alice Legh.

Legh did not compete in the London Olympics, preferring to concentrate on winning another national title instead. Her omission probably paved the way for Hill-Lowe to capture the bronze medal in the Double National Round at White City behind Quennie Newall and Lottie Dod, and therefore had the honour of becoming the first Irish woman to win an Olympic medal. Legh subsequently justified not taking part in the Olympics by winning her seventh consecutive UK title at Oxford the following week, with Hill-Lowe finishing third.

Hill-Lowe was the youngest of five daughters and three sons of William Ruxton, a Irish landowner, local magistrate, and deputy-lieutenant. She moved to South Wales in her infancy and spent a large part of her life in that area. She married Royal Navy commander Arthur Hill-Lowe in 1891. He too was a fine archer and the pair competed together in the Grand National Archery Meeting at the turn of the 20th century. Arthur died in 1910, by which time Beatrice had given up competitive archery. The following year Beatrice married lieutenant-colonel Wycliffe Thompson.