Brenda Wadworth

Brenda Wadworth took up archery in her teens but never emulated the success of her mother Jessie. The pair competed together in the Herefordshire team at the 1907 Grand National Meeting at York, and the following year they both took part in the Double National Round at the London Olympics. Brenda finished ninth while Jessie came close to a medal in fourth place.

Brenda endured the tragic loss of her sister Alice who was killed after falling from her horse while returning with her mother from a local Hunt in 1901. The accident happened just two days before Alice’s 17th birthday. Brenda suffered further tragedy in September 1914 when her husband Gerald Lea, the son of a County Court Judge, was killed in action on the Western Front in France while serving with the Worcestershire Regiment. They had been married just two years and his death was even more tragic because Brenda was carrying their first child Marigold at the time. She was born just six weeks later. Brenda re-married in 1920, and her second husband Robert Baily, a Sudanese Civil Servant, outlived her