The women's game: a separate history.

Women's lacrosse grew up apart from the men's game, with its own rules and, until 1998 in the United States and 2008 internationally, its own governing bodies. Its dated history starts at a girls' school in Scotland in 1890. This page tells that history on its own terms and does not mix it with the men's.

St Leonards School, 1890

USA Lacrosse's magazine, in its history of the women's game published on 4 March 2026, says the first known women's lacrosse game was played at St Leonards School in Scotland in 1890. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's timeline says St Leonards claimed to be the first girls' school to play lacrosse, with house matches recorded in spring 1890. A search summary of The Courier, a Dundee newspaper whose page could not be opened, dates the first matches to 27 March 1890; that day is unconfirmed.

Who brought the game to the school?

Two accounts exist, and neither source could be read in full:

Louisa Lumsden. The school's first headmistress, from 1877 to 1882, is widely credited, according to Wikipedia, seen as a search summary, which says she saw a men's game in Canada in 1884 between a Kahnawake team and the Montreal club.
Frances Dove. A history paper published on a lacrosse club's website, also seen only as a search summary, argues that the credit to Lumsden rests on her own autobiography, written about fifty years later, and that the second headmistress, Frances Dove, may have made the decision.

The Hall of Fame says St Leonards' girls' teams moved to 12 a side in 1913, and USA Lacrosse's timeline also gives 1913 for the move to 12 players.

The game reaches the United States

USA Lacrosse says a St Leonards graduate, Caroline Gascoigne, tried to start the game at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1914, without success. The first lasting American programme was started in 1926 by Rosabelle Sinclair, also from St Leonards, at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore; the Hall of Fame gives the same year. USA Lacrosse points out that the Bryn Mawr School is a school, not a college, so the first U.S. women's programme was a school programme.

USA Lacrosse dates the change from a ground start to the standing draw to 1928. In 1931 the United States Women's Lacrosse Association (USWLA) was formed as the women's rule-making body, with Joyce Cran Barry as its first president. Its first national tournament was held in 1933 in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Baltimore beat Philadelphia 5 to 1 in the final, and a U.S. team was selected that year.

The touring teams

USA Lacrosse records the early U.S. teams' visits to England:

1935: the first U.S. women's touring team went to England and did not win a game.
1951: the touring team won 20 of its 27 games in England.
1957: the team was unbeaten, including a 7 to 7 tie with All-England.
1975: the United States beat England for the first time.

College lacrosse for women

Wikipedia dates the first women's intercollegiate game to 1941, Sweet Briar against William and Mary, but its article flags the claim as needing citations and no other source confirms it. USA Lacrosse says the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern women's college sport and run national championships, and that Title IX became law in 1972.

The NCAA says its first women's lacrosse championship was a single title game on 16 May 1982, in which Massachusetts beat Trenton State (now The College of New Jersey) 9 to 6. It was one of 13 women's sports whose first NCAA championships were held between November 1981 and March 1983. USA Lacrosse notes a record crowd of 14,423 at the 2025 NCAA Division I women's final at Gillette Stadium. More on the college game is on college lacrosse.

Rules and equipment: USA Lacrosse's dates

USA Lacrosse's timeline lists these changes in the U.S. women's game. They are the timeline's dates, not citations from a rule book, and the timeline does not always say which code made each change. Today's rules are on women's field lacrosse.

Year	Change, as USA Lacrosse lists it
1951	Square crease changed to circular
1979	Plastic sticks introduced
1983	Optional padded gloves
1987	Larger goalkeeper sticks
1993	Mouthguards mandatory
1998	Restraining lines and timeouts
2000	Substitution on the fly; offset heads
2012	Yellow cards produce player-down play; a limit of three players per side at the draw
2014	Defenders allowed in the crease
2016	ASTM standard for women's headgear published (see women's headgear)
2016	NCAA approves a 90-second possession clock for 2017

One body for the men's and women's games in the United States

USA Lacrosse says it was founded in 1998, as US Lacrosse, through the merger of eight national lacrosse organisations. Wikipedia names the USWLA among them. Its present structure is on the national bodies page.

The international women's game

USA Lacrosse says the International Federation of Women's Lacrosse Associations (IFWLA) was founded in 1972, with its first formal meeting held in London and attended by seven countries. Wikipedia's article on Margaret Boyd says instead that Boyd founded the IFWLA in Williamsburg, Virginia, in April 1972. A search summary of USA Lacrosse's Hall of Fame profile of Boyd says she started the IFWLA in 1972 and was its first president, without naming a place. The two accounts may describe a founding decision and a first formal meeting; which place counts as the founding has not been settled, and this site says only that the IFWLA was founded in 1972.

1982. USA Lacrosse says the first IFWLA World Cup was played in Nottinghamshire, England, where the United States beat Australia in overtime. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame calls it the first Senior Women's World Cup, at Nottingham, with Canada third.
1995. USA Lacrosse says the first women's under-19 world championship was held in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where Australia beat the United States 5 to 4.
2008. The IFWLA and the men's federation merged, as told on the international federations. American Indian magazine says the federation officially recognised the Haudenosaunee women's team that year; no World Lacrosse record of this was found.
2017. World Lacrosse says lacrosse made its debut at The World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, with women's field lacrosse played ten a side.
2022. World Lacrosse says Canada beat the United States 14 to 12 in the women's final at The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, Canada's first senior world-level women's gold.

The Hall of Fame's timeline adds that the first official Canadian girls' lacrosse championship was held in Toronto in 1977; it is the only source for that.

To the Olympics

Olympedia records the Olympic lacrosse tournaments of 1904 and 1908 as men only. USA Lacrosse says women's lacrosse will make its Olympic debut at Los Angeles in 2028; the decision is described on the Olympic years. The women's professional leagues are on professional leagues.

Sources