The British Olympics Britain’S Olympic Heritage 1612–2012

Much Wenlock The British Olympics Britain’s Olympic heritage 1612–2012 Martin Polley Editor Simon Inglis The British Olympics Design by Doug Cheeseman Malavan Media is a creative © English Heritage 2011 Additional imaging by consultancy responsible Jörn Kröger for the Played in Britain English Heritage is the series government’s statutory Series editor Simon Inglis advisor on all aspects of the www.playedinbritain.co.uk historic environment Production and additional research by Jackie Spreckley Printed by Zrinski, Croatia Fire Fly Avenue and Rachel Howard Swindon SN2 2EH ISBN: 978 1 848020 58 0 www.english-heritage.org.uk Maps by Mark Fenton Product code: 51538 Much Wenlock Chapter Four By the mid 19th century Much Wenlock was an In his later writings established trading and administrative centre serving the on the origins of the needs of the surrounding agricultural community. modern Olympics, Pierre Wenlock Olympian Games British sport was in the midst of great change at de Coubertin failed to this time. While the majority of working people were mention William Penny becoming urbanised and their spare time increasingly Brookes by name. Yet constricted by the unrelenting demands of the industrial in December 1890, in f Robert Dover’s Cotswold Olimpicks were redolent So when the Shropshire Tourist Board claims that timetable, for the sons of the social elite, public schools La Revue Athlétique, he I of Merrie England, the next British Olympics to Much Wenlock is ‘the home of the modern Olympics’, it such as Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury wrote, ‘The fact that the become established, in the Shropshire town of Much is no idle boast. (twelve miles north west of Wenlock), were starting to Olympic Games, which Wenlock, from 1850 onwards, were a Victorian attempt Nor are the Wenlock Olympian Games of historic codify sports such as football, rugby and athletics. modern Greece has been to rationalise the Olympian ethos and make it a force for interest only. Following periods during the 20th century As a result of this growing regulation, sport – which in unable to restore, are being the physical, educational and moral improvement of the when they went into abeyance, they have enjoyed an the 18th century had become so tainted by its association revived today is due not to working classes. unbroken sequence since 1977, and today could be said to with gambling, hunting, animal baiting and passive a Hellene, but to Dr WP The instigator of these Wenlock Olympian Games was be as strong as ever. Partly this is owing to the strenuous spectatorship – regained at least some of the nobler Brookes.’ William Penny Brookes, a local doctor and magistrate. efforts of local volunteers, to whom we are grateful for characteristics that had been handed down from the This portrait was taken To begin with, Brookes’ Games were little more than a much of the material in this chapter. Greeks, and subsequently celebrated by the scholars and when Brookes was aged 67 well organised sports day for local inhabitants. However, But also it is owing to increased interest arising from poets of the 16th and 17th centuries. and still lobbying on behalf their reach soon extended to other parts of Shropshire, London’s successful bid to stage the 2012 Games, and ‘Rational’ recreation, as this emerging form of of the National Olympian before gradually gaining a national influence during the from the decision, in May 2010, to name one of the two sporting culture became known, had no truck with the Association. Brookes’ 1860s (as following chapters will relate). 2012 mascots ‘Wenlock’ – the other being ‘Mandeville’, kind of alcohol-fuelled, rough play that characterised biographer, Catherine Beale Most crucially of all, the Wenlock Olympian Games named after Stoke Mandeville (see Chapter Eleven). the Cotswold Olimpicks. Rather, the new puritans of the (see Links), has noted how were to have a direct and lasting impact on the values Victorian era invested in sport a whole range of improving his commitment to public and goals of Pierre de Coubertin. As we stated in the Much Wenlock qualities. From sport a boy, or man, though not yet many works started when, aged Introduction, throughout the 1880s Coubertin’s main With a current population of around 2,600, Much a girl or woman, could learn discipline, loyalty, team spirit 15, he accompanied his Cast in zinc alloy and concern had been the study and teaching of physical Wenlock – or Wenlock for short – lies 35 miles north west and fair play, all qualities that would stand them in good father, also a doctor, on coloured bronze, this is education in other countries, with a view to improving of Birmingham and five miles south of Ironbridge, the stead in their adult lives, not least should they be called to his rounds, and saw the one of the medals awarded matters in his native France. Only after his visit to Much heartland of Britain’s industrial revolution. arms in the service of the Empire. conditions in which rural at the annual games of the Wenlock in 1890 did he turn to campaigning for a modern Ironbridge may be a bigger magnet for tourists, but For these individuals, many of whom equally embraced workers lived. Wenlock Olympian Society. revival of the Olympic Games. in other respects Much Wenlock meets all the criteria the precepts of ‘muscular Christianity’, the added virtue The medal incorporates Initially Coubertin acknowledged the influence that the one would wish for in a small market town. Local of amateurism, of sport for sport’s sake, was also of improvement schemes: the surfacing of local roads, the the Society’s traditional Wenlock Games had had upon his thinking (see opposite), butchers, bookshops, tearooms and delicatessens line paramount importance. construction of a new Corn Exchange, the provision of logo, consisting of the only for him to later omit all references from the official the High Street, and there is plenty of historical interest, So it was that although certain forms of traditional a gas supply and, crucially, the construction of a railway letters WEN and a padlock IOC narrative. Fortunately, however, after lobbying by including the ruins of Wenlock Priory, which date back sport and play would survive this period and endure well line linking Much Wenlock to the neighbouring towns – a visual witticism of the British historians this omission was finally rectified to the seventh century and are now managed by English into the 20th century, it was largely the morally driven, of Wellington and Coalbrookdale, thereby opening up kind much beloved by the when, in 1994, one of Coubertin’s successors as President Heritage, a Tudor Guildhall and a town museum (below). public school ethos that set the agenda and established a routes to major centres such as Birmingham and Oxford. Victorians. of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, visited Brookes’ benchmark in British sport during the second half of the As an archetypal Victorian gentleman with interests grave and paid tribute to the doctor for his role as ‘the 19th century. Here was a cult that cut across social classes in history, geology, botany, and education, Brookes was founder of the Modern Olympic Games’. – there would be many ‘amateurs’ amongst working men also firmly committed to the improvement of people. At too – and one that was soon to be exported around the first, this philanthropic work focused on education. Thus Empire and beyond. in 1841 he established in Much Wenlock the Agricultural Reading Society, in effect a lending library, out of which William Penny Brookes grew classes in music, fine art, and natural history. For Born in Much Wenlock in 1809, William Penny Brookes is the town’s children, Brookes helped to set up a National ‘In truth, Wenlock is a happy place. I do not know whether there remembered as the town’s most eminent Victorian. School in 1847. is any other town that is so well provisioned with everything that After going to London as a young man to undergo his But improving minds was only one part of his agenda, a progressive and generous municipality can make available to its medical training, Brookes spent further spells in Paris for as a doctor he grew equally aware of how physical citizens. The moment one sets foot there, one senses the privileged and Padua. But once he returned to his home town in 1831 recreation could offer benefits too. In this, Brookes was nature of the place.’ he would live there for the rest of his life. arguably ahead of many of his contemporaries, seeing in Pierre de Coubertin In addition to his work as a doctor and as a Justice of the public school attitude towards sport a philosophy that La Revue Athlétique December 25 1890 the Peace, Brookes threw himself into a succession of could equally help other sectors of society. 38 Played in London Played in London 39 London 1908 Barely noticed on the wall of a house called Old Rowlands, on the east side of High Street, Eton, by Barnes Pool Bridge, this distance marker – the first of 25 as shown on the route map – is the only tangible reminder of the route taken on Friday July 24 by the 1908 marathon, one of the most celebrated Olympic races of all time. Alas not one of the other 24 distance markers has survived, either in situ or, seemingly, in any collection. As can be seen, on both the distance marker and on the route map there appears a diamond-shaped emblem. This was the symbol of the Polytechnic Harriers, an athletics club established in 1883 by students at the Royal Polytechnic Institute on Regent Street.

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