In 1832 the Olympics moved to London where they competed for attention with the Great Reform Bill of that year! This was due to the enterprise of another ‘Baron’. This was ‘Baron’ de Berenger. Born plain Charles Random in the late 18th century, he worked in a humble capacity at a London printing company but then had the good fortune to meet and marry a German widow who styled herself Baroness de Berenger, a title which the new husband assumed, further embellishing it with the style ‘Charles Random de Berenger de Beaufain’. A spell in jail for a fraud which involved convincing a number of influential people that Napoleon had died in 1814, a year before Waterloo, did not prevent him from acquiring enough money to buy Cremorne House in the then rural area of London known as Chelsea where he proceeded to construct a number of facilities for sport including riding, shooting and swimming. He wrote books on self-defence which he called ‘defensive gymnastics’ and called his new facility ‘Chelsea Stadium’, its motto being ‘Volenti nihil difficile’ (Nothing is difficult for him who has will). The book was dismissed by one reviewer as ‘claptrap’ but sold well. There is no record of what happened at the 1832 ‘Olympic’ event but the Baron was sufficiently encouraged to repeat it six years later.
In 1838 the Baron wrote to a journal called Bell’s Life: ‘Permit me to announce directly what to most patrons of the Stadium has been known long since, that I am organizing trials of skill on a grand scale in rifle-shooting, archery, carousel riding, fencing, pistol shooting, gymnastics, sailing, rowing, cricket etc. to commemorate Her Majesty’s [i.e. Queen Victoria’s] coronation and rewarding the victors with suitable prizes. Accordingly an entire week will be devoted to daily public contests to be called “The Stadium’s first Olympic Week”.’ Further details of contests, competitors and prizes are not known but we must hope that the ‘suitable prizes’ would not have been incompatible with the amateur ethos which later came to prevail in the Modern Olympics.
THE FIRST MODERN OLYMPIAN:
WILLIAM PENNY BROOKES AND MUCH WENLOCK
The First PE Teacher?
William Penny Brookes and the Much Wenlock Olympics
If Thomas Arnold was the inspiration, a Shropshire country doctor was the example. William Penny Brookes (1809–95) was born in the small market town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire, to a local doctor and his wife. Their house is still a landmark in the town. William Brookes studied medicine in Paris before taking over his father’s practice in 1831 and in 1841 he founded the Much Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society, an early lending library whose aim was to encourage young people to spend their spare time fruitfully by reading and studying. Many such organizations were founded at this time but in 1850 Brookes also founded the ‘Wenlock Olympian Class’ to ‘promote the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Wenlock and especially of the Working Classes, by the encouragement of outdoor recreation’. The Wenlock Games, first held in October 1850, soon came to include cricket, football, high and long jump, running, hopping races (for under sevens), quoits, chasing the pig, putting the stone and a wheelbarrow race, each event attracting small money prizes. This was soon joined by a race called ‘The Old Women’s Race for a Pound of Tea’ and a handwriting competition for under-sevens. The Shrewsbury Chronicle commented approvingly that Brookes’ games would be a ‘moral armour against the temptations of blacklegs, thimble-riggers [swindlers] etc.’ The games soon became very well known and were copied elsewhere. Liverpool began to host Grand Olympic Festivals in 1862, Birmingham in 1867 and Morpeth in Northumberland held its first ‘Morpeth Olympic Games’ in 1870. Much Wenlock, however, was the dominant force and drew competitors from London, Liverpool and from the German Gymnastic Society in London, as well as 4,000 spectators. Brookes invented the term ‘Physical Education’ to emphasize that sports had a role in education as well as entertainment and began the practice of awarding a laurel wreath and a medal with an image of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, thus beginning the custom of awarding medals to victors.
William Penny Brookes
The country doctor foresaw that the Wenlock Games could occupy a national or international stage and in 1859 he was contacted by a number of prominent Greeks living in England, including the Greek ambassador, who were trying to organize Olympic Games in Athens. Brookes sent £10 as prize money and pursued a long correspondence with his Greek contacts to promote the revival of the Ancient Games though at this stage only Greeks could compete in the Athens games, as in the Ancient Olympics. In 1866 Brookes, together with John Hulley of the Liverpool Olympian Association and Ernest Ravenstein of the German Gymnastic Society in London, formed the National Olympian Association and organized the ‘National Olympic Games’ at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, South London. The 440 yards hurdles was won by 18-year-old W.G. Grace who later, after becoming a doctor, became rather well known as a cricketer and who on this occasion abandoned a match for Gloucestershire against Surrey at The Oval in order to compete. In 1877 the ‘National Olympian Games’ was organized by Brookes in Shrewsbury and King George I of Greece returned the earlier compliment by presenting a silver cup as a trophy. It was inscribed:
George I, King of the Hellenes
For the man who won the Pentathlon
at the Modern Olympics of the British
at Shrewsbury in August, 1877
The silver cup is in the Much Wenlock Museum. In return an oak tree was planted at Much Wenlock in honour of the king. The tree still thrives and bears a plaque describing its origins. Brookes lobbied the Greek king, the prime minister and the London ambassador with his proposals for reviving the Olympic Games in Greece but his enthusiasm greatly exceeded that of the Greeks. The long-suffering ambassador, accustomed to the annual avalanche of letters from Brookes on the subject, fended him off with the explanation that the political and financial condition of Greece would not allow it.
In 1889 Pierre de Coubertin appealed through English newspapers for help in reviving the Olympic Games. Dr Brookes contacted him and invited de Coubertin to a meeting of the Wenlock Games in October 1890. He also drew the baron’s attention to the relentless campaign that he had been running for years to inspire the Greeks to stage a revival of the games, passing on his correspondence to the younger man who, at 27, was 54 years younger. De Coubertin returned to France inspired by what he had seen, accompanied by a welcoming banner which had been created in his honour. He wrote in La Revue Athletique (which he had just founded, modelled on the English magazine The Athlete): ‘If the Olympic Games that Modern Greece has not yet been able to revive still survive today it is due not to a Greek but to Dr W.P. Brookes.’ Dr Brookes’ poor health meant that he was unable to accept an invitation to attend the first meeting of the 1894 Olympic Congress and died four months before the first Modern Olympics in Athens in April 1896. However, de Coubertin was generous in acknowledging his debt to Brookes and in 1994 the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, visited Much Wenlock and laid a wreath on the doctor’s grave, stating: ‘I came to pay tribute and homage to Dr Brookes who really was the founder of the Modern Olympic Games’. William Penny Brookes is remembered by an excellent comprehensive school which bears his name in Much Wenlock. The school hosts some of the events still organized each year by the Wenlock Olympian Society.
Managing the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains the supreme governing body for the Olympic movement and has over 100 delegates including a number of ‘honorary’ members such as Henry Kissinger whose connection with sport is not entirely clear. It is best thought of as the Olympic Parliament. It chooses the