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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 venues for Summer and Winter Games and elects the Executive Board (the ‘cabinet’) of 15 members which manages the day-to-day affairs of the Olympic movement. Each Olympic Games is organized by an Olympic Games Organizing Committee which in the case of London consists of 18 people. Chaired by Lord Sebastian Coe its members include the Olympic gold medallist Jonathan Edwards, Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s and HRH the Princess Royal – herself a former Olympic competitor and member of the IOC.

Henry Kissinger is not the only member of the IOC whose sporting achievements are well concealed. They included the French aristocrat Paul Louis Marie Archambaud de Talleyrand-Périgord, duc de Valençay (1867–1952), a descendant of the noble whose diplomatic skills enabled him to serve (and survive) the regimes of Louis XVI, Robespierre, Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Louis-Philippe. He became a member of the IOC in 1899. On his mother’s side he was descended from the even more exalted Montmorency family. However, Talleyrand is positively common compared with Franz Josef Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, better known as Otto von Habsburg who was born in 1912, third in line to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and died in 2011, aged 98, having been elected to the European Parliament in 1979 and having become its longest-serving member. He became a member of the IOC in 1936 and in 1949 was joined by Prince Rainier of Monaco. Sepp Blatter, who has spent time in the news as the somewhat beleaguered President of FIFA, is also a member.