William Penny Brookes

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William Penny Brookes, 1876

William Penny Brookes (born August 13, 1809 in Much Wenlock , Shropshire , † December 11, 1895 there ) was a British doctor , botanist and sports pioneer . Brookes founded the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games in Much Wenlock in 1850 and organized seven National Olympic Games in England between 1866 and 1883. These competitions are considered to be the forerunners of the modern Olympic Games . In the early 1890s, Brookes was in close contact with Pierre de Coubertin , the founder of the International Olympic Committee . Brookes' pioneering work in reviving the Olympics was now forgotten, but was eventually recognized by the IOC.

Early years

William Penny Brookes was born the son of a country doctor. He studied medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas' Hospital in London . During a study visit to Padua he developed his interest in medicinal herbs and botany in the local botanical garden . When Brookes' father died in 1831, he returned to his hometown of Much Wenlock and took over his father's practice.

In Much Wenlock, Brookes began to set up a herbarium that has survived to this day , which he exhibited in a specially built museum in 1843. He made articles on local flora in Charles Hulbert's The History and Description of the County of Salop and William Leighton's Flora of Shropshire .

In 1841 Brookes was appointed justice of the peace , shortly afterwards he became Commissioner for Roads and Taxes in the Magistrate of Much Wenlock. Also in 1841 Brookes founded the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society , whose lending library served the "promotion and dissemination of useful information".

Wenlock Olympian Society

As part of the Agricultural Reading Society , the Wenlock Olympian Class was formed in 1850 , which was dedicated to the promotion of sport. On October 22, 1850, Brookes organized the first Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games , in which anyone could compete in various sporting competitions. In addition to classic athletic disciplines such as running , hammer throwing and high and long jump competitions in sack races , ring riding , football and cricket were also held at these "Olympic Games" . In addition, competitions were held in artistic and intellectual disciplines. In later years, bizarre sports such as racing were also carried out exclusively for old women.

The Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games quickly became a popular annual event; the trophies awarded at the competitions became a coveted award for English athletes. When Evangelos Zappas held the first Olympics in Athens in 1859 , Brookes donated a prize of £ 10  to the winner of the long-distance run on behalf of the Wenlock Olympian Class .

In 1860 the Olympian Class of the Reading Society became independent and renamed itself the Wenlock Olympian Society . In the same year William Penny Brookes initiated the founding of the Shropshire Olympian Society , which held the Shropshire Olympian Games from 1861 to 1864 at changing locations. Brookes' organization found numerous imitators in the United Kingdom, so that in 1865 a National Olympian Association (NOA) was founded in London . A year later, the first National Olympian Games took place in London's Crystal Palace . More than 10,000 spectators cheered on the around 200 athletes.

A total of seven National Olympian Games had taken place by 1883 . During this time, the Wenlock Olympian Games continued to take place. In 1881 Brookes tried to carry out an "International Olympic Festival" in Athens. Unlike Zappas' Olympics, international competitions were to take place, but Brooke's initiative found no support from the Greek government. But Brookes had formulated the vision of the international Olympic Games 13 years before the founding of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Brookes also campaigned for the promotion of the sport outside of competitions. Several times he complained to the British Parliament a petition one in which he inclusion of physical education called for in the curriculum. When in 1889 the 26-year-old Pierre de Coubertin was preparing a conference on physical education, he sought contact with British sports educators through the newspapers. Brookes then wrote de Coubertin and gave him a detailed description of his decades of efforts.

In October 1890, de Coubertin visited Much Wenlock, where Brookes presented him the Wenlock Olympics. de Coubertin was deeply impressed and reported in an article for La Revue Athletique in December 1890 about his visit to Much Wenlock. When de Coubertin was preparing the IOC's founding congress in 1894, he invited Brookes to Paris. However, the latter was already too weak to take on the complaints of the trip, but asked the Greek Prime Minister in a letter to support de Coubertin's ideas. William Penny Brookes died on December 11, 1895 at the age of 86, four months before his long-cherished dream of the 1896 Summer Olympics came true.

Post fame

After Brookes' death were Wenlock Olympian Games until the outbreak of World War I continued. The event took place only irregularly between the wars. In 1950, the Games on the 100th anniversary of the first Wenlock Olympian Games took place for the first time after the Second World War , but only since 1977 have they been held regularly every July. In 2009 the 123rd Wenlock Olympian Games were held on the 200th birthday of William Penny Brookes .

Although de Coubertin had written enthusiastically about Brookes' work in 1890, he later attempted to marginalize the contributions of Brookes, Evangelos Zappas, and other pioneers. In 1984, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch Brookes described Brookes as the “true founder of the modern Olympic Games” during a visit to Much Wenlock . One of the mascots of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, called “ Wenlock ”, is also intended to commemorate Brookes' pioneering work .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted in: Muriel Furbank, Helen Cromarty, Glyn McDonald, Chris Cannon: William Penny Brookes and the Olympic Connection . Wenlock Olympian Society, Much Wenlock 1996, p. S.
  2. ^ A b Tony Collins, John Martin, Wray Vamplew: Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports . Routledge, London 2005, ISBN 0-415-35224-X , p. 193.
  3. ↑ Gerald Redmond: Toward Modern revival of the Olympic Games: The Various 'pseudo-Olympics' of the 19th century . In: Jeffrey O. Seagrave, Donald Chu (Eds.): The Olympic Games in Transition . Human Kinetics Publishers, Champaign 1988, ISBN 0-87322-111-7 , p. 12.
  4. ^ A b Kristine Toohey, Anthony James Veal: The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective , p. 33.
  5. ^ Pierre de Coubertin: Olympism: Selected Writing . International Olympic Committee, Lausanne 2000, ISBN 92-9149-066-0 , p. 281.
  6. ↑ Quoted in Humble start for global games , BBC News , January 16, 2004 (accessed February 18, 2010).
  7. ↑ Background to Wenlock's name , London 2012 official website (accessed November 15, 2010).

literature

  • Sam Mullins: British Olympians: William Penny Brookes and the Wenlock Games . Birmingham Olympic Council, London 1986, ISBN 0-901662-01-1 .
  • John E. Findling, Kimberly D. Pelle: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic movement . Greenwood Press, Westport 2004, ISBN 0-313-32278-3 .
  • Kristine Toohey, Anthony James Veal: The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective . CABI, Wallingford 2007, ISBN 978-1-84593-346-3 .
  • Catherine Beale: Born out of Wenlock: William Penny Brookes and the British Origins of the Modern Olympics , Derby: DB Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-85983-967-6

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Brookes, William Penny
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British medic and sports pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Much Wenlock , Shropshire
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1895
Place of death Much Wenlock , Shropshire