William Penny Brookes
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| William Penny Brookes | |
 Dr. William Penny Brookes
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| Born | August 13, 1809 Much Wenlock, England |
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| Died | December 11, 1895 (aged 86) Much Wenlock |
| Occupation | doctor, magistrate, founder of Wenlock Olympian Games |
| Website http://www.wenlock-olympian-society.org.uk |
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Dr. William Penny Brookes (13 August 1809–11 December 1895) was an English physician, magistrate, botanist, and the founder of the Wenlock Olympian Society, which from 1850 organised annual "Olympian Games" in the small town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. The games were visited in 1890 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who was impressed and later credited Brookes with inspiring the first modern international Olympic Games.
[edit] Life
William Penny Brookes was born in Much Wenlock, where his father, William Brookes, was a local doctor. He studied medicine in London, and then travelled to Italy to study at Padua, famous for its 16th century gardens, where he developed his interest in botany. During further medical studies in Paris, he learnt that his father had died, and he returned to Much Wenlock in 1831 to take over his father's practice.[1]
As a botanist, he provided information on plants growing around Much Wenlock for Charles Hulbert's The History and Description of the County of Salop (1837), and William Leighton's Flora of Shropshire (1841). His herbarium is held at the Much Wenlock Museum. He also became actively involved in the local community, becoming a JP in 1841 and remaining an active magistrate for nearly 40 years. It is likely that he would have been confronted with cases of petty crime, drunkenness and theft in the local community, which could have influenced his desire to develop the need for structured physical exercise and education for the working classes. Also in 1841, he founded the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society, an early lending library "for the promotion and diffusion of useful information", and from which evolved various classes including art, music and botany.[1][2]
In 1850, the Agricultural Reading Society resolved to establish a class called "The Olympian Class", "for the promotion of 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 out-door recreation, and by the award of prizes annually at public meetings for skill in Athletic exercise and proficiency in Intellectual and industrial attainments". The first meeting was held in October 1850, and included athletics and country sports such as quoits, football and cricket. The event quickly expanded, and within a few years attracted competitors from as far away as London and Liverpool.
In 1859, Brookes established contact with the organiser of a similar event in Athens, Evangelos Zappas. In 1860, the Class officially became the Wenlock Olympian Society, adopted some of the athletics events from the Athens games, and added them to their programme. In 1865, Brookes helped establish the National Olympian Association (NOA) based in Liverpool. Their first festival, held in 1866 at the Crystal Palace, London, was a success and attracted a crowd of over 10,000 spectators. The Amateur Athletic Club, later to become the Amateur Athletics Association, was formed as a rival organisation to the NOA. In 1877, he requested an Olympian prize from Greece in honour of Queen Victoria's jubilee. In response, King George I of Greece sent a silver cup which was presented at the National Olympian Games held in Shrewsbury. This brought Brookes into contact with the Greek government, but his attempts to organise an international Olympian Festival in Athens in 1881 failed.[1]
Brookes was also heavily involved in many other local activities. He became Chairman of the Wenlock Gas Company in 1856, which first brought lighting to the town. He was a Commissioner for Roads in the area, and also became a Director of both the Wenlock and Severn Junction Railway Company. The first train to Wenlock coincided with the Wenlock Olympian Games of 1861. He managed the Much Wenlock National School, where, in 1871, he helped introduce drill and physical exercise into the curriculum. He believed that as children at the school were likely to be employed in jobs that required physical strength, such as farming or quarrying, development of their physical strength was equally as important as their mental ability.[3]
In 1889, he invited Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the organiser of an International Congress on Physical Education, to Much Wenlock, and a meeting of the Wenlock Olympian Games was held in de Coubertin's honour in 1890, with much pageantry. On his return to France, de Coubertin gave a glowing account of his stay in an article, "Les Jeux Olympiques à Much Wenlock", and referred to his host's efforts to revive the Olympics. He wrote : "If the Olympic Games that Modern Greece has not yet been able to revive still survives today, it is due, not to a Greek, but to Dr W P Brookes".[1] Although de Coubertin later sought to downplay Brookes' influence, he kept in touch with him for several years and sent him a gold medal to be used at the Wenlock games.[4]
Brookes died four months before the first modern Olympic Games organised by the International Olympic Committee was held in Athens in 1896.
The Wenlock Olympian Society maintains his original ideals, and continues to organise annual games. The William Brookes School[5] at Much Wenlock is named after him.
