William Penny Brookes
Dr. William Penny Brookes
Born	William Penny Brookes 13 August 1809 Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England
Died	11 December 1895 (aged 86) Much Wenlock
Resting place	Much Wenlock Church Yard.
Residence	Much Wenlock, Shropshire.
Nationality	British
Education	Doctor of Medicine
Occupation	doctor, magistrate, founder of Wenlock Olympian Games
Known for	Social Reformer
Website http://www.wenlock-olympian-society.org.uk

Dr. William Penny Brookes (13 August 1809 – 11 December 1895) was an English physician, magistrate, botanist, who founded the Wenlock Olympian Society in 1860, organised annual "Olympian Games" in the small town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. Prior to the foundation of the Wenlock Olympian Society Dr Brookes organised an "Olympian Class" with sports events from 1850. This Games was visited in 1890 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who was impressed by the organisation of the Games and later credited Brookes for inspiring him to found the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

Dr. Brookes was a social reformer, who tirlessly campaigned to give opportunities for all classes to expand their knowledge and become mentally and physically fit. He also opened the door for the working class to enter competitive sport, which previously had been the privilege of only the elite.

[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 Medieval herb gardens, where he developed his interest in herbal medicines and botany. During further medical studies in Paris at the Sorbonne University, he learnt that his father had died, and he returned to Much Wenlock in 1831 inheriting the family home and his father's large medical 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". From which evolved various lecture classes including art, music,botany and subsequently the Wenlock Olympian Class.^[1]. All the lectures and the library founded by Dr. Brookes were open to "all grade of man". Dr. Brookes was criticised for this action.

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 outdoor 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.

Dr. Brookes was a Philhellene, greatly respecting the democratic ideals that ancient Greek society followed, where all men were allowed and indeed expected to vote, take an active part in governance and compete in sport. The ancient Olympic Games were open to all grade of man and that gave young men an opportunity to win and build self-confidence. In Britain in the mid eighteen hundreds, it was only young men educated at exclusive fee paying public schools or the sons of professionals who were able to enter competitive sport. Dr. Brookes may have used the ethos of the ancient Olympic Games, which were open to all grade of man to "get under the radar" of British elite rules and allow working class men to compete in sport.

When the first Wenlock Olympian Games were staged, there was heavy criticism of Dr. Brookes' insistence that the Games were open to "every grade of man". They considered that such an event would cause rioting, lewd behaviour and that men would leave their wives. Dr. Brookes tirelessly avoided requests to limit the Games to only the pupils of public schools and the sons of professionals. The Games were a huge success and none of the threatened disturbances occurred.

Later you will read about Dr. Brookes bringing in the railway to Much Wenlock to help the economic prosperity of the town. The first trial train was scheduled to come to the town on the day of the Wenlock Olympian Games, so that competitors from Birmingham and Wolverhampton could be brought in to compete. Again Dr. Brookes insisted that working class young men were able to compete and travelled free of charge on the train to allow this to occur. Bringing competitors from a wider area created a more competitive and exciting Games and the need to physically train for future Games was born.

In 1859, Brookes established contact with the organisers of an Olympic Games revival in Athens sponsored by Evangelis 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. The first athlete to be listed on the honor roll of the Society was Petros Velissariou (an ethnic Greek from Smyrna, in the Ottoman Empire) who was one of the first international Olympians. In 1865, Brookes helped establish the National Olympian Association (NOA) based in Liverpool. Their first Olympic Games, a national event, held in 1866 at the Crystal Palace, London, was a success and attracted a crowd of over 10,000 spectators. W.G. Grace, the famous cricketer (before he became famous), competed and came first in the hurdles event. 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.^[2].

When Brookes was undertaking his own education, he always went to the very best teachers. Hence the reason for his travel to Padua in Italy, one of the finest place in the world at that time for learning about herbal medicine and botany, where the medical university is located in the grounds of the Medieval herb gardens. Again he went to the Sorbonne in Paris to seek the best teacher in the field, this would be very pro-active today. To travel to the finest teachers in Europe, would have been extraordinary in 1830. Brookes was way ahead of his time in establishing the link between mental and physical agility and the mind - body link.

In 1889, he invited Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the organiser of an International Congress on Physical Education, to Much Wenlock. Meetings between William Penny Brookes and Baron Pierre de Coubertain took place at The Raven Hotel (as did the feast which concluded each year’s Olympian Games), and today in The Raven Hotel there are displayed many artefacts from those early years, including original letters from Baron Pierre de Coubertain to William Penny Brookes. 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.^[3]

Tragically, Brookes died four months before the Athens 1896 Olympic Games, under the auspices of the IOC, was held in Athens in 1896.

The Wenlock Olympian Society maintains his original ideals, and continues to organise annual games. The William Brookes School^[4] in Much Wenlock is named after him.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Wenlock Olympian Society
• BBC - Father of the modern Olympics
• The Raven Hotel, Much Wenlock and the foundation of the modern Olympic Games