The Control of Space and the Development of Sport: A Case Study of Twenty
 Two Sports in the Mining Communities of East Northumberland, 1800-1914.
                                    
                                    
                                    
                              Alan Metcalfe
                                    
                      University of Windsor, Canada



     This paper is a continuation of my ongoing efforts to wrestle `With
the theoretical implications of the mass of empirical work' I have
done on sport in the mining communities of East Northumberland during
the nineteenth century. The paper attempts to bring some coherence
to the histories of tenty two sports by focusing on a unifying theme.
In fact, there were several themes that emerged from the data; the
central importance of the 1870s, the increasing importance of various
social institutions, the impact of economic conditions on sport and
the role of several individuals in contouring the social life of the
mining communities. However, there was one theme that was more important
than any other; ownership, control and actual use of space. The paper
will not examine the complex relationships between these elements
except to say that the relationships between ownership, control and
actual use were a contested domain. Rather I will use the actual control
of space as my unifying theme and consider the different roles of
those who controlled space had on the development of sport. This will
be done by examining the role of the innkeepers, land and colliery
owners, and colliery officials on the development of sport. In addition
to these individuals the paper will examine the various institutions
such as local government, churches, and schools which played an increasingly
important role in the determination of the use of space. Finally,
and most importantly, we will look at the role of the miners, themselves,
in controlling their own sport. However, before embarking on an examination
of the impact on particular sports it is necessary to outline, briefly,
how efforts were made to control space during the nineteenth century.

     Prior to 1870 sport was played, for the most part, on public land,
there were no enclosed sporting grounds within the area. Between 1870
and 1914 over 200 enclosed grounds were created. These were partly
a result of efforts by the landowners to protect the privacy of their
own lands and partly a result of efforts to control use of public
land. In one respect, the authorities were totally unsuccessful in
their attempts to control public land. Efforts to ban miners sport
on the Town Moor, Newcastle in 1855, 1870, and 1880 failed. However,
in another sense, the use of public highways, they were more successful.
Using the courts to prohibit various activities the authorities successfully
removed potshare bowling (early 1850s), pedestrianism (early 1870s),
and bicycle racing (1891) from the public highways. The communities
reacted in various ways to these increasing restrictions on space.
First in the 1870s enclosed commercial sporting grounds were opened
in the district. These became central venues for sporting activity.
They were followed by initiatives rising from within the communities
in the 1880s. These initiatives took the shape of community recreation
grounds. Finally after the Local Government Act of 1894 placed decision
making power on land usage in the hands of elected Urban District
Councils moves developed to create public parks and recreation grounds.
Increasingly sport was forced within the confines of enclosed grounds
controlled by various individuals and groups.

During the period 1860 to 1914, 148 inns were involved in the promotion
of sport. The inns were the most important social institution involved
in sport throughout the nineteenth century. Thus, the innkeepers played
a vital role in the development of sport. They provided the site for
competitions, the location for arranging matches and organizing clubs,
the headquarters for club activities, and the site for after game
celebrations. Additionally the innkeepers provided money to various
sports and were also active in the promotion of sport. Until the 1890s,
they were, to all intents and purposes, the only social institution
in the villages for whom sport was a central concern.

     The inns and innkeepers played a particularly important role in the
traditional sports of potshare bowling, quoits, rabbit coursing, handball
(fives), and shooting. Potshare bowling, rabbit coursing and shooting
matches and handicaps were held in fields adjacent to the inns on
an irregular but continuing basis. In the game of fives (handball)
they played a more central role. While fives were played at inns in
17 villages, the centre of fives were the three alleys built by innkeepers
at Seaton Delaval and New Hartley. From 1886 to 1903 the alleys at
the Astley Arms, Hastings Arms, and Hartley Arms, each of which held
up to 700 spectators, were the competitive centre of fives in the
coalfield. Quoits was by far the most popular participant sport. Until
1869 it was impossible to determine any patterns or regularity to
quoits. In 1869 four inns promoted the first quoit handicaps on grounds
located on their premises. The 1870s witnessed the expansion of the
number of inns boasting quoit grounds, an increase from twelve in
1879 to 34 in 1884. Perhaps more significant was the emergence of
recognized quoiting centres where weekly events were held; the Queen's
Head, Choppington and the Slip Hotel, Cowpen Quay. In fact, this was
the beginning of a process of commercialization and centralization.
Commercialization was reflected in the shift in the dominant form
of competition from matches to handicaps and the extension of handicaps
from two or three days to two or three months. The process of centralization
was reflected in the emergence of seventeen grounds as the centres
of competition. In 1893 53% of the competitions were played on these
grounds, by 1913 they accounted for 82% of all competitions.

     This process of centralization was not limited to quoits. Rabbit
coursing, pedestrianism and shooting, by the turn of the century,
had become focused on four commercial grounds. Although the first
commercial grounds were opened in the early 1870s in Bedlington and
Killingworth the first semi-permanent commercial ground was opened
in Bebside in 1881. This was the first of fourteen commercial sporting
grounds that opened in the coalfield. In each case the owner was an
innkeeper. Thus, the innkeepers were at the heart of efforts to promote
sport in the district.

     The role of the inns and innkeepers was not limited to providing
facilities for competition. They were the centres for the negotiations
that took place prior to any match taking place. This was especially
true in the traditional sports mentioned above. In these cases the
inns acted as the location for the meetings between the rival supporters
where discussion on conditions and the signing of the agreement took
place. Frequently innkeepers took a more active role as stakeholders
and in some cases in sponsoring athletes. However, their active sponsorship,
more frequently took the form of the promotion of handicaps which
soon stretched over many weeks. For example, in 1876, in potshare
bowling, only three handicaps were promoted and these were relatively
short events which were completed in four or five days. By 1905 thirty
different inns promoted handicaps some of which lasted between twenty
and thirty weeks. Interestingly innkeepers were involved in the meteoric
rise and fall of competitive cycling between 1880 and 1894. In the
early years innkeepers provides both the tracks and the money to promote
cycling competition. In the halcyon years of racing, 1889 to 1894,
the inns were the starting point for many road races, the site for
the meetings of clubs and the location of the abortive attempt to
thwart the power of the Newcastle controlled National Cycling Union
in 1894. Competitive cycling was closely tied into the inns.

     The inns and innkeepers also played a vital role in the development
of organized sporting clubs, the epitomization of modern sport. They
were the site of the inaugural meetings of many clubs and subsequently
became the headquarters of a large number of clubs. From the formation
of Bedlington Homing Society in 1878 the over 100 pigeon flying clubs
were, without exception, associated with inns. The earliest sponsors
were innkeepers, the headquarters of the majority of clubs were inns,
and the annual pigeon shows were frequently held in inns. The majority
of cycling clubs active during the highpoint of competitive cycling,
1880 to 1894, were associated with inns. Between 1888 and 1913 thirty
eight gun clubs were established at inns in the coalfield. In the
majority of cases the innkeepers were ardent participants. From the
inception of Bedlington Burdon in August 1883 football clubs were
closely tied to inns. In fact, over 70% of football club meetings
between 1883 and 1913 were held at inns.

     This brief survey of the various roles of the inns in the sporting
enterprize illustrates that they had a major and pervasive influence.
However, the data provided above masks some basic realities about
the relationship between sport and the inns. For the majority of the
148 inns involvement was spasmodic; the promotion of a single handicap
or infrequent involvement over a period of years. This, of course,
was a reality of mining participation in anything, spasmodic and irregular.
However, there were 24 inns whose involvement was more prolonged and
regular. These `sporting' inns were distributed throughout the coalfield.
The Astley Arms Inn at Seaton Delaval, built in 1838 and still in
existence today, illustrates the nature of their involvement. James
Dawson, the innkeeper from 1876 to 1898, was an active promoter of
sport. From 1884 until 1898 it was the location of the annual and
monthly meetings of the Hartley Hastings Cricket Club, a club comprised
of the `elite' of Seaton Delaval and vicinity. Dawson also promoted
bowling handicaps in fields adjacent to the inn on ten occasions between
1879 and 1899. From 1886 to 1901, the handball alley was the site
of relatively regular competitions. From 1879 to 1899 the quoit ground
with accomodation for 700 spectators was a regular site of quoit matches
and handicaps. Shooting took place on an irregular basis in the fields
adjacent to the Astley Arms. In 1891 the Astley Gun Club was formed
and hosted regular competitions. From 1891 to 1893 it was the headquarters
of the Astley Touring Club which hosted regular meets on the bicycle
track attached to the inn.

     While inns remained central to sport until the First World War changes
did take place. First, the development of commercial sporting grounds
attracted more and more of the competitions. Slowly but surely the
inns lost their pre-eminent position. Perhaps more important was the
development of alternative social institutions and the changing perceptions
on what was appropriate. Although Mechanics Institutes came to the
villages in the 1850s their appeal was limited and their programs
restrictive. They also suffered from a too close attachment to the
colliery owners, nearly without exception being strongly supported
by the colliery officials. Additionally their mandate was education
not entertainment. This changed in the 1880s with the creation of
miner controlled Miners or Workmen's Institutes. From the early 1890s
entertainment became the primary concern and was reflected in the
phenomenal explosion of interest in billiards between 1890 and 1895.
This literally was the take off of modern sport in the mining villages,
especially those that were devoid of inns or public houses. At the
same time, the schools and chapels expanded their offerings to include
sport, albeit within clearly defined boundaries. Basically sport was
no longer the sole preserve of the inns, it had permeated all levels
of society.

     Increasingly, as the century progressed, space and access to it became
an important concern. Thus the attitudes of the landowners and colliery
owners was critical. Until 1888 they had absolute control over land.
Although they lost this unilateral power in 1894 they still played
an important role in determining land usage. Both the land and colliery
owners were actively involved in the promotion and suppression of
sport. The major landowners Sir Mathew White Ridley, Lord Hastings
and the Duke of Portland either personally or through their resident
agents played an important role in the promotion of cricket, lawn
tennis, coursing, shooting, golf, cycling and fishing. In each case
their involvment tended to promote the traditional class relationships.
They acted as patrons to several cricket clubs, provided grounds for
others, and in the case of Blagdon Park Cricket Club (1887), Bothal
Cricket Club (1891) and Delaval Hall Cricket Club (1893), promoted
a club on the grounds of their estates. They also lent their names
to a limited number of football clubs, provided facilities and sponsorship
to lawn tennis clubs, and controlled the fishing rights on the Rivers
Blyth and Wansbeck. They were also involved in the annual church parades
that were started by bicycle clubs in 1893. These parades attracted
up to 10,000 bicyclists and spectators to the grounds of the local
landowners where church services were held. The landowners also gave
support to coursing and it was in their support of this that they
ran foul of some of the colliery owners. By the 1890s the Bothal Coursing
Meet and the North of England Coursing meets included a section for
Workmen. However, the class barriers were rigidly maintained.

More directly involved in both the promotion and suppression of sport
were the colliery owners, officials and professional classes. Very
simply they supported those activities that fell within the boundaries
of `rational recreation'; cricket, lawn tennis, rugby football, billiards,
and football. On the other hand they made persistent attempts to suppress
the traditional sports of potshare bowling, rabbit coursing, pigeon
flying and pitch and toss. The 78 cricket clubs that were formed between
1876 and 1914 were heavily dependent upon colliery officials, Anglican
ministers, doctors and teachers for grounds, administrators and players.
The three rugby football clubs that briefly flitted across the stage
were formed by the same groups. Additionally they formed the membership
of the 24 lawn tennis clubs that sprang up after 1887. On the other
hand, these same groups spearheaded the drive to eliminate the traditional
sports through their involvement in local government, the judicial
system, the churches, schools and such organizations as the Humanitarian
League. They were, for the most part, unsuccessful in both the promotion
of particular sports and the supression of others.

     Providing a vehicle for the transmission of the ideas of the dominant
groups were the churches and schools. The twelve Anglican Churches,
not attended by a significant number of miners, lay at the heart of
lawn tennis and cricket. Fifty-three percent of the cricket clubs
were affiliated with churches. Curates, vicars, ministers, and priests
were active as players, presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries and
treasurers. Similarly the churches provided courts and participants
for lawn tennis. While the Methodists chapels did not embrace sport
until the early years of the twentieth century, they began to promote
football in the 1890s but only within the clearly defined boundaries
of `rational recreation'.. Similarly from the mid-1890s young schoolboys
were introduced to football. The schools were particularly important
because they introduced children to a game that provided an alternative
to bowling, quoits and rabbit coursing, the traditional sports of
their fathers. The schools and churches were amongst the strongest
proponents of rational recreation and thus attacked the traditional
foundations of mining society.

     What has been lacking from the above analysis has been the miners
themselves. Yet they were central to the sports played at the inns
and were even involved in cricket, lawn tennis, golf and fishing,
However, except for potshare bowling and in the early years rabbit
coursing and shooting which were played on public land, they played
their games in facilities or locations which, in the final analysis,
were controlled by someone else. In fact, the miners involvement reveals
the complex and subtle relationships underlying village life. The
lines dividing the different groups were frequently blurred.

     In potshare bowling, quoits and handball the miners maintained control
of all aspects of the sport. Groups of miners provided the stakes
for particular champions, undertook the negotiations for making matches,
and provided officials to oversee the games. It was only with the
development of handicaps that they began to lose control of their
game. This reached a peak in the first decade of the twentieth century
when the Newcastle innkeepers got involved in the extensive promotion
of handicaps on the Town Moor. In reality this was the beginning of
the end. Similarly the moving of quoits to the four commercial grounds
took decision making power away from the miners.

     However, it was in the other sports that the more subtle and complex
relationships were revealed. Both rabbit coursing and shooting of
birds crossed class lines. Subject to increasing pressure from Methodist
Churches and the National Humanitarian League in the mid-1890s landowners
rallied to the side of the miners. Similarly, some colliery officials
carried on a systematic campaign to ban pigeon flying. Their efforts
apppear to have had little effect. Pigeon flying also illustrated
a basic reality of mining sport, the loss of control when they moved
into competition outside the district. In fact, the most popular pigeon
flying were short distance flying competitions which were run by miners
from clubs established at the inns. For the most part they were a
short lived but ever present reality. The development of long distance
flying in the 1890s changed everything. The clubs that emerged during
the 1890s became permanent fixtures on the pigeon flying scene. These
clubs created a district organization that affiliated with regional
and national organizations. While the most influential man in these
organizations was J.W. Parkin, a deputy overman at West Cramlington
Colliery, the other leaders were doctors, businessmen and innkeepers
- not miners. Thus, as they moved into district and national competition
miners lost control of their sports.

     It was somewhat surprising to see the miners involved in lawn tennis,
golf and fishing. Their involvement in lawn tennis was typical, irregular
and short term. They first appeared on the tennis courts in the short
lived club created by Newbiggin Institute in 1895. In the same year
the Management Committee of Bedlington Station Recreation Ground,
owned and operated by miners associated with Bedlington Y.M.C.A.,
voted to lay down tennis courts. In 1900 the game was introduced to
East Holywell Workmen's Institute. Within three months the club claimed
to have 50 active members. Perhaps the degree to which lawn tennis
invaded the community can be gauged from the fact that it was included
in the curriculum of Shiremoor public schools in 1911. Golf was introduced
to the area by members of the Newbiggin Golf Club in 1884 when they
moved to establish Newbiggin Workmen's Golf Club. Completely dependent
upon gaining fishing rights on either the Blyth or Wansbeck a group
of five clubs emerged in the 1880s to fish parts of the rivers controlled
by Sir Matthew White Ridley and the Duke of Portland. The histories
of these three sports demonstrate that sport was never the exclusive
preserve of one social group.

The complex relationships between the different groups is illustrated
most vividly in the sports of football and cycling. Since the history
of football has been covered in detail elsewhere I will turn to cycling
to illustrate the nature of the relationships between the different
social groups. At 3.30 on the morning of June 10, 1876, James Bowman,
the sub-postmaster at Cramlington left for Edinburgh on his newly
acquired 50 inch ordinary. Eighteen hours later he arrived at his
destination after traversing the 119 miles of horrendous roads that
linked Cramlington and Edinburgh. This was the first evidence of the
new craze that was to sweep through Britain and the coalfield. From
the formation of the Cramlington Bicycle Club in 1876 until 1888 cycling
focused on the competitive racing of the ordinaries. The races took
place on the roads and increasingly on tracks built by innkeepers
on land granted by the colliery owners. On these tracks the division
between amateurs and professionals soon emerged. Because of the high
cost of the ordinary, riding was limited to those that could afford
it, men like T.E. Jobling, a future mine manager and owner. It was
the sponsoring of riders by bicycle manufacturers that lead to miners
participating in the competitions. The invention of the `safety' bicycle
in 1884 and the `air filled' tire of 1888 precipitated competitive
cycling into its halcyon years, 1888 to 1895. This period witnessed
the formation of 39 cycling clubs. Competitive racing was the raison
d'etre of the majority of these clubs. At first taking place primarily
on the roads it moved within enclosed facilities after 1891 when the
authorities banned racing on the public highways. During the summers
of 1892 to 1894 races were held throughout the coalfield on a weekly
and in some instances a nightly basis. Racing on tracks created by
miners with assistance from the colliery owners and managers, these
clubs began to threaten the dominance of the Newcastle based National
Cyclists Union (N.C.U.) amateur riders. By imposing restrictive definitions
of an amateur the N.C.U. effectively destroyed racing within the coalfield.
Few races were held after 1894. By the end of 1895 the majority of
the racing clubs had collapsed. Paralleling the development of racing
was another activity, club rides. By 1889 the riding season with a
list of club rides to various local beauty spots had become institutionalized.
From Good Friday until late September the roads of Northumberland
were filled with squads of cyclists. The number of riders varied from
20 to over 100 and the distances from 10 to 60 miles. These clubs
became popular with different segments of the mining community and
received financial and symbolic support from the land owners, colliery
owners, colliery officials and other local luminaries. Promoted by
Temperance Societies, Churches, YMCA's and Mechanics institutes they
were supported by vicars, businessmen, innkeepers and colliery officials.
After 1895 cycling witnessed a slow but inexorable decline. By the
outbreak of the war it was the purview of a small group of afficianados.

     It is apparent from the above that the miners pursued their sport
within the context of boundaries created by others. Whether it was
the innkeepers, the colliery officials, the churches, or the landowners
other individuals and groups held a degree of power over their sporting
practices. What the miners did when they had nearly total control
over the facilities is revealed in the histories of billiards and
bagatelle. In 1890 there were few references to either billiards or
bagatelle. Five years later, in 1895, they were the most popular participant
sports within the coalfield. Played on a nightly basis at institutes
they continued to hold pride of place until the outbreak of the war.
Perhaps the pervasiveness of billiards is illustrated most clearly
in the 1894-95 season of Bedlington Miners Institute. During the year
they promoted 74 handicaps, tournaments or matches for the 227 members.
Its hold on the members is illustrated most vividly in the Bedlington
`Strike' of 1897. Early in 1896 the billiard playing members of the
Bedlington Miners Institute went on `strike' against their own trustees
because of the unwillingness of the trustees to spend money on improving
the billiard facilities. The strike was totally successful, all the
demands of the `strikers' being met by the trustees. Billiards had
become an obsession with the young and not so young. Why did this
happened at the time it did? It happened for the first time because
the miners created institutions that they controlled. The late 1880s
witnessed the creation of independent Workmens or Miners Institutes.
These replaced the owner dominated Mechanics institutes and to some
extent the inns. They became the focal point of the social lives of
the miners.

     What does this brief overview of the different roles of groups and
individuals that controlled space have on the development of sport
suggest about the dynamics underlying life in the mining communities?
First, authority never translated into total control over the lives
of others. The dominant groups were singularly unsuccessful in imposing
their views and sports on the majority of miners. Of course, it is
doubtful whether they were really concerned about the miners lives
except when the activities were visible and offended their sensibilities
or involved an infringement of their own rights eg hunting, coursing,
fishing. Their inability to control space was reflected vividly in
their failure to eliminate pitch and toss despite concerted efforts
to do so. At the same time, elements of the ideology of the dominant
groups found fertile ground in segments of the community, in particular
the churches and schools. This was evidenced in the promotion of particular
games played within the context of a particular ideology in the 1890s.
Far more central to sport as a whole and mining life in particular
were the inns and innkeepers and, at a later date, the Mechanics and
Workmen's Institutes. It was within these institutions, where the
miners held real power either as customers or organisers, that the
essential ingredients of mining sport, and I suggest mining life,
were to be found. The inns were the focal point of organized sport
and played a central role in all dimensions of sport. However, even
in the friendly climes of the inn the objectives of the innkeepers
and the miners did not always coincide. As the innkeepers recognized
the revenue generating potential of sport they moved to promote sport
in more direct ways and thus remove it from the control of the miners.
It was only in the independently operated Miners Institutes and Social
Clubs that the miners came close to maintaining independence. What
this examination of the influence of the different groups and individuals
that controlled space demonstrates is that it is dangerous, in attempting
to provide clarity, to oversimplify the complexity of relationships
underlying community life. Simplistic analyses based on clearly divided
social groups do not do justice to the richness of life. Control of
space, like other aspects of life, was always a contested domain,
one in which cooperation was just as evident as conflict.



                         Notes

     

1 John Lowerson ISHPES Congress `Games of the World: The World of
Games' Berlin July 1993 in BSSH Newsletter No.3 Spring 1994, p.22.

2 The 22 sports and the basic outline of their development are contained
in the Table on page 24.

3 In order to avoid overusing footnotes, the sources of the data and
the theoretical underpinings of this paper can be found in a series
of publications. 

A. Metcalfe `Organized Sport in the Mining Communities of South Northumberland,
1800-1889', Victorian Studies, 25,4 (Summer 1982), 469-495. 

A. Metcalfe `Football in the Mining Communities of East Northumberland,
1882-1914', The International Journal of the History of Sport, 5,
3 (December 1988), 269-291. 

A. Metcalfe `Sport and Space: A Case Study of the Growth of Recreational
Facilities in East Northumberland, 1850-1914' The International Journal
of the History of Sport, 7, 3 (December 1990) 348-364. 

A. Metcalfe `Potshare Bowling in the Mining Communities of East Northumberland,
1800-1914' in R.J. Holt (Ed.) Sport and the Working Class in Modern
Britain (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990) Chap.2, 29-44.