Dr Hugh D MacLennan

University of Stirling, Scotland

"Hockey, golf, cricket, stool-ball, trap-ball, tip-cat: et hoc genus omne, no matter by what names they are now differentiated, no matter what modifications they may have suffered in the lapse of centuries, no matter what special rule of play may have crystallised around this or that individual variety and caused it eventually to stand out distinct from the others - all reveal an unmistakable community of origin.1

Introduction

This paper will argue that the "British" history of the stick and ball game of shinty, as it is now known in Scotland, has been under-researched and that consequently perceptions of the sport as a game played only by Highlanders in the Highlands of Scotland needs considerable revision. It will be argued that far from being confined to a linguistic and cultural hinterland, the game spread widely in England for a considerable time during the nineteenth century, and that its conduct and development in England played a crucial role in laying the foundations of the modern, organised sport of shinty. The paper will also identify common roots between shinty and other stick and ball games commonly found in England, establishing the credentials of several modern soccer clubs as shinty, shinny or bandy playing. And several examples of play will be cited to show that the nature of shinty in England varied considerably over time involving in some instances only a social elite and at others the working classes in settings which might not ordinarily be anticipated. The paper limits its scope to pre-1893, which was the date of the foundation of shinty's ruling body, the Camanachd Association.

Community of origin

It has been suggested that shinty "never took on outside the Highlands."2 This is simply not true. And while this comment may have been delivered in a Scottish context, it reveals a mistaken perception that the game did not spread beyond Hadrian's wall either. The evidence which is now presented suggests that, rather than being a peripheral adjunct to be dismissed as irrelevant, shinty in England was a major force in the development of the sport, drawing on a substantial pedigree as an indigenous game. In fact, due to a number of demographic factors, the most important of which was migration in search of employment, shinty in England was, in many ways, ahead of the pace when it came to codification. It is clear that many of the changes which were eventually effected in shinty in Scotland were driven by an exiled social elite from the south, who led the codification and regulation of what had been a traditional pastime, turning it into a fully fledged sport.

Shinty's indigenous provenance in England is well established in reliable sources such as the English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) and the Scottish National Dictionary (SND), usually equated with hockey, a ball driven by teams, with curved sticks, towards goal posts called hails.3

It is impossible, as Father Ninian MacDonald pointed out,4 to establish with any degree of certainty an exact date at which any one of the myriad stick and ball games to be found in England emerged from the parent stem and acquired a distinct form and individual existence. There was, to paraphrase MacDonald, "an unmistakable community of origin" between hockey, bandy, golf, camanachd, cricket, lacrosse, etc.

The Gaelic "caman" is merely the bent stick or club, hockey is the hooked stick, La Crosse is the crook, etc....... The original game has thus become the prolific parent, of a numerous progeny - a striking proof of its inherent vitality.5

The English historian Joseph Strutt, in his seminal Glig-garmnena angel dead : The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England6 did not specifically mention shinty or hockey. Only in passing did he mention bandy, which seems to have been no more than rummaging around with curved sticks. Shinty, or any number of variants, (cammock, camac, camag, camawg, cambuc, etc.) however, blazed its way across Britain for hundreds of years.

Such was the central role of stick and ball games in life that in England, as well as in Scottish terms, legislation was brought to bear as an element of social control, for example in the Statutes of Kilkenny in 13677 and the Galway Statutes, 1527, where amongst prohibited games is included "the horlinge of the litill balle with hockie stickes or staves."8 Bandy (the bent stick) was also a term in common use, likewise "bandy-ball," and in Norfolk and Suffolk, "bandy hoshoe." Hurling or hurley became the English equivalent used in Ireland, this to be distinguished from hurling as practised in Cornwall.9

In Cheshire "baddin" was played; in Lincolnshire "crabsow"; in Dorsetshire "scrush"; and in Gloucestershire "not", from the knotty piece of wood used as a ball. In other districts we find "chinnup, camp, crabsowl, clubby, humney, shinnup, shinney-law, shinney," etc.

It is in the entry for "shinty" in EDD,10 that we have the fullest evidence of the early existence of the stick and ball game in England, long before the Gaels arrived to play at Blackheath and Wimbledon.

SHINTY sb. Sc. Dur. Cum; Wm. Yks. Chs. Not. Lin. Also in forms shenty Sc.; shindy Lan.1 s.Lan.1 Chs. [?i.nti, ?i.ndi.] 1. The game of `shinny' (q.v.); see below. Cf. common, sb.2, shinny.

This entry is invaluable. Shinty's provenance is detailed in a long list of areas including Cumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Nottingham and Lincoln. Firstly, it confirms the provenance of "shinty" in England; secondly it reaffirms (predictably) much of the detail regarding shinty in Scotland during the same period which is contained in the Scottish equivalent, produced by Jamieson. Also of great value, however, are the other entries which detail variants of the game, such as: shinham, shinnins, shinnock, shinnop, (also shinnup) shinny, (shinney); and shinny-ball, -hah, -haw, or -stick.11

Intriguingly, EDD also mentions shinty being played in Workington in Cumberland as late as 1888, when two boys were fined for playing the game in the street and a third "was let off, having been well thrashed by his parent."12

Production of EDD, Alice Bertha Gomme's monumental Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland13 and Reverend Robert C. MacLagan's Games and Diversions of Argyleshire, were virtually contemporaneous.14 There is clearly a significant amount of (acknowledged) overlap between the evidence of stick and ball games presented by Gomme, MacLagan (as well as by Mrs M MacLeod Banks later), Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, and EDD.

It is possible to identify gaps in knowledge, thanks to research initiated by the British Folk-Lore Society. It is detailed, for example, that "shinney, or shinty, or shinnops" was played:

in the Sheffield district it is played as described by Halliwell. During the game the boys call out, "Hun you, shin you." It is called Shinny in Derbyshire.15

The significant overlap, and dependence on previously published sources, does not diminish the value of Gomme's work when taken as an English perspective on what was clearly a British set of pastimes. Gomme's main value however lies in the confirmation of the extent to which indigenous games had survived in England, and the survival in Scotland of the "Scottish" game of shinty, which she says in London was "called Hockey." In fact, the game appeared to be the same as the game called Not in Gloucestershire, the name being borrowed from the wooden ball.

[Shinty] consists in endeavouring to drive the ball through the goal of the opposite party. But in Shinty there are also two goals, called hails; the object of each party being to drive the ball beyond their own hail, but there is no hole through which it must be driven. The ball, or knot of wood, is called Shintie.16

Taken as a whole, the evidence contained in these sources confirms the presence of both rural and urban stick and ball games. They were broadly similar in nature, and certainly recognisable to any of the exiled Gaels making their way in the rapidly changing industrial settings of major English conurbations.

Shinty is described in SND as having been "universal in Scotland and North England" and it is accepted that the game eventually retreated to Scotland. In England, the game paralleled the experience of other urban locations, most obviously Glasgow. It is significant and perhaps surprising that as the sport turned itself on its head in the late nineteenth century, it was to the cities of England that teams like Glasgow Cowal turned for the competition and sophistication they required, until their own Highland brethren began to catch up and gradually exert their own influence.

The Highland Society of London17 was formed in 1777, aimed at fostering Gaelic song, pipe music and the well-being of native Highlanders. It set a respectable standard for some of those organisations who followed. Others were to be less useful. Many came to impose themselves upon the game of shinty, for better or for worse and the game became a talisman, a sacred link with an imagined past.

According to Strutt, "about the year 1775 the hurling to the goales was frequently played by parties of Irishmen in the fields at the back of the British Museum".18 Thirty years later, in 1810, it was said that "contending parties", in the northern countries of England, exerted themselves to drive "the Shinny to its goal."19

Just five years later, on June 23, 1815, Alistair Ranaldson MacDonell, Chief of Glengarry, emerging through a haze of "Celtification" being fanned by Sir Walter Scott, in what historian John Prebble refers to as "a brainstorm"20 assembled 97 duine-uasal (gentleman) in a field at Inverlochy, near Fort William, and announced them to be the Comunn nam Fìor Ghàidheal - the Society of the True Gael.

The Society eventually (in 1881) compiled the Book of the Club of True Highlanders, detailing, without any trace of irony, the "endeavour" which had gone into supplementing "valuable contributions" recording the "Dress, Language, Music and Characteristics of our illustrious and ancient race in the Highlands and Isles of Scotland"

to weed out and detect the various mistakes, mis-statements, and errors that have been gradually accepted, without questions from so-called authorities.21

The Book of the Club of True Highlanders was not dissimilar in its philosophy to the Book of Sports published by King James VI and I in 1618. However, the Club's reason d'être, as expressed through the Book compiled by its Treasurer C.N. McIntyre-North, was the creation of a (largely, but not entirely bogus) set of criteria which would distinguish participants in its activities as being of a unique and superior race. Amongst those distinguishing features to be preserved for posterity by the Club was the game of shinty.

Its elaborate scheme of how to play the game and its attendant paraphernalia provided the basis for many weird and wonderful events the length of the country. The best-known of the visual representations of these is the illustration: "Shinnie Play on Blackheath", sometimes referred to as "The Exiles at Play." (22) It depicts the Club of True Highlanders at play on Blackheath Common, London, where they held their traditional games and sports for many years from the early 1800s.

The Club, with London members making the running, met with considerable success, and was enrolled in accordance with Act of Parliament in 1836. The London Society of the Club afforded amongst other activities, "weekly opportunity for Scotchmen to foregather with a cronie," to preserve the "ancient language, music, amusements and the garb of the Gael."

It was with this in mind, no doubt, that on Christmas Day, 1821, a party of London Highlanders marched to Blackheath for shinty. They proceeded to the ground, their piper before them playing "national airs." Astonished spectators, seeing a long array of Highlanders, clothed in the costume of their country, armed to the teeth, marching to martial music, concluded they were to decide some ancient and deadly feud.

The agility of the gamesters excited great astonishment, and the match being finished about 3 o'clock, they left the well contested field; the victorious party in front, with the players playing "Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled."23

The Club and its members had set themselves up as the custodians of an (authenticated, but predominantly bogus) ancient set of cultural principles, including the manner of playing shinty, which they claimed had been "carefully handed down in the records of the Club of True Highlanders". Their season for playing the game generally extended two months either side of New Year, or even beyond, into May, "in order that the ladies may participate with comfort and pleasure in the outing."24

Much of what the Book contains consists mainly of the creation of a hugely elaborate infrastructure, complete with committees, festivals, rules, regulations, ceremonial and due order; not to mention pseudo-scholarly balderdash, based on research which the members claimed was, like the origin of shinty, "lost in the midst of ages".

....it is said, and, no doubt, with great truth, that the game of Camanachd, or club playing, was introduced into the Green Isle by the immediate descendants of Noah. On such authority we may rationally conclude that it was played by Noah himself; and if by Noah, in all probability by Adam and his sons.25

For all their protestations of being solely concerned with the preservation of antiquities, the Club seem to have been operating primarily as a social unit. The shinty matches and other activities appear to have been no more than a vehicle for their own self-aggrandisement. In shinty terms, the Club was a fore-runner of others, for all their bogus information and pseudo-historical nonsense.

Several songs composed at this time exist as a record of sorts, allegedly describing the way play was conducted. "O Muster my lads for the Shinnie...." was apparently sung on June 22, 1836, by Mr J. Warren on Blackheath, London.26 That same year, the Gaels again met at Blackheath "their joints to rax, bagpipes raving, tartans waving."

And as the ball flew, on they follow'd,

Bounding with the speed of deer;

Straining, striving, all contriving,

Each his neighbour to excel;

Running, racing, rolling, chasing,

Eagerly to join the hale.27

Half a century before the organisation of the Camanachd Association, the Gaels at play in London went to extraordinary lengths to maintain their connections with shinty. It is said that before one gathering on `the outskirts of Islington,' half the glens of Lochaber had been ransacked for shinty clubs.28 The game of shinty, along with the tartan, the sgian dubh and the clàrsach, had been adopted (hijacked more accurately) by high society. The habits, language and customs of the Gàidhealtachd were beginning to experience the great indignity of a defeated people. They were being patronised.

Members of high society had by now become repositories of real or invented evidence of Highland ancestry, masquerading as "Gaels". King George IV's "jaunt" to Edinburgh in 1822, the work of the artist Turner, the antics of the Grant family of Rothiemurchus and most notably, the prolific out-pourings of Walter Scott and his accomplice David Stewart of Garth, served to "tartanise" or "Balmoralise" the Highlands and its people long before Queen Victoria ever arrived. As Robert Clyde points out, "by 1822, Gaeldom had become a minority culture in the process of marginalisation."29

When they gathered on Blackheath, the Club of True Highlanders were only building on the activities of similar bodies who had gone before, albeit that their precursors appeared not to have taken shinty to their hearts as the Club did. In December, 1844, on a general holiday in London, the sons of the Gael resident in the metropolis assembled as usual on the splendid and spacious grassy plain called Blackheath, behind Greenwich Park, to have a bout at the good old national game of "shinny," where

the cammock chest of the "Society of True Highlanders," in the charge of a trusty MacLeod, awaited their arrival, and contained some of the finest specimens, in British oak, of the club or cammock, we ever saw, each branded with the initials of the Society, and bound above the bass with a knot of green or red ribbon, to distinguish the sides of the respective players.30

Twenty years later, "according to ancient custom", the Gaelic denizens of the metropolis, again met (15-a-side) on the heath to enjoy a day's sport at "the national game of shinty" at Wimbledon: "All the games were most nearly contested, the sports being carried on with characteristic vigour and dexterity."31

When, in 1881, the Club finally produced their intriguing Book, after trials and tribulations, most notably difficulties in securing subscriptions for publication, the membership may have thought that they were doing shinty and Highland history a favour by committing their carefully constructed verbiage to print. They may have thought that they had, indeed, prepared the rules and regulations of shinty for publication for the first time. Ironically, however, one of the most notable exiles of his day, Captain Archibald MacRa Chisholm of Glassburn in Strathglass, had beaten them to it. The Strathglass Rules and Constitution had been published before the Club managed to get their tome in print and London, for all that it led the way in terms of development, had been out-flanked. The Club's days were numbered and its influence finally on the wane. Time, and real history, had finally caught up with them.

By the time Leabhar Comunn nam Fìor Ghael's specious antiquarianism started hitting the coffee tables of the country's Clubs and stately mansions in 1881, the Highlander newspaper had been regaling its readership with reports of shinty matches in England for nearly a decade. Its pages read more like an itinerary of modern English football Premier League venues.

A number of modern soccer clubs, most notably Nottingham Forest, can trace their origin to bandy clubs formed in their respective areas.32 The Highlander's frequent references to Birmingham, Manchester Camanachd, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and the Highland Camanachd Club of London, reflects the pace with which the "contagion" of organisation spread throughout England. A rash of clubs formed in the 1870s concentrated in three main areas - the Midlands and the North and London, where more than a dozen found their feet in rapid succession.

For all that London was ostensibly the centre of the English shinty universe and that this is where most of the organised activity was throughout the century, the first club formed was not in the capital. That singular honour belongs to Cottonopolis, Manchester, whose Camanachd Club was formed prior to December 1875. In that year, Manchester Highlanders organised matches at New Year and on Good Friday.33 Exactly a year later, Manchester Camanachd Club played a friendly match amongst themselves on Good Friday at Birch's Cricket Ground.34

The Manchester Camanachd inter-club matches on Christmas and New Year's Days were at this time regular features on the city social scene. On Christmas Day, 1877, play was 30-a-side against the Manchester and Salford Caledonian Club.

Every man in the Manchester team except two apparently spoke Gaelic. In the Manchester and Salford team, everyone but the Captain.35 This activity can only be explained by a mass movement of Highland people in search of work. Such were the numbers, matches were organised between "Highlanders" and "Lowlanders." There was still, apparently, only one club in England but another was being formed in the city. Manchester were contemplating a game against Glasgow where there were, apparently, four clubs. It was also reported that it was "time for one to be formed in Inverness."36 Clearly, Manchester regarded themselves in the van of contemporary developments.

It is a measure of the progress being made in terms of communications, travel and sporting activity generally that in March 1877, Manchester entertained Glasgow, represented by a team of Gaels from all over Scotland, at Moston Park, Manchester.

The competition began at 3.40, and at 3.43 the Glasgow men had their first goal; at 3.58 their second; and at 4.14 a third; at 4.22 a fourth; at 4.25 their fifth. There was then an interval till 4.50. On play being resumed, the Manchester men had a goal at 5.2, and the Glasgow men had their sixth at 5.9, when it was agreed to cease.37

None other than Mr. Murdoch of The Highlander ("an t-àrd Albannach") was in the chair at the dinner which followed, in a dining hall "crowded to excess" having been drafted away by the Glasgow team.

It would appear that the Manchester Club had to wait until 1878 for regular local competition which appeared in the neighbouring town of Bolton. The Bolton Caledonian Camanachd Club was formed on December 10, 1877, with upwards of 50 members. Within a week of their formation, however, at Bradford Park, Bolton, a friendly game was played, starting at 9am, "in true Highland fashion although the majority were good, stiff Lowland Scotsmen."38

By now the London club scene was catching up. A meeting was held in the Caledonian Hotel, Adelphi, in the first week of 1878 "for the purpose of forming a Camanachd Club,"39 with a second meeting held shortly thereafter in the Caledonian Hotel in the Strand. Thus the Highland Camanachd Club of London was formed in March 1878, eventually becoming the London Camanachd Club in October, 1894. Rules were to be formed, and membership of the club was to be confined to Highlanders (not necessarily Gaelic-speaking) and sons of Highland parents.

There were 30 playing members and 50 clubs had been ordered, indicating a certain degree of organisation and affluence, in that ordering clubs suggest an almost professional supply, with little difficulty in finding the resources to pay for it all.

The Club's Patron, Rt. Hon. Lord Lovat, who appears to have been patron to just about every single shinty and Highland organisation formed between then and the turn of the century, had made a donation of £10.40 The Highland Camanachd Club of London made their first competitive appearance on March 23, 1878 at Wimbledon Common, playing for an hour and a half. Play was good but it was suggested that better clubs were required and it was also suggested that Northern clubs could assist in providing these.41

Meanwhile, the Bolton Caledonian Shinty Club held their Dinner on July 4, 1878. The Members enrolled numbered almost 100 and they hoped to have a match at Rugby, Stafford or Crewe. It is known that shinty was played in Birmingham on Christmas Day 1878-80. At New Year, 1879, "Lowlanders" in Birmingham challenged the "Highlanders" there to play at Aston Park on 25th December, even numbers on each side. The Highlanders won 6-0. A match in connection with Birmingham Celtic Society was also played on December 27 at Sutton Park.42

The Manchester and Bolton clubs met on 8 February 1879 at Old Trafford, Manchester, where the home team were victorious. Several matches between the two clubs were played in the following years including one at Bolton for the benefit of the local Infirmary.

The matches were attended by spectators who had travelled from Liverpool.43 A 17-a-side return match between Bolton and Manchester was held at Folds Road, Bolton on March 8.44 It is not clear though when the Manchester and Bolton clubs ceased playing shinty. The last known contest between them was in April, 1881 and when the Camanachd Association was formed in 1893 there is no mention of either club. It would appear that as the organised aspects of the game gathered pace, the northern cities were passed by, probably because they never had the administrative back-up or degree of patronage available in London.

Sheer lack of numbers in the changing employment scene may also have rendered the organisations non-viable. The commercial opportunities available in London were in any case greater and attracted a significantly higher proportion of those involved and interested in the preservation and promotion of shinty, against the background of radical reorganisation of sporting organisations.

This is reflected in the progress rapidly made by the Highland Club in London. They were in very good shape, according to the Highlander. There was good attendance at A.G.M. in October, 1878, and it was agreed that practice and play should take place every alternate Saturday at Wimbledon.45

Over and above matches which took place in England itself on a local basis, there was a significant amount of cross-fertilisation between England and Scotland at this time, both in terms of key individuals who had a formative influence on the development of shinty and matches between clubs. In April, 1879, for example, London travelled to Summerton Park, Glasgow. Amongst those reported in the London team was Archibald MacRa Chisholm, military officer, musician, sportsman and Justice of the Peace, who was eventually to become the first Chief of the Camanachd Association.46

Within a year, Chisholm would have sown the seeds for the greatest reform of all by publishing the Strathglass Rules. By now, however, it would appear that shinty, as an organised game in England at any rate, was more or less concentrated in the Manchester/Bolton conurbation and the London area.

This again reflects changing employment patterns and opportunities. Later that year, at the Annual Dinner of Bolton Caledonian Shinty Club there were "almost 100 present." It was said that there was a difficulty getting practice in a busy manufacturing town and the devotion of members who turned out on Christmas Day was praised. They had played for almost one hour in "almost knee-deep snow".47

The Highland Camanachd Club of London at their Annual Meeting also reported satisfactory progress and the addition of new members. It was at this point that London became involved in the new departure of public links with Irish sporting organisations. It was hoped to have a match with Trinity College, Dublin, while at the same time investigating the possibility of a return fixture with Glasgow and fielding a left-handed challenge from Manchester Club.48

For many years, however, shinty in London manifested itself almost exclusively in terms of being a Christmas/Boxing Day or New Year event. Elsewhere, as has been noted in the north and in terms of matches between Scottish and English teams, Easter was a favoured time. Again, work patterns would have been the critical factor.

In 1880, this was still the case. The annual game of the Highland Camanachd Club of London was held on December 26, at Wimbledon. At half time the congregation met in a wigwam, "specially pitched" for bannocks, Highland cheese and whisky.49

The London Northern Counties Camanachd Club played their annual match at Wimbledon on Boxing Day, 1888. The teams were on this occasion selected by Mr. Colin Chisholm, Captain, one of the leading Gaels of his day and a scholar of some note50 and Mr. Eric MacKay, Vice Captain of the Club. A number of new players are reported as playing "with great vigour and dash", after which the members retired to the Fox and Hounds, Putney, "to partake of a sumptuous dinner and meet friends from London."

Colin Chisholm knew his shinty as well as he knew some of the other aspects of Gaelic life and culture. In an important contribution to the history of the game in the Highlander eight years earlier, he wrote that he recognised it as being known "both in England and in Ireland by the name of hockey or hurling." He himself claimed to have been engaged in shinty play on Blackheath Common near London.51

It is clear that the impetus created by clubs in the south, and key individuals who had free access between the Highlands and the conurbations of the south (and in particular the Highland scene in London) played a significant role in the formation of shinty's organised structure. It is clear, also, that the northern clubs' demise was rapid, partly due to an assimilation not unlike the experience in Canada and Australia.

Shinty became a purely social and cultural pastime, an icon and cultural anchor, rather than an organised sporting experience. The contribution from south of the border as shinty raced towards codification at breakneck speed, was, however, openly acknowledged at the time and not confined simply to contributing to the furore about whether kilts or knickerbockers were the most appropriate form of dress for shinty.52

The writer, A. Mackay Robson, in 1892, called for the establishment a body with the object of establishing uniformity of practice and rules, and of stimulating and popularising the game. It is perhaps significant that Robson, perhaps unconsciously, accorded the London clubs a certain primacy in terms of his ordering of the clubs perceived to be still active at the time.53

In 1893, the very year that the Camanachd Association was formed, it was reported in the Inverness Courier "An English View of Shinty" - that a caman, or shinty-club, could apparently conceal its identity in a London shop window for months.54 Just as the game was being set on an apparently sound footing in its heartland, in 1893, the unknown author declared that "real shinty, robust, rollicking, three-star shinty, so to speak" was "becoming yearly more limited in the area of its popularity."

England had what he referred to as "an innocent, innocuous apology for camanachd in the game of hockey." Shinty, he railed, was losing many of the more striking features which made it pre-eminently the outdoor sport of the fiery, fleet-footed Celt. The English view that a proposal "had been set on foot to send a shinty combination to Chicago to show the Americans one face of British athletics of no recent institution", remains to be confirmed, as does the view that shinty had been retained by "the Scotch aliens of the North-West of America, who, it is said, retain the old game of camanachd with all its pristine verve." The author then concluded:

It is, indeed, perhaps on the alien Scot more than on the native land that the survival of the game may depend in the future. He plays it on the Banks of the Red River and the Fraser; there is at least one Camanachd Club at the Cape, and the breezy expanse of Wimbledon Common periodically finds the London Celt following the flying ball.

Conclusions

The formation of a bewildering array of clubs in London in the last two decades of the nineteenth century is a key element in the development of shinty. What has not been fully researched or understood hitherto, however, has been the massive contribution made to shinty in terms of the indigenous stick and ball games which are to be found throughout England and, on an organised basis, by areas outwith London, particularly in the industrial heartlands of the north.

Shinty play in England not only made a crucial contribution to the survival of the game in its loosest form, but also to the organised manifestation of the game through key individuals and several organisations.

Socio-economic factors which led to the widespread dispersal of Scots and Highlanders throughout England enabled the game to survive in many shapes and forms through the later part of the nineteenth century. These very socio-economic factors which kept shinty alive also, in a way, led to the game's demise in England.

Shinty was dependent on patronage (from people such as Lord Lovat, Lord Colin Campbell and Charles Fraser MacKintosh) in England as it was in Scotland, and on the participation and support at various levels of a social elite. When that element of society was removed, or lost its power-base, so did the game of the Gael beyond Hadrian's Wall. Assimilation ruled here, as on the other side of the world.

Sad and all as the demise of the game beyond the border may be, perhaps the most regrettable aspect of the game's presence in England is that the game's role as a social cement and cultural anchor, and a significant and valuable element of that country's sporting tradition, has been under-estimated and misunderstood for so long.

References

Birley, Derek, Land of Sport and Glory: Sport and British Society, 1887-1910. (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1995)

Campbell, A. of Airds Yr., The Highland Society of London, 1773-1978, (London 1978)

Chisholm, Alister, Distant Shores, Shinty Yearbook (Inverness 1990)

Clyde, Robert, From Rebel to Hero : The Image of the Highlander, 1745-1830. (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1995)

Gomme, Alice Bertha Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Two Volumes, London: 1894-1898)

Harvie, Christopher, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, (Third Edition, Edinburgh 1998)

Lennon, Joe, The Playing Rules of Football and Hurling, 1884-1995, (Gormanstown: Northern Recreation Consultants, 1997)

MacDonald, David,The Mountain Heath, (London: 1838)

MacDonald, Ninian, Shinty. A Short History of the Ancient Highland Game. (Inverness: Robert Carruthers 1932)

MacLennan, Hugh D., Not an Orchid (Inverness: Kessock Communications, 1995)

McIntyre-North, C.N., Leabhar Comunn nam Fìor Ghael (Book of True Highlanders, 1881)

Prebble, John, The King's Jaunt, (Edinburgh : Collins, 1988)

Strutt, Joseph, Sports and Pastimes, (London: 1801)

Celtic Monthly

Highlander

Inverness Courier

Northern Chronicle

Notes

1 MacDonald, 1932, p 53.

2 Harvie, 1998, p 119.

3 SND, page 196; see also CAMMOCK, CAMAN, in the Supplement. See also The English Dialect Dictionary. Complete Vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last two hundred years. Edited by Joseph Wright (London, 1898).

4 MacDonald, 1932, p 53 and following.

5 MacDonald, 1932, pp. 54-5.

6 London, 1801. For some discussion of the early history of stick and ball games in England see Birley, 1995, chapters 1-5.

7 Quoted by MacDonald, 1932, p 61.

8 Hist. MSS., Com. 10th, Rep. app. V., 402.

9 See Lennon, 1997, pp. 615 and thereafter, for details of Carew's 1602 account of hurling in Cornwall and Devon.

10 EDD at page 387.

11 See Bandy, Bandy-cat, etc.

12 Carlisle Patriot, 20 January 1888. I am indebted to John Burnett, Curator of Sports, National Museums of Scotland, for this reference.

13 Two Volumes, London, 1894-1898.

14 Research for MacLagan's work began in 1893, although it was not published until 1901. EDD was published in 1898. All, obviously, drew to some degree on Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language.

15 Gomme, p 190.

16 Gomme, p 190, quoting Grose's Glossary and the Book of Sports (1810), pages 11-13.

17 See, for example, Campbell, 1978.

18 Strutt, 1801, p 99 and MacDonald, 1932, pp. 66-67.

19 Ann. Reg., 532. See MacDonald, 1932, at page 79.

20 Prebble, 1988, pp. 99, 112.

21 McIntyre-North, 1881.

22 The drawing has appeared in various forms, in such publications as the Illustrated London News and the Guinness Book of Records. It is believed to have appeared first of all in a detail of a map of Scotland by J & F Tallis in 1851.

23 Inverness Courier, 10.01.1822.

24 McIntyre-North, 1881, p 52.

25 McIntyre-North, 1881, p 50.

26 See MacDonald, 1838; also quoted in MacLennan, 1995 with detail of the unique silver medal known as "the Thistle Club Shinnie medal," thought to have been manufactured around 1840. The best guess as to the medal's history is that it may have been made as a President's award by the Highland Exiles' Office in London, and that it was presented at a game, of the kind played at Blackheath, London around the 1840s.

27 See "The Shinnie Muster Roll," MacDonald, 1838, pp. 160-162.

28 Inverness Courier, 23.06.1841. Alexandra Palace was another venue.

29 Clyde, 1995, p 128.

30 Inverness Courier, 03.01.1844.

31 Inverness Courier, 22.06.1865.

32 See Chisholm, 1990, p 53; and Leatherdale, Clive, The Book of Football, page 222.

33 Highlander newspaper, 16.01.1875, 03.04.1875.

34 Highlander, 22.04.1876.

35 Highlander, 06.01.1877.

36 Highlander, 07.04.1877. A month later, on 19.05.1877, however, the Highlander reported that there were "about 11 clubs - Vale of Leven, Edinburgh, Ossian, Inveraray Club (Glasgow), Cowal, Fingal, Inveraray, Greenock, Tobermory and Manchester."

37 Highlander, 24.03.1877.

38 Highlander, 05.01.1878.

39 The January 4 meeting is reported in the Highlander, 05.01.1878.

40 Highlander, 16.03.1878.

41 Highlander, 06.04.1878 and Highlander, 27.04.1878. See also Highlander, 11.01.1879. Highlander, 18.04.1879.

42 Highlander, 11.01.1879.

43 Highlander 17.11.1880.

44 Highlander, 14.03.1879. Highlander, 28.11.1879 reports that Manchester played Bolton Caledonian Club on Wednesday, November 19, at Manchester in a friendly game, 10-a-side. Highlander, 20.04.1881 reports a match between Manchester Camanachd and Bolton Caledonian at Manchester on Friday, 15th April.

45 Highlander, 12.10.1878. On 02.11.1878, the Highlander reported that the Highland Club began play on 26th October and despite "an unfavourable day" 20 members were present. According to H, 25.01.1879, the Highland Camanachd Club and Club of True Highlanders, met at Wimbledon in a friendly game.

46 Highlander, 18.04.1879. Chisholm will also have an entry in the New Dictionary of Biography (NDB).

47 Highlander, 10.10.1879.

48 Highlander, 10.10.1879.

49 Highlander, 02.01.1880.

50 See Northern Chronicle newspaper, 04.01.1888. Colin Chisholm wrote an important article on shinty in Highlander, 05.03.1880.

51 Highlander, 05.03.1880.

52 Celtic Monthly, Number 1, (October, 1892), at page 12.

53 The "existing Clubs" recalled were: London and Northern Counties, London Scottish, Edinburgh Camanachd, Edinburgh University, Aberdeen University, Glasgow Cowal, Inveraray, Furnace, Strachur, Bunawe, Dalmally, Lochgoilhead, Ardkinglas, Dunolly, Glencoe, Vale of Larroch, Brae-Lochaber, Glenurquhart, Strathglass, Kiltarlity, Inverness, Strathpeffer, Alvie, Insch, Kingussie, Newtonmore.

54 Inverness Courier, 12.05.1893.