Cultural Imperialism: A Case Study of Football in Bath in the late-Victorian Era

Malcolm Henson

Staffordshire University

Introduction

It is intended to apply the social theory of the anthropologist Max Gluckman1 who analysed life in Zululand during colonial rule to our understanding of a `Fancy Dress Football Match' and the `Volunteer Force' XV in Bath circa 1881. Demographic trends in England and Wales at the time, as well as Norbert Elias' 2 theories of the `civilizing process' will be used to explain the social phenomena under investigation. A method called `Nominal Record Linkage' which has been applied successfully by both Tranter3 and Etherington4 to the socio-historical analysis of sport and leisure activities will be utilized in this survey and adds a degree of empiricism to the study.

The paper is divided in to five parts as follows. In part one details of Nominal Record Linkage are explained as well as the quantitative and qualitative methods applied to the research. The social morphology of Bath in the late-Victorian era is described in the next section and Gluckman's anthropological theory in relation to rugby football and cultural imperialism outlined. This part is concluded by comparing the social differences between Rugby Union and League. Part three examines demograhic trends in relation to birth rate, infant mortality and the issue of `eugenics'. The penultimate section applies Elias' `civilising process' to our understanding of the football scenario in Bath (1881_90) and we incorporate Malcolmson's5 work on popular recreations and pastimes to account for the demise of `Fancy Dress Football Matches' in our concluding comments.

I

Players from the `Fancy Dress Football Match' were listed in the Bath Chronicle6 which provided surnames and initials of team members. Using the 1881 Somerset Census it was possible to trace details of these Victorian sportsmen and apart from name(s), variables such as age, address, occupation, social class and place of birth were also ascertained (See Tables I and III). This process is known as `Nominal Record Linkage' (NRL) whereby primary sources are cross-referenced, in this case a newspaper report and the Census. The 1881 Victorian Census Report7 provided data on Irish and foreign visitors to British cities (See Table II) the value of which will be duly apparent. The match report can be seen below and appeared in the Bath Chronicle, 6 January 1881:

`The annual event took place on the Bath Football Club ground (Lambridge) on New Year's Day after being postponed from the preceding Monday owing to the unfavourable weather. Saturday was not all that could be desired, the ground being wet and slight rain falling at the commencement, notwithstanding all this there were over four-hundred people at the ground a great number of them being ladies, this showing that the efforts of Bath FC are appreciated. The Rhine String Band was present and played a selection of music. At 3-15pm Mr and Mrs Candle were deputed (sic) to pick sides. The Clown (C. Everitt) and Harlequin (C. Nash) entered the ground in a donkey tandem. The ball was started by Mrs Candle (W.F. Ommaney) it was quickly returned by Polly (W.Williams) and Edwards getting hold of it made a good run but was safely held by a Zouave (G.B. Hodson). After quick play Mr Candle (C.F. Lickman) obtained a try, goal resulting. Soon after another try was gained by Nigger (A. Williams) but the kick failed. About two minutes before half-time another goal was kicked for Mrs Candle's side from a try gained by E. Sants. On half-time being called Mrs Candle's side rallied and aided by some fine play by Executioner (C. Danberry). Mephistopheles (L.O. Donoghue) soon after kicked a goal this however proved only an effort for a Sprite (W. Santa) presently gained a try and a goal was kicked. Another try was gained by Mainwaring but the kick failed; soon the darkness put an end to the enjoyable game. In Mr Candle's side, besides those mentioned above, H. and C. Williams made some good runs while for Mrs Candle, Stuart, McLorg, Roseberry and Danberry helped to avert defeat. Victory rested with Mr Candle's side by three goals and two tries to the goal. The following were the sides:

Mr Candle's side: A.K. Cunninghame (Brigand Chief), H.W. Merton (Charley Girl), W. Williams (Polly), A. Williams (Nigger), Minstrel, quarter back, E. Sants (Guard), C.F. Luckman (Candle), C.V. Mainwaring, C. Wilkinson (Fiji Islander), C.F. Williams (Knight), Gerald (Countryman), G.B. Hodson (Zouave).

Mrs Candle's side: C.W. Danberry (Executioner), Doveton (Blue Devil), backs H.S. Edwards, Nash (Harlequins) 3/4B., L.A.O. Donoghue (Mephistopheles), W.F. Ommaney ( Mrs Candle) Backs, C. Stuart (Irishman), C.O.U. Williams, E. Everitt (Clown), P.G. Fosberry (Tipperary), A.E.C. McLorg (Zouave), P.W. Mensies, Forwards.'

Jary and Jary8 refer to ideographic (qualitative) and nomothetic (quantitative) methods of research suitable for historical and sociological investigations respectively. A case study is the study of a single instance of a phenomenon either for its own sake or as an examplar or paradigm case of a general phenomenon as with the `Fancy Dress Football Match'. Although the approach might be criticised for antiquarianism the theoretical perspective adopted enables a wider analysis of society to take place based on an event that took place over a decade i.e. 1881-1890 every New Year's Day.

According to Armstrong9 social historians are concerned primarily with groups and deal less with the individual than type. The nomothetic approach emphasises the importance of concentrating on the typical or general rather than the unique or particular. By using the Booth-Armstrong classification of occupations based on 1881 survey details and the Registrar General's Social Class Schema (1951) it was possible to determine the socio-economic status of players in the Bath FC and Volunteers XV.

The Booth-Armstrong classification of occupations consists of seventy-nine industrial groupings and nine economic sectors with a tenth for the unwaged. A majority of the Bath FC players came from professional occupations whereas the Volunteers XV were employed mainly in building and manufacturing. The members of Bath FC were in social classes I and II that are middle class, and their counterparts from the Volunteers XV in social classes IIIM, IV and V, i.e. working class.

Tables I and III show the results of NRL, and where it has not been possible to conduct the process this is because players were not listed on the 1881 Somersetshire Census. The geographical mobility of the members of Bath FC who were from higher socio- economic status and the observations of Woollard,10 explain the difficulties of record linkage. Woollard's paper on the classification of occupations in the 1881 Census of England and Wales noted that the data was collected in April, and as it was likely that some of the players were visting friends and relatives over Christmas and New Year they would not have been recorded. Somerset in 1881 had one of the lowest records of in and out-migration in England due to its agrarian economic base; the city of Bath, however, being a spa had many visitors11 making record linkage more problematic.

II

According to Gluckman (Ibid.) accounts of celebrations can be used `as an entry point into the whole society and its cultural and ethnological structures' and it is suggested that the `Fancy Dress Football Match' on New Year's Day in Bath described above is one example of such an event. Gluckman suggested that by focusing on specific events including incidental but important ceremonies, the social structure of the society in which they occur is exposed, as well as social cleavage. By describing a bridge-opening ceremony and analysing the physical positions taken by the African and European groups present and the interaction that occurred between them, Gluckman was able to construct a model of the social structure, as it existed in Zululand.

A spectator at this game of rugby football in Bath in the latter part of the Victorian era would have observed the positions of the players on the pitch at Lambridge were unique to that period, and each team member had a certain position on the field. In contrast, folk-football in the early part of the nineteenth century was played on a mob basis with no set positions, such as, forwards or three-quarters. Dunning and Sheard12 commented on the changing structure of football throughout history and Dunning13 mentions that the changing economic structure has influenced the manifestation of the game in society.

The Industrial Revolution led to a division of labour, as discussed by Adam Smith the economist, which resulted in one person having a specific role in the manufacture of a product, much as one player in the rugby team had a particular task and skill to perform e.g. running with the ball, tackling or kicking, the salience of that skill depending on his playing position. A hypothetical time-traveller would be able to determine the stage of economic development in Britain by noting the physical positions taken by players in this form of celebration. The pre-industrial agrarian society was noted for mob football and this is referred to by Gomme14 in his publication the `Village Community' such forms of football are characterised by an absence of structure with regard to playing postions. During the late industrial revolution football playing postions were highly differentiated according to individual skills. In this sense Gluckman's theoretical approach when applied to a social occasion in Bath can illuminate our understanding of society in this era by facilitating the analysis of actors, stage and plot in greater depth than hitherto.

Neale 15 stated that Bath had been termed a `Valley of Pleasure or Sink of Iniquity' and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a playground of the wealthy and a resort and retirement location for the leisured classes. The social exclusivity was exemplified through the New Year's Day celebration in the form of the `Fancy Dress Match' which was a patrician occasion with a crowd of four hundred spectators mostly ladies who were entertained beforehand by a string band. By using the process of NRL it was possible to ascertain the birth places, occupations and social class of some players who participated in this celebration and the social backgrounds of these young men can be noted in Table I.

Name Census Place Age Occupation Parish Born

County/Country

Cunninghame A.K. Charlcombe 21 Glos

Doveton E. Walcot 17 Scholar India

Everitt E. Walcot 20 Undergraduate Wilts

Luckman C.F. Bath St.Michaels 15 Scholar Bath Mainwaring C.V. Walcot 18 Scholar India

McLorg A.C. Bathwick 16 Solicitor Articled Glos

Menzies P.W. Walcot 17 Medical Student Kent

Sants E. Walcot 27 Tobacconist Bath

Stuart C. Walcot 17 Scholar India Wilkinson C. Walcot 32 Veterinary Surgeon Ireland

Wiliams A. Walcot 20 2nd Lieutenant India

Williams C.F. Bathwick 22 Undergraduate Som

Williams W. Walcot 27 Professional Glos

Table I: Occupations and Birth Places of Bath Football Club Players

From the above Table it is possible to deduce the elitist status of the players and through the process of NRL the occupational composition of the team was as follows: four scholars from local public and private schools, two undergraduates, one army officer, one veterinary surgeon, one professional, one tobacco and pipe dealer, one articled solicitor and one medical student. By deducing social class from both fathers' and sons' occupations using the Registrar General's Classification (1951) it was apparent that social classes one and two predominated, hence the middle-class nature of the team.16 Four of the players were born in India and one in Ireland which indicates the colonial aspect of the side.

The Imperial backdrop to the `Fancy Dress Match' is further highlighted by the pseudonyms of some of the players, for example, Nigger, Fiji Islander, Zouave, Irishman and Tipperary. According to the Census Report (1881) racial minorities were relatively uncommon in England at this time as shown in Table II (Victorian Census Report 1881) Bath had a population of twelve Irish and thirty-two foreigners per ten thousand enumerated compared to London and Manchester which had 1,435: 5,104 and 455: 431 respectively. Such figures may partly explain the deprecating references in the `Fancy Dress Match' e.g. Nigger. Furthermore, in nearby Batheaston the construction of Box Tunnel on the Great Western Railway resulted in the influx of approximately one thousand Irish navvies into the area and this was a cause of social conflict and prejudice.

Towns Scots Irish Foreign

London 1,954 1,435 5,104

Croydon 30 18 77

Brighton 32 20 104

Portsmouth 558 54 66

Southampton 27 14 43

Northampton 7 8 12

West Ham 88 36 137

Ipswich 11 4 12

Norwich 13 6 17

Plymouth 18 25 47

Bath 12 12 32

Bristol 45 57 98

Wolverhampton 15 30 21

Walsall 10 22 10

West Bromwich 4 7 9

Birmingham 66 126 186

Aston Manor 8 7 15

Leicester 21 17 31

Nottingham 32 27 110

Derby 20 23 21

Stockport 11 60 13

Birkenhead 131 132 83

Liverpool 805 1,262 786

St. Helens 25 87 8

Bolton 35 82 23

Bury 13 39 12

Salford 113 231 84

Manchester 240 455 431

Oldham 25 79 29

Rochdale 17 45 18

Burnley 14 38 8

Blackburn 32 75 20

Preston 29 76 21

Huddersfield 23 26 21

Halifax 18 46 17

Bradford 59 140 100

Leeds 105 170 221

Sheffield 63 89 102

Kingston-upon-Hull 72 44 241

Middlesborough 61 66 44

Sunderland 186 79 92

South Shields 121 36 79

Gateshead 118 56 20

Newcastle-upon-Tyne 344 98 129

Cardiff 31 76 175

Ystradyf 2 5 11

Swansea 16 32 62

TOTAL 5,680 5,572 9,002

Table II: Distribution of Natives of Scotland and Wales and Ireland, and of Foreigners, in Counties per 10,000 enumerated in England and Wales (`Victorian Census Report', 1881)

Brookes17 in his article "The Lawless Navvy; a study of crime associated with Railway Building" refers to court cases involving railway navvies in the area c.1840s. Some examples that illustrated the range of offences and attracted the attention of the law can be seen below, in the examples of events involving Navvies in the Bath area drawn from Petty Session Records:

The arrival of the vanguard of the Great Western's labour force in the district began ominously with an attack on a party of drunken navvies in Chippenham by a gang of local men. As lodging space in the villages of the neighbourhood, Corsham, Box, Lacock etc were steadily occupied by railwaymen, parish constables found themselves occupied in dispersing groups of drunken men and breaking up impromptu bouts of pugilism.18

In July 1839, during an attempt to apprehend a navvy called "Ginger", a pursuit took place in the fields of over Box Tunnel and the police were attacked by both railway labourers and a group of haymakers led by a ferocious women armed with a rake.. Meanwhile "Ginger" escaped.19

Every Autumn brought its spate of prosecutions following the theft of fruit, beans, potatoes, turnips etc. One inhabitant of Box complained that he was unable to keep anything being so near to the line of the railway.20

Although these events took place some years before the `Fancy Dress Football Match" the dislike of Irish navvies may have persisted fueled by more recent events to which reference will be made.

Mangan22 refers to `blacks ruled by blues' which is a situation indirectly produced in the New Year's Day celebration in Bath. By treating ethnic groups in a light-hearted way future rulers of the Empire are reinforcing their dominant position, power and authority through the character building properties of athleticism hence creating an army of manpower to expand colonial interests in the future. In the structural-functionalist terms used by Gluckman the match has a very practical value acting as a laboratory for empire builders. Using an anthropological approach Gluckman23 was able to demonstrate that such celebrations or events were rituals of rebellion and were helpful to explain how conflict within a social system is managed. Accordingly rituals of rebellion emphasised conflict in certain ranges of social relationships and yet established cohesion in the wider society or over a longer period of time. In a sense the `Fancy Dress Football Match' achieved this state by making fun of foreigners and defusing a situation which potentially could have become excessively xenophobic due to the low number of foreigners resident in Bath and the influx of Irish navvies to the nearby village of Batheaston some years earlier. The subterranean tensions, which players experienced with regard to race were, it is suggested, ameliorated by this social event.

An interesting aspect of rugby in Bath in the Victorian era was the formation of a team called the `Volunteers' c.1885. The `Volunteers were first established in 1803 as military regiment to train civilians as soldiers to counter the threat of French invasion. Disbanded in 1813 they were restablished in 1859 and nicknamed locally the `Walcot Punchers' with the brief: "To protect our lives property and constitution against foreign and domestic enemies."24

In 1861 the Bath Company of 300 men paraded with band, drums and fife in front of the Royal Crescent at 9 o'clock and then the Rifle Volunteers marched to Kelston Park for a Grand Review by Lord Portman, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset. Such a ceremony would be readily understood by contemporaries and can be analysed using Gluckman's social anthropological theory. The pomp and splendour, the salubrious surroundings, the rank-and-file volunteers on foot and the commanders on horse would have indicated the imperial nature of the occasion and to a foreign observer suggested the social fabric of Victorian Britain.

Hargreaves25 stated that the objectives of the organisers of this paramilitary group were overtly class control, and John McGregor Captain of the London Scottish Volunteers commented to the `Social Science Association' in a paper on the `Moral, Social and Hygienic Effects of the Volunteer Movement' (1879) to the affect that volunteering made men less idle and dissipated and more respectful of authority.

According to Cunningham26 the Volunteer Force was joined by members of the working class who quickly formed a majority and were led by a middle-class officer corp. Activities such as games encouraged recruiting, and the social class structure of the members of the `Volunteers' XV can be seen in Table III. In contrast to the to the status of the players from Bath FC the Volunteers are far more plebeian.

Name Census Place Age Occupation Parish Born

Humphries H. Bradford-on-Avon 14 Errand Boy Bradford-on-Avon China F. Walcot 20 Carpenter Bath

Winckworth J. Walcot 19 Printer Bath

Jones E.E. Lyncombe & Widcombe 18 Sorting Clerk GPO Downside

Springfield S.I. Lyncombe & Widcombe 22 Unemployed Bath

Worley T. Devizes 24 Labourer in Iron Bishops Canning

Foundry

Bullock W. Walcot 20 Factory Labourer Bath

Hewlett O. Walcot 21 Compositor Bath

Alexander T. Walcot 23 Clerk GWR Bath

Lewis H.W. Twerton 26 Plumber Batheaston

Eyles A. Walcot 12 Milk Boy Bath

Table III: Volunteers XV (1885): Occupation and Birth Place.

It will be noticed that in the team lists for the New Year's Day Fancy Dress rugby match several of the players `dressed up' as Irishmen. At that time in the nineteenth century political tensions with Ireland were running particularly highly and Gladstone was endeavouring to solve the Irish problem. The Irish famine in the 1840s greatly increased migration to Britain and Royle27 stated that the health and hygiene habits of the Irish population in British cities resulted in a clear clash of cultures.

The Volunteers were formed "to protect lives, property and constitution against foreign and domestic enemies", hence their role in preventing acts of terrorism. According to Hammond: "The Government could, in the case of certain crimes, abolish the rights to trial by jury, and arrest strangers found out of doors at night under suspicious circumstances"28

Such tensions would be manifested in the New Year's Day match which Gluckman would see as a safety valve for the release of emotion and physical energy amongst the players thus establishing an equilibrium in society and easing the tensions caused by events like land reform in Tipperary and the simmering discontent of the Irish peasant.

Moving northwards, in the industrial and manufacturing areas of Lancashire, Irishmen were an integral part of the rugby scene in the late-Victorian era in contrast to their marginal status in the south. In fact, according to the 1881 Census Report, Lancashire possessed one of the highest percentages of Irish population in Britain, thus, Warrington `Wires' of the Northern Union had five Irishmen in the team of 1895-6, i.e. players whose parents were born in Ireland, and these players came from families whose fathers were employed in unskilled work in the manufacturing industries of the town hence by background were working class. Doyle29 questioned whether the Irish were enthusiasts for Rugby League because of an affinity between the game and Gaelic Football or whether it was simply because they were poor, and that Rugby League unlike Union was a game of the working class. Certainly the financial benefits of playing in the Northern Union must have been an incentive for ethnic minorities to participate on equal terms with the indigenous population.

III

In England in the latter part of the Victorian era there were certain demographic trends that led to a marginalisition of foreigners that might have caused the xenophobia witnessed in the game of rugby in Bath. According to the Census Report:

The strictly foreign element of the population has increased with each successive Census in somewhat higher proportion than the population itself. In 1851 there was one such foreign subject to 356 persons enumerated; in 1861 there was one to 239; in 1871 one to 226 and in 1881 one to 220; the increase in the last intercensal period having been 17.3 per cent.

Of the 117,999 persons who were foreigners by nationality as well as by birth 98,617 were born in Europe, 484 in Asia, 258 in Africa, 18,496 in America and 144 in unstated countries (32 foreign subjects were born at sea). The Census Report stated that a great bulk of them were found exclusively in the industrial centres. It can be seen that although the percentage of foreigners in England and Wales was increasing, the city of Bath had very low percentages of Irish and foreigners in 1881 (See Table II).

Another very important demographic trend was the declining birth rate. Between 1876 when the first returns were collected and 1897, the year of the Diamond Jubilee, the crude birth rate per 1,000 population dropped from 35.5 to 30.5, a decrease of 14.1 per cent. Concurrently, the infant mortality showed a slight increase by 6.8 per cent.

Dwork30 stated that one consequence of these statistics was that very real concerns were voiced about the physical condition of the race, and scientists such as Francis Galton (1822-1911) investigated from a biological basis `the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally' which was according to Galton the definition of `eugenics'. If Britain was to retain her Imperial standing it was essential that national efficiency be maintained in order to prevent the decline in military and commercial power.

It was against this social backdrop that `race', whether referring to Irish or foreigners, became a more visible issue in Britain. The examples of the `Fancy Dress Football Match' and the `Volunteers' in Bath are early signs of this development that it has been attempted to illuminate using Gluckman's anthropological approach substantiated by reference in this section to demographic trends.

IV

Throughout the 1880s these matches to which we have referred were a regular New Year's Day feature in Bath. Towards the end of the decade characters in fancy dress tended to be more conventional, and based on occupations e.g. miller, farmer, musician etc, however, there were still references to racial characteristics as late as 1890. Various reasons might be offered for the eventual demise of such games in the form described.

The decline in this observed form of entertainment may be due to what Norbert Elias called the `civilizing process'. He used the term `civilization' to refer to a wide variety of behaviour and beliefs including types of manners, religious ideas and customs and he believed that there was a decisive role played in the civilizing process by very specific changes in the feelings of shame and delicacy.

The purpose of his research was to show how in the course of history the structure of western society changed continuously, and concurrently the standard of behaviour; thus the personality of individuals was related to the social structure. Such a viewpoint may explain a lack of forebearance in Bath in the 1880s when individuals felt threatened by the increasing number of Irish and foreigners, and eventually the end of the Fancy Dress matches altogether due to the changing thresholds of tolerance. Elias mentioned that:

Belligerence and aggression find socially permitted expression in sporting contests and they are expressed especially by spectating, in the imaginary identification with a small number of combatants to whom moderate and precisely regulated scope is given for the release of these aggressive tendencies.31

Spectating is a characteristic feature of civilized society and it is possible that the spectacle of the Fancy Dress matches eventually lost its entertainment value.

V

As this essay relies on both historical and sociological data a combination of ideographic and nomothetic methods were thought appropriate to analyse the `Fancy Dress Match' and data on the `Volunteers XV' respectively. The former was a one-off, unique experience based on ideographic material. In the Tables I, II and III the generalizations made in assessing players' social class and the incidence of Irish and foreigners in England in 1881 lean towards nomothetic methods or as Munslow32 termed `cliometrics' dating from the 1960s.

Malcolmson refers to the practice of Victorian `improvers' to modify contemporary popular events into acceptable forms with their vulgar and disorderly elements being removed. Such `sanitization' or civilising process may explain why the annual New Year's Day festivity ceased to function after 1890. The Volunteer Force was finally disbanded in Bath in 1908. Throughout the twentieth century Bath FC went from strength to strength finally becoming professional in 1995.

This essay has endeavoured to show how structural-functionalist theory described by Gluckman can illuminate our understanding of an event celebrated during the imperial high noon of late-Victorian England.

Notes

1 Gluckman, M. , Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (Chicago: Aldine, 1965) p. 178

2 Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982) pp. xii and 202

3 Tranter, N.L., The Social and Occupational Structure of Sports in Scotland During the Nineteenth Century. International Journal of the History of Sport Vol. 4 Number 1 (1987), pp. 301-315.

4 Etherington, J., The Bonfire Societies of Lewes, 1800-1913. A Study of Nominal Record Linkage (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Sussex University, 1987)

5 Malcolmson, R.W., Popular Recreation and English Society 1700-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)

6 Bath Chronicle 6 January 1881

7 Victorian Census Report 1881, Vol. II p. 56

8 Jary, D., and Jary, J. , Dictionary of Sociology (London: Unwin Hyman, 1999) pp. 62 and 307

9 Armstrong, W.A., `The use of information about occupation in nineteenth century society' in Wrigley, E. A., (ed) Essays In The Use Of Quantitative Methods For The Study Of Social Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) p. 191

10 Woollard, M., `The classification of occupations in the 1881 census of England and Wales', History and Computing Vol. 10 (1999), p. 23

11 Walvin, J., Leisure and Society 1830-1950 (London: Longman, 1978), p. 12

12 Dunning, E., and Sheard, K., Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players (London: Martin Robinson, 1979), p. 33-4

13 Dunning, E.G., Early Stages in the Development of Football and Organized Games (Unpublished MA thesis, Leicester University, 1961)

14 Gomme, G.L., The Village Community (London: Scott Publishing, 1890) pp. 243-4

15 Neale, R.S., Bath: A Social History 1680-1850 (London: RKP, 1981)

16 Hicks, T.W., Walcot Old Boys' Rugby Football Club Centenary 1882-1983 (Walcot: 1983). Working-class players were excluded from Bath FC until the 1890s when they were loaned to the club from Walcot-Victoria FC on payment of £3 per annum and the loan of a pitch, see p. 79

17 Brookes, D., The `Lawless' Navvy: a Study in the Crime Associated with Railway Building (Trowbridge: Trowbridge Library, 1983) p. 8

18 Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, 24 May 1839

19 Chippenham Petty Sessions Minutes, Vol. 2, p.102

20 Ibid., p.435

22 Mangan, J.A., The Games Ethic and Imperialism (London: Frank Cass, 1998) p. 74

23 Gluckman, M., Custom and Conflict in Africa (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966) p. 109. The match comes within Gluckman's definition of `ceremonial' e.g. any complex organization of human activity which involves the use of modes of behaviour which are expressive of social relations.

24 Bath Chronicle 1 April 1908

25 Hargreaves, J., Sport, Power and Culture (Oxford: Polity Press, 1995) p. 49

26 Cunningham, H., Leisure in The Industrial Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1980) p. 182

27 Royle, E., Modern Britain: A Social History 1750-1985 (London: Edward Arnold, 1987) p. 72

28 Hammond, J.L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London: Frank Cass, 1964) p. 182

29 Doyle, P.J., `Some Problems of the Regional Historian of Rugby League' in Journal of Local Studies, Vol. 1 (1980) p. 9-11

30 Dwork, D., War is Good for Babies and Other Young Children (London: Tavistock, 1987) p. 8

31 Ibid., p.202

32 Munslow, A., Deconstructing History (London: Routledge, 1998) p. 179