Fenland Speed Skaters 1900s
Littleport and Fenland Speed Skaters
1900s
The Fens and its skaters
The Fens of East Anglia, with its rivers, dykes and flooded meadows, formed an ideal skating terrain. From the mid 19 century in the cold winters, skating matches were held in towns and villages all over the Fens. It became known as the golden age of fen skating when thousands of people turned out to watch such legendary skaters as Larman Register, William ‘Turkey’ Smart, ‘Gutta Percha’ See.
William Smart a skater from Welney, got his name from his unusual style of skating, bent low, leaning forward with his arms flapping behind him and with his beaky nose, he gained the nickname 'Turkey'. He became Champion Skater of England in 1854 and dominated fen speed skating until the late 1860s.
His main rival during that time was another Welney man, William See, two years younger than Smart. See was described as being very resilient or 'tough as old boots' and also gained a life-long nickname - 'Gutta Percha' - after the tough rubber material used to make the soles of boots.
Followed a few years later by brothers George 'Fish' Smart and James Smart , George See, and Charles Goodman Tebutt. Skating special trains brought hoards from London to see organized matches.
Larman Register once raced a train from Littleport to Ely, a course where railway and river are closely entwined. Despite the fireman reportedly throwing cinders onto the ice at Adelaide bridge, Register skated into Ely thirty seconds ahead, and won his bet
The purse
The farmers and gentry who organised the matches would raise a subscription for prize money
£10 was a typical purse in the mid-nineteenth century, with about half going to the winner and the rest divided amongst the other runners according to how far they had got in the contest.
This was at a time when agricultural labourers typically earned about 11 shillings a week and nothing at all when the ground was too frozen to work. Substantial betting added to the thrill of the race. In the local matches, men (or sometimes women or children) would compete for the prizes of money, clothing, or food.
"During severe winters it is no uncommon thing to see joints of meat hung outside the village pub, to be skated for on the morrow".
Turkey Smart
Important races were reported at length in the Cambridge papers, including that Turkey Smart from Welney won twelve victories in the winter of 1854/55, his total winnings for that season were £54 15s and a leg of mutton. Even at the age of 61 ‘Turkey’ was entering contests, though hampered by a scythe injury to a leg. A clergyman once urged him to invest his winnings, saying it was unsafe to keep so much at home. ‘Turkey’ told him that it was already safe ‘in the bank’. It was actually buried it in the bank of the Old Bedford River where he lived.
Cambridge Chronicle: Mepal February 1855
The clergy and 'squires', gentry and tradesmen – hale ploughboys and rosy milkmaids – ladies parties in carriages, gigs and carts, made their way to the bank near the bridge, and took their respective positions, where the view was excellent, and all that could be wished, for the 'St Ledger day on the ice'. A brass band of music from Chatteris was placed on the bridge, and played the most lively tunes: at the starting of a race, 'Cheer boys, cheer', and at the winning, 'See the conquering hero comes'. The number of persons present was stated at from five to eight thousand, and some said ten thousand. Punctually at the time appointed, half-past one, the racing commenced. The bold Fen-men soon appeared, whose iron frames, lion sinews, elasticity of action and body, astonished all beholders. They were a fine specimen of the bold peasantry of England.
Thomas Peacock
Littleport became an important centre for skating in 1891, when Thomas Peacock (owner of the Hope Brothers shirt factory, set up 1881 to provide work for Littleport women during the agricultural depression) leased a piece of ground, 28 acres, by the railway line, embanked it, and flooded it in the winter to form a skating ground known as the Moors.
The first match on the new rink was held in January 1892 in front of two thousand spectators. It was won by the champion James Smart, skating in his first match since returning from Norway and using Norwegian style skates.
James Smart rounds the barrel turn
The championship matches took the form of a Welsh main or "last man standing" contest. The competitors, 16 or sometimes 32, were paired off in heats and the winner of each heat went through to the next round. A course of 660 yards was measured out on the ice, and a barrel with a flag on it placed at either end.
The course was divided down the middle with more barrels, sods of earth or piles of snow. The skaters were drawn in pairs, and started one either side of the barrel, skate down the course, round the barrel and back again, with each skater keeping to their own side of the ice. For a one-and-a-half-mile race, the skaters completed two rounds of the course, with three barrel turns. If there were 16 competitors the winner and runner-up would have skated a total of 6 miles
Charles Goodman Tebutt with a bandy stick
Bandy
In 1882 members of the Bury Fen Club published the rules of the game of Bandy. Similar to ice hockey, Bandy is played by using a ball as opposed to a puck. In bandy, both teams have eleven players, in ice hockey, both teams have six. A Bandy rink is larger than ice hockey rink.
NSA
The National Skating Association was set up in Cambridge in 1879 and took the top few fen skaters to the Netherlands, where they had a brief moment of international glory with James Smart becoming Britain's only ever world champion speed skater.
James Smart was to be instrumental in the import to Littleport and the surrounding fens of the Norwegian Hagen speed skates, the agency for which was to pass to JH Adams & Sons in 1920.
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