Pre-industrial Sport

• Pre-industrial Britain = 1700-1800.
• Lower class Sports: mob football, bare knuckle fighting and cockerel fighting.
• Both classes: bear baiting and pedestrian.
• Upper class sports: cricket, real tennis and hunting.
• Upper class: aristocracy or gentry who were hereditary land owners.
• Lower class/peasants: worked manually, mainly on land.
• Women could participate in smock racing.
• Little law and order made peasant activities violent.
• The upper class were educated and literate unlike the lower class who played simple games due to their illiteracy.
• Upper class had more time so activities were longer.
• Lower class had little “leisure time”, instead spent long ours labouring on land.
• Lower class had to use natural resources while the upper class could afford to buy equipment.
• Transport was limited so walking was the main way to move.
• Sport was very local.
• Upper class had more opportunity to travel but we’re still limited by the poor state of roads.
• Real tennis was an exclusive and elitist game for kings, nobles and merchants who played on purpose-built, highly sophisticated courts which varied in size and shape.
• Mob football was mainly rural and played in locally, it had simple unwritten rules and was violent being very much based on force not skill.
• Cricket was played in the early 18th century and all classes played but different roles were assigned based on the feudal system.
• Athletics included a large range of popular games that had simple rules and was closely associated with drinking.
• Social factors:

  • class
  • gender
  • law and order
  • time
  • transport
  • education/literacy
  • money
• Transport was limited and therefore local
• Lack of tech and facilities as well as money for the masses so sport was natural and simple
• No NGB’s and much illiteracy so simple unwritten rules were used in sport
• The cruelty and violence of games reflected the harshness of 18th century life
• Sport was occasional due to workers only having free time on Holy days and annual holiday e.g. shrove tuesday
• Sport was rural due to how agricultural the UK was at the time
• wagering was a chance to go from rags to riches if you are poor, or show off if you are rich