Athletics of To-Day 1929

The Growth of Modern Athletics 9 Bowles, while Wyatt took the roo yards and ran also in the Mile. In the latter event, however, he was heavily handicapped by being given some pounds of shot to carry in an old-fashioned shot belt, slung about his middle, and so managed to finish only second to Aitken. Looking back at the personal records of the winners at that first Exeter College Sports Meeting, one might well be tempted to repeat the quotation, "The giants were on the earth in tho~e days," for both James Aitken and Halifax Wyatt, bes1~es proving their prowess at athletics, achieved Blues for roWing and cricket. . In the Exeter College Summer Meeting of r85r, the high Jump and the long jump were both added to the programme, and I believe that Lincoln was the next college to hold a Sports Meeting, and in r856 St . John's and Emmanuel Coil ges gave a lead to Cambridge, but at Oxford the new fashion was spreading far more rapidly, and College Sports were instituted at Balliol, Pembroke, Wadham and 'Vorcesier (r856), Oriel (r857), Merton (r8s8), and Christ Church (r85g). M anwhile Cambridge, although not boasting so many separate college meetings as Oxford, had, in r857, started the University Sports. In r86o the Oxford Univ rsity Sports, open to all undergraduates, were founded, mainly through the perseverance of the Rev. E. Arkwright, of :Merton ollege. ~he next important step in progress was, of course, the founda– tion of the Inter-University Sports. But, before recording that happening, we must go back for a mom nt to see what was taking place at the schools. Somewhere about the year r85o, I believe, certain private schools in the neighbourhood of London had b gun to hold <:~nnual foot races and jumping match s, but the earliest authentic reference to a regular school sports meeting that I hav been able to trace r late to such a meeting being pro– moted at Kensington Grammar School in r85z. In the following year Harrow, Cheltenham, and Durham University all started meetings, and I think St. Albans was another, although there is some evidence that that very ancient school