Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

A.A.A. JUBILEE SOUVENIR sensational race of its kind ever run was the 4 miles relay, which the Oxonian, A. N. S. Jackson, won on the post from Louis Madeira, of Pennsylvania. After the War, Oxford and Cambridge sent across a joint team which won and set up a world's record for the 2 miles relay; since 1922 an almost annual interchange of visits has occurred. Meanwhile, the Universities were not totally disregarding native competition. Thus, in 1891, for example, Cambridge began an annual match with the L.A.C.; twenty years later, during the Presidency of one of her greatest sons, P. J. Baker, a fixture was instituted with the A.A.A., and, perhaps more important, the Inter-Collegiate competition and the Inter-Collegiate relay races were founded. Oxford, of course, had similar competitions, and this renewal of activity, further emphasised about this time by re-entry in the Championships and strong representation in the Stockholm Games, was about to bear fruit in the foundation of the Achilles Club in 1914, when the outbreak ofwar arrested athletic develop– ment for five or six years. In the Public Schools, athletics had continued to be a general, if rather a dilettante pursuit; after 1890, thanks to the L.A.C., the sport among boys was more directly encouraged, with splendid results. In that year the Club inaugurated its Annual Public Schools' Sports Meeting with a 440 yards race, and although the meeting was primarily intended for those foundations which could properly lay claim to the title " Public School," no particular restriction was placed upon entries, and with each succeeding year the number and variety of competing Schools was swelled. In l 897 the meeting was properly established with a programme of eight events-roe, 440, 880, mile, high and long jumps, l 20 yards hurdles, ¾-mile steeplechase-to which were added later a mile wal~ and a pole jump, two junior events and, in 1929, the weight, javelin and discus as experiments. The Schools' Challenge Cup was presented in l 899 ; in r 9 r4 standard medals were given for the first time, and most valuable of all, despite the difficulties experienced through the athletic interregnum 1914-1919, the older members of the Club managed to carry on this meeting, the only regular sports meeting, outside the Services, throughout the War. PERIOD 5.-1919-1930. NEW BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT The post-war years, which witnessed so many and far-reaching develop– ments in athletics all over the world, were particularly fruitful in the Schools and Universities of Great Britain. The continuity and expansion of the Public Schools' Sports have been noted. The good work done by the L.A.C. was supplemented by the Achilles Club, founded in 1920 and composed entirely of past and present Oxford and Cambridge athletes. This Club, to which relay racing ever had a great appeal, and which may be regarded as the pioneer of that form of athletics on a large scale in England, introduced Public School relay 90