While working on a book about researching sporting ancestors a couple of years ago, I knew I’d have to differentiate between those who played sport for fun and those who played for money. It wasn’t easy. Even a definition of sport itself caused a problem as there were people around in the Victorian period who considered sport to consist of chasing a quarry while what we consider to be sports today were noted down as mere ‘pastimes’.

Within this rather vague framework, some ‘sportsmen’ openly made a living from their activities while others, often regarding themselves as amateurs and in many cases not in need of ‘making a living’, were far less open. For example it might have taken a professional club cricketer a whole season to earn the equivalent of the cost of a so-called amateur’s bed and board at a top hotel for one single game!

Keeping this in mind it is still possible to find professional sporting ancestors and looking at leading data website TheGenealogist.co.uk’s census records gives us an idea of how this can be done. During the Victorian and Edwardian periods, the chief professional sports were:

• association football (see bellow)
• athletics or pedestrianism
• billiards
• boat racing
• cricket
• golf
• horse racing
• prize fighting (boxing and pugilism)
• rugby (League or Northern Union)
• wrestling

Some of these sports were entirely professional while others were a mix of amateur and professional. In some cases money changed hands in the form of wages – in others in the shape of winnings or financial rewards for success.

Boat racing is a good example of the problematic side of researching professional sporting ancestors. From around 1840 to about 1880, crowds flocked to the Thames and the Tyne to bet on oarsmen who were accepting challenges for hundreds of pounds aside. However their roles as professional oarsmen were not flagged up at census time. Tyneside produced three world class oarsmen during this period – Harry Clasper, Bob Chambers and Jim Renforth. In the censuses of 1851 and 1861 Clasper was described (accurately) as a ‘boat builder’ (and, in truth, he was the father of the modern racing boat). In 1861 Chambers, who seems to have been living with his brother in law not far from the Tyne, gave his profession as ‘waterman’. In 1871, not long before his tragic death while rowing in Canada, Renforth was described as a publican. One of the Thames’ greats, Joseph Sadler, is known to have worked as a chimney sweep. In the census of 1861, he was 20 and living in the capital with his chimney sweep father. Here there is no occupational description at all.

Other professional sportsmen seem to have been happier to acknowledge their living. In the 1851 census for Cambridgeshire, Elnathan ‘Nat’ Flatman, victor in many an important horse race, was described simply as ‘jockey’. Another great of the sport, George Fordham, moved around a great deal but, thanks to the versatility of TheGenealogist.co.uk’s keyword search engine, he has been easy to track down. His birth was registered in Cambridge in the final months of 1837 (Births and Baptisms). By 1851, he had moved to Mickleham in Surrey and was a groom, age 14 (Census). In 1871 he was a jockey based in Eton; in 1881 in Brighton (Census in both cases). He came back to Eton where he died in late 1887 (Death and Burials search). The legendary Fred Archer was a stable lad in 1871 and a ‘jockey and partner’ in 1881.

One professional sport – billiards – regarded itself almost as an art. In some places in the 19th century, this sport enjoyed the kind of popularity experienced by snooker in the late 20th century. Champion Edwin Kentfield (b 1802) was based in Brighton all his life and described himself as ‘a billiards’ table keeper’ (1841) and a ‘Professor of Billiards’ (1851, 1861 and 1871). He died in Brighton in 1873 (Deaths and Burials). A later Billiards star Melbourne Inman had his birth registered in Brentford in the autumn of 1878 (Births and Baptisms). His father too was a ‘Professor of Billiards’ (1881 and 1891 census). By 1911, Melbourne, now married with two servants, was able to describe himself as a ‘professional billiardist’. He lived until 1951 when his death was registered in Bromley (Deaths and Burials).

Walter George or, to give him his full name, Walter Goodall George (1858 -1843) was a distance runner who enjoyed the kind of fame reserved for modern Olympians. As with the boat rowers, betting and backing came into his form of athletics yet in his youth he was described as a chemist’s assistant; in 1891 as the manager of the Molyneux Hotel in Wolverhampton; and in 1901 as a manufacturer of chemicals on his own account. In 1901 when still single, the long playing cricketer S F Barnes described himself as a professional cricketer but when married in 1911 (and still playing) he put himself down as a clothing salesman.

Aston Villa was one of the great soccer teams of the 1890s. One of their marksmen, Charlie Athersmith, declared himself to be a professional footballer in the 1901 census yet ten years earlier (and while still playing) fellow Villa goal scorer Jack Devey told the census man he was a grocer dealing with outdoor linen. Richard ‘Dick’ Padbury – a professional rugby league player and international – was down as a butcher’s assistant in 1901 and a sub yard foreman in a chemical works in 1911. This is not surprising with rugby league as for most of the 20th century, although professional, the game had no real wage structure and players were paid for playing and training alone with most of them having virtually full-time occupations outside the game.

In summary, it is fair to say the failure of a professional sporting ancestor to be described as such at census time does not necessarily mean the family hotline has overheated! In fact it is generally recognised that many such sportsmen made a living in the hostelry trade in particular– both during and after their great sporting days. There were ladies involved in sport too – in some cases professionally in football for a short time. However sporting enjoyment and success for most females came through involvement in amateur sports – a subject which we will explore in next month’s article.