Speed skating - Thorney's part in its story

Please forgive us bringing your attention back to the poster (on this blog at the end of last year) advertising the first skating race according to new national rules which was held in 1879 on the Thorney River.

This is the conserved and restored poster, including replaced portions, held by Thorney Museum.

Speed skating is known back in the Middle Ages in the north of Europe and Scandinavia in particular. Skates made of bone were used first. It seems a Scotsman deigned a skate with an iron blade in 1592. The first skating club was founded in Edinburgh in 1642.

There is a newspaper story of the first speed skating race reported in any detail in the County Advertiser. In 1763 there was a race from Wisbech to Whittlesey for a substantial prize of 20 guineas (£21) won by John Lamb of Wisbech. In the Netherlands one tradition involved visiting 11 cities in Friesland in one day on a course of around 120 miles of frozen waterways!

In the nineteenth century organised races on skates were set up in Europe, North America and the UK. Thorney's place in that history is that the race planned for 8th December 1879, held on 10th because of bad weather, was the first using agreed national rules in England. It was organised by the National Skating Association. Crowds came by train to stand on the bank of the Thorney River. The field of 32 men raced one and a half miles, and "Fish" Smart won. He received a badge, a sash and a cash prize given as an annual salary to encourage the champion to "keep himself temperate" - not to drink it all at once! [DL Bird, Our Skating Heritage, 1979]

Figure skating was introduced to the Winter Olympics in 1908. At the Olympic Congress in 1914 it was agreed to have speed skating in 1918, but the First World War took priority. In 1924 during the events later designated as Olympics, speed skating races took place at Chamonix contested particularly by the US and the Norwegians, and since then speed skating has been a fixture of the Winter Olympics..