(DISCLAIMER: this is an article I wrote for the newsletter of the Palaeontological Association. If you hate fossils and sport you will not want to read it.)
The Olympians of Siluria
In Ludlow, in July 2011, the Silurians came home. A combined meeting of two geological groups (the InternationalSubcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy and the new IGCP Project 591, in case you were wondering) brought
together those with an interest in the
mid-Palaeozoic, in the Marches of Murchison.
At the same time, down the road in Much Wenlock, a different
group re-united, one which could lay claim to just as much longevity, history
and even, after a fashion, geology. And
they too could boast they were coming home.
They weren't Silurians, however, but – by geography at least
– a rather more incongruous-sounding group.
They were the Olympians.
They were the Olympians.
---------------
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| Olympian medals, Silurian-style |
With London 2012 looming large on the horizon, crowbarring
such words into reports becomes increasingly common, and the plans for next
summer become more complicated. Should
one avoid the country like the plague, and head for palaeontological places
well-away from hype and high jumps, or should one embrace the extravaganza of
top-level sport and culture?
It never crossed my mind that there was somewhere that
combined it all, a spot where one could try a dry run, a year in advance. And I certainly never thought I'd discover a
rich geological seam within the Olympic movement. But then I'd never thought of attending the
Wenlock Olympian Games.
Having written a Ph.D. on fossils from the Much Wenlock
Limestone Formation, I'd no excuse for my ignorance of an event that began in
the Shropshire town 160 years ago. It's
not as if the place is exactly large.
Yet I knew next to nothing of William Penny Brookes, and the
extraordinary events he started in the mid-19th century.
Brookes was one of those Victorian figures who achieved so
much you can't help wondering if he eschewed sleep entirely. Over a working life of more than 70 years, he
served as the town's doctor, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner for Roads,
Railway Company Director, Gas Company Chairman, School Director, Museum
Curator, and manager of a new sewerage system.
A dynamic, egalitarian figure, 'The King of Wenlock' turned his home
town from a rural backwater into a modern centre of innovation and
enlightenment.
More than anything else, though, Brookes was a tireless
promoter of education and health. In
1841, he founded the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society, a library for the
use and benefit of all, particularly local farm-workers and quarrymen. A few years later, this developed into the
Wenlock Olympian Society, with Brookes promoting a revival of the Ancient Greek
philosophy of moral, physical and intellectual improvement.
Geology played its part in the Society's establishment, as
Brookes wished to keep the workers from the local limestone quarries out of the
pubs. According to Catherine Beale's
excellent book on the topic, Born Out Of Wenlock, the town had “an
unenviable reputation for drunkenness.”
By offering athletic competition, Brookes hoped to encourage
temperance. “The working man's only
possession is his health,” he noted, and heavy drinking ensured that many of
his fellow townsmen died young.
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| Late Wenlock |
With this in mind, he organized the first Wenlock Olympian
Games in 1850, and if you think commercialism is a modern phenomenon, think
again. Brookes got the mine companies to
sponsor his games, and put on specially arranged events exclusively for their
employees.
As a consequence, any quarrymen imagining the Games might be
a doddle compared to a day's work were in for a surprise: Brookes'
mine-endorsed version of the shot putt involved a 35 lb lump of Wenlock
limestone.
“The interesting thing,” WOS archivist Chris Cannon told me,
“is that they threw it, measured it, and then threw it again with the other
hand, measuring that to give the total.”
The winner was the man whose combined left- and right-handed throws
reached the greatest distance.
Limestone milestones and all, the Games were a success, and
ran again the next year, competitors coming from all over the country to take
part. By the 1860s, interest had bloomed
so much that the National Olympian Association was formed, and a Games held in
London's Crystal Palace.
They didn't run every year, but Brookes never stopped the
Wenlock Games, and nor did he cease his efforts to get physical education
included in the state schools' curriculum.
Eventually, in the 1890s, as an old man, his petitions received
parliamentary approval, and a French nobleman with similar interests came to
speak to the wise Wenlockian.
The visitor from across the Channel had no initial interest
in the Olympian Games, only the promotion of physical education in schools, but
when he saw what went on in Wenlock, a seed was sown. And shortly afterwards, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded what became the international Olympic movement.
The first Games, in Athens in 1896, came a year after
Brookes had died, aged 86, and enabled de Coubertin to take rather more credit
for the idea than he deserved.
Historians of sport and true Olympians, however, recognize
this Shropshire lad's true place. 2011
was the 125th Wenlock Olympian Games, with camera crews from across
the globe descending on the town to find out more about the father of the
modern Olympiad. All of which is why
Wenlock is now not only a district of Shropshire and a geological epoch, but a
2012 Olympic mascot too.
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| Wenlock, Ludlow boundary. |
Being an inveterate lover of Wenlock weirdos, I couldn't
help but warm to this odd, grey, one-eyed creature. Without a mouth, its functional morphology
was problematical, but I'm sure stranger things have turned up in the
Herefordshire Lagerstatte a few miles down the road. And buying a cuddly Wenlock from the online
shop meant I could amuse myself with a series of Olympian-Silurian
juxtapositions:
Mascot on the edge of the conference town? Wenlock-Ludlow
boundary.
Mascot in a Shropshire graveyard? Late Wenlock.
Mascot tripping over with an exclamation of “D'oh!”? Wenlock: Homerian stage.
Fellow delegates looked understandably bemused as I carried
my new friend around the ISSS/IGCP conference, but forking out those few pounds
had a tangible geological benefit. As
part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the Much Wenlock Museum is undergoing
a major overhaul. What's more, not only
will William Penny Brookes be lauded there for his Philhellenic philosophy, but
also for his love of natural history: his collections of local plants and
fossils will take pride of place.
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| Wenlock: Homerian stage. |
Palaeontology has made it into the cultural Olympiad
elsewhere too. The 'Discovering Places'
campaign of 2010 featured a couple of geological expeditions, whilst next May
will see Lyme Regis launch the Jurassic Coast Earth Festival.
Tapping into the fact that the Olympic sailing events will
be in Weymouth and Portland, the Devon and Dorset World Heritage site will
feature numerous cultural activities.
Our very own association will be involved, though I'm sad to say that
support for a Palaeolympics hasn't been forthcoming. This is despite a fossiliferous 'Faster,
Higher, Stronger' being a sure-fire crowd pleaser*.
Talking of fire and crowds, keep an eye out for the Olympic
flame, too. In 2010, the Vancouver
Winter Olympic torch relay took the burning stick fully trans-Canada, and I had
the pleasure of watching it sweep past the university Earth Sciences building
in St John's. I'm not sure of the 2012
itinerary, but it must get within spitting distance of at least one geology
department.
If it doesn't, though, you can always become a geological
Olympian yourself. Birmingham Earth
Science alumnus Paul Manning took that very route, eschewing rocks and fossils
for a bike, and pedalling to a series of Olympic medals. This culminated in gold in the team pursuit
at the 2008 Beijing Games.
Cycling seems like a perfectly palaeontological pursuit, one
that might have seen Croll of Scotland or Milankovitch of Serbia take the
laurel wreath, but maybe Manning is unique.
I certainly don't know of any podium-placed palaeontologists. Perhaps the definition needs broadening,
then. Maybe we can erect our own
echinoderm pentathlon, or crustacean decathlon.
And what are ammonoid and conodont biostratigraphy if not a form of
synchronized swimming?
In the mean time, pay a visit to the Welsh Borderlands and
immerse yourself in these amazing tracts of 19th century history, in
the annals of an era when anything was possible, even in tiny Shropshire
towns. And if you peer carefully into
the shadows along the Olympian Trail, who knows? Perhaps you'll spot the philanthropic King of
Wenlock in conversation with the self-centred King of Siluria? I know whose team I'm on.
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