Despite early rain on Saturday 24th June, the 1882 Lowerhouse Athletics Festival started just 30 minutes late at 3 pm, unlike neighbours Burnley CC whose event on 29th April had to be called off due to torrential rain and snow and sleet, with Burnley promising to pay the rail fare of any competitors who would come back a week later.
By now the Lowerhouse event was well established on the athletics’ circuit and the local social calendar. Initially there had been an element of village fete about the event, with obstacle races, and a variety of athletics including long jumping, high jumping, and pole vaulting but it had evolved into a fairly serious meeting featuring just foot races and cycling.
An element of the fairground still persisted with the inclusion of professional races, which the crowd really enjoyed. Some of the pros were real celebrities, but there was also a dodgy side to professional athletics, as there was a lot of betting, and some dubious results when favourites inexplicably didn’t win, or competitors turned out not to be who they said they were, and as the winners of amateur events could cash in their prizes, they too could be said to be running for money.
The London based Athletics Association was determined to stamp out these practices and keep the sport purely amateur and as their definition of an amateur excluded the “mechanic, artizan and labour” class, this was intended to exclude the working class athletes. Meetings run under their rules were however guaranteed clean and fair. The Northern athletics and sports clubs felt under represented in and disrespected by, what was a London based, elitist organisation, so they formed the Northern Counties Athletics Association to also guarantee clean competition, whilst retaining the involvement of professionals, and prizes for amateurs, and for a few years around 1880 there was basically a class war and power struggle between North and South associations. Eventually a compromise was reached and the AAA, with a strong Northern representation, became the acknowledged governing body for amateur athletics. Their controversial definition of an amateur was changed to “Any person who has never competed for money with or against a professional for any prize” and the professional aspects of athletics were eliminated. But for now, in Lowerhouse in 1882, as the notice from the Athletic News shows, it was business as usual.
3,000 people were said to have attended, there were some 200 entries and £30 of prize money (x 100 for a rough modern value).
The events passed off without much to report. As always the professional races and the cycling events were crowd favourites. The principal event of the day was the 2 mile professional race, but there were only 4 runners, and top pro, W. Cummings of Paisley, running off scratch, won easily. There is a profile of Cummings in the 1881 report. The Gazette said the 2 mile bicycle race caused great interest but nothing exciting happened, so probably no crashes or falls off the high machines. Louis Calverley of Burnley came second in the mile bicycle race, and would go on to have a great career in cycling and as this photo published with his obituary in the Burnley Express of 21 April 1915 shows Louis did keep his prizes!
Burnley Borough Brass Band played during the afternoon and in the evening for dancing “until dusk”. Refreshments were provided by Charles Ridehalgh. landlord of the Bird i’th hand, later the Lane Ends.
Expenses were £110, receipts were £130 so there was a nice profit of £20, worth about £2000 now, and at the AGM the Secretary said:
“I am also happy to report that our finances are again in a very satisfactory state…The total receipts for the year are £218 15s 7d and expenditure £197 14s 3d leaving a balance of £21 1s 4d”
so again, mostly thanks to the Athletics Day, the club was financially sound.
ac July 2026
All our archive AGM reports can be found on the Cricket History website: https://crickethistory.website/club/lowerhouse/index.html
Both Images sourced from the British Newspaper Archive