Both praying and playing: "Muscular Christianity" and the YMCA in north-east county Durham.

The concept of "muscular Christianity" has become something of a touchstone for historians of sport in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Its importance within the public school system and its role in the wider dissemination of sports have become recurrent themes. (1) For the most part however, one of the potentially most important of agencies for the concept's conduction into, and utilisation within, wider society, has received scant attention. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), known contemporarily in some areas as the "Young Muscular Christians," and its relationship in Britain to sport, have rarely been addressed directly. Peter Bailey tantalisingly mentioned the organisation taking "cautious doses of recreation" in the 1860s in his study of leisure in Victorian Britain, while Allan Warren later suggested sports and games played "an important part in the programmes offered" by the Association. (2) The main work on the subject however, remains an article by William J. Baker, in which he suggests t he YMCA in Britain did in fact largely reject sporting and athletic activity. This, he ventures, was due primarily to the YMCA's founders lacking a background within the public schools system; their narrowly evangelical attitudes; and the spiritually rather than the socially reforming objectives of the Association. (3) To a large extent this may be true, but such a view, reliant as it is upon evidence from within the Association's London caucus, in fact acts to mask what was at times a brisk and heated debate in local YMCA branches. It was also an argument that saw the balance of power shift to and fro, and which could at the local level see either side eventually claim victory.

In the case of north-east county Durham, the YMCA was slow to be established. The founding of the organisation in London in 1844 did not lead to any immediate imitation in the area, and when some progress was eventually made a number of false starts ensued. (4) In December 1858 a joint YMCA branch was formed for the town of Gateshead and the city of Newcastle which faced it across the River Tyne. The press was hostile however, and condemned the group as too exclusive and sanctimonious. Despite this attitude, rooms were taken, a small library established, and religious services held. Within five years though "the position of the society was not very encouraging" as membership had remained low. (5) In the event, the branch soon folded, only for another, this time confining its activities to Gateshead alone, to be formed in late 1885. Two years later this Association was prospering, but one "essential part of the programme" was lacking; that is a gymnastics class. Cycling and rambling clubs were some compensatio n, but one correspondent at least looked forward to the establishment of a gymnasium in Gateshead. (6)

In South Shields, an industrial enclave at the mouth of the same river, the foundation of a YMCA was ostentatiously announced in l874. (7) The project seems to have sunk without trace however, and it was not until five years later that a lasting organisation emerged. By the end of September 1880 the branch had 78 members, and occupied a reading room and a lavatory. (8) A decade later membership had trebled and larger premises had been taken. The branch's cycling club was "flourishing;" its rugby club had lifted the county Junior Cup, and a cricket club was in the midst of being formed. (9)

Further south in the growing town of Sunderland initial progress was a little less faltering. A YMCA branch "similar in its character to other associations" was founded in 1871, the first secretary being Frank Caws, a young architect who had arrived in the town from the Isle of Wight, by way of London, in 1867. (10) Details of the Association's early development are obscure, but by 1887 the branch secretary could boast it provided not only a real welcome to young men arriving in a strange town, but also a venue where they might "have the privileges of every form of athletic exercise in congenial society." (11)

In all three towns, Gatehead, South Shields and Sunderland, it seems the YMCA had inauspicious beginnings, but the branches eventually expanded steadily in membership and facilities. By the later 1880s athletic and sporting activities were forming important and integral parts of their programmes. It was the latter branch at Sunderland, though, which was to prove the largest and most influential in the area. It was also the one in which the most vigorous and detailed debates concerning the roles of sports, games and athletic pursuits in the movement took place. The local press and the branch's own newsletter provided the arenas in which most of the arguments were outlined. (12) Both the proponents and the adversaries of sport within the Association were extremely vocal and committed, and each faction carefully arrayed its arguments.

Those who opposed or who sought to limit the extent of the sporting activity within the YMCA, cited various factors to support their views. At Sunderland, and at South Shields, criticism from within the Association came on several levels. One was that the sin of vanity played a great role in attracting men to some sports. Physical development could make a man unwisely vain, as could his desire for sporting accoutrements, such as cycling uniforms and badges. Similarly the temptation could arise to display personal prowess, simply for the sake of self-gratification. (13) Rather more practical moral objections were made to the activities of the Boat Club in Sunderland. The tendency of members to use the club's craft to ship their lady friends upriver led to its being renamed the "Floating Fornication Club," and deemed "a comparative failure." (14) Unwelcome social mixing between the same sexes also gave rise to some criticism of sports activities. One local YMCA patron suggested that association with some who at tended athletic meetings was sure to lead to a loss of "moral tone." The local Primitive Methodist Magazine cited in particular football crowds as containing certain men who were simply "bad company." (15)

Reflecting the wider preoccupations of the day, gambling associated with several sports, especially football, came under specific and sustained attack. The 1893 Annual General Meeting of the north-east district of the YMCA, held in Sunderland, was addressed by Lord Kinnaird. As the President of the Football Association as well as the YMCA, and a former student of both Eton and Cambridge University, he was no stranger to either sports and games, or the doctrine of "muscular Christianity." He urged the local Young Men to act to deter gambling on football matches, and "to reform the game by example and teaching." (16) The theme was then picked up by the editor of Flashes, who not only commented on the un-Christianlike practice of betting in his editorial, but eventually canvassed the opinions of half a dozen local clergymen. The Reverend Garcia, a local priest of the Church of England and a very active figure in the YMCA in Sunderland, saw betting on sports as a practice which "cultivated a hard egoism, and so p roduced a deterioration of character and conduct." (17) The theme was to become a recurring one. In April 1897 the editor of Flashes again returned to the subject, condemning the "ever-increasing trouble" and reiterating its deleterious effects on the moral character. In 1902 comment was again made on "the fulsome evil of betting," and recollections made of days when football and athletic meetings could be held free from the screams of the "bookies." (18) By 1904 it was suggested that gambling was "lowering the tone" of all sports meetings in the town. Later that year it was announced at the YMCA swimming gala that the annual athletics meeting was to be abandoned "owing to the predominance of the 'two to one bar one' element." The decision was greeted with applause. (19) Like football, the less athletic pursuit of billiards came under fire for its associations with gambling. This was in part the reason given for the decision in 1904 not to introduce a table into the Sunderland YMCA, while in later years the s uggestion that "the character of the game moulds the character of the men who habitually play it" was seen as sufficient reason to discourage the practice in general. (20) Billiards was also seen as unsuitable due to its close association with the emergent evil of smoking. The disclosure in 1893 that the YMCA in nearby Hetton-le-Hole had a smoking room was greeted with remarks "in a horrified tone" by an Association member from the city of Durham. (21) The atmosphere of the billiard room, it was suggested in South Shields, was also conducive to profanity and bad language. Along with racecourses, music halls and public houses, "billiard saloons" were veritable "strongholds of Satan." (22)

Returning to the sport of football, further aspects of the game also prompted some in the YMCA to see it as a manifestly unsuitable pastime for true Christians. Professionalism, though seen by one Presbyterian clergyman in Sunderland as a legitimate means of improving the game, was condemned by another as not only morally degrading in itself, but undermining the essential worth of sport as a means of relaxation and rest from labour. Football should be a means of bringing "invigoration to mind and body," not of earning a wage. (23) Additionally the allegedly addictive nature of football could lead to an over-indulgence that stunted a man's intellectual capacity. Conversations dominated by the weather and "the latest achievements of the football clubs" were ample testimony to this. A decade later the point was made again by a lady correspondent who bewailed "the tyranny of games." (24) In general sporting terms the argument was seen as equally applicable. In November 1896 a Methodist minister used the organ of the Sunderland YMCA to stress the drawbacks of "the excessive devotion to physical exercises" that he saw as emerging in the area, and to abhor the "fellow with fine calves and a small brain-pan." His call for a "balanced life" however, was couched in terms of how to ride a bicycle. (25) A local doctor later concurred, noting that any sport, when indulged in to excess, tended to "turn young men's minds from any mental culture." Passing remarks in Flashes also highlighted what might be seen as another aspect of the dangers of over-indulgence in sport.

Men who were willing to buy bicycles and pay for entry to football matches, it suggested, would be better off subscribing their money "for charitable and religious purposes." (27)

Most fundamentally though, sport in the YMCA was seen as an unnecessary distraction from the true purpose of the organisation: the propagation of the Christian message. One Sunderland YMCA meeting was told that while by all means men might take physical exercise, they should not do so "at the expense of absenting themselves from the temples." Another was reminded that the Association should "place in the forefront the spiritual salvation of young men" and not be waylaid by the excessive athleticism displayed by some. (28) A local clergyman similarly suggested that sport should be kept in its place, and men should not become "slaves of popular amusements" while ignoring all but "the solitary service on Sundays." (29) Sport, if taken to excess, could inhibit both the evangelical mission of the Association and the personal salvation of its members.

In essence, those within the YMCA in north Durham who opposed sports becoming too well established within the Association curriculum did so on three grounds. First, sport was seen as potentially morally degrading by promoting personal vanity and encouraging physical and mental excesses, and even facilitating the unwelcome mixing of the sexes. Secondly sports were criticised for the activities that were associated with them. Smoking, drinking, gambling and keeping "bad company" were all dangerous peripheral activities that became linked to the popular sports and games of the day. But primarily sport was seen as a distraction from the true goal of the Association: the propagation of the Christian gospel.

At the same time however, both within the YMCA and elsewhere within the religious community in the north east, sports had their exponents and supporters. For some, sports and games were useful if not vital adjuncts to their work of evangelism, moral improvement and social betterment that lay at the heart of their Christian endeavours.

At its most basic level, physical exercise prepared the bodies of men for arduous evangelising work. Victor Tumbull, the goalkeeper and secretary of the Sunderland YMCA football club was a case in point. In late 1893, strengthened both mentally and physically by his involvement in YMCA sport, he left Sunderland for London to train as a missionary. (30) He was in good company. As one contemporary remarked it was the "best athletes" from the universities of the day who were invariably despatched to "martyrdom in the mission-field." (31) This was a fate one former Sunderland member hoped to escape though. Writing home from the Bahamas in 1904 the Reverend William Henderson reported the death of the local Bishop by drowning, but felt himself reassured by his own experiences in the YMCA Swimming Club. (32)

Sporting activities had other practical advantages too, and were clearly seen as aids to evangelism in some cases. The main argument presented by YMCA members supporting sporting and athletic activities, was that such events attracted men to the movement who would not normally attend purely religious gatherings. In 1895 the YMCA in Sunderland was allegedly "only reaching one class of young men." To bring in the rest it needed "a really good gym ... a billiard and a smoking room." The opening of a gym a year later was welcomed as "a great attraction to young men." Once there, the gymnasium would be less their "playground than a classroom," where they might be confronted by moral and religious instruction, as well as physical education. (33)

Taking that concept a stage further, it was argued that the association should provide "muscular Christian teachers" to reach out to local boys through sports, and then impart the Christian message. Two years after that handbills aimed at recruiting boys to the junior ranks of the YMCA were issued by the Sunderland branch, extolling boys to "Play the game! what game? The game of life! by building up a strong body and a sound constitution." (34) How effective such strategies were is uncertain, but outside the YMCA itself they seem to have met with some success. In 1894 the Church of England established a commission to enquire into social conditions in the eastern portions of the town of Sunderland. Their conclusions were damning. Drunkenness, gambling and chronic unemployment had led to conditions that were "a disgrace to our 19th century civilisation." Amongst the initiatives instigated by one local priest were a penny bank, a brass band, a boat club and a Lad's Club complete with "the usual gymnastic applian ces." Their success was acknowledged as limited, but it was agreed that "physical rather than intellectual recreation" was most useful in "holding the members together." (35) Meanwhile at least one YMCA member claimed to have enrolled purely to join the Association's boat club. If it was true that the YMCA was "doing for the churches what a recruiting officer did for the army, then sports and games were capable of doing for the YMCA what they did for the churches. (36) Alternatively, if men could not be brought to the message, then sports could help in taking the message to the men. In South Shields members formed a "Cycle mission band" to visit local villages on Wednesday evenings to promote the gospel. It gave them "an opportunity of doing grand service for our Lord while enjoying some healthy recreation." The general secretary of the branch remained adamant though that the YMCA should not be looked upon "as a Club, nor yet as an athletic organisation," so much as an evangelical association. (37)

That is not to say that sports and religion were not intimately and inextricably linked for some. The body as a God-given entity was to be prized and preserved. Exercise ensured young men's bodies were "made fitting temples of God's Holy Spirit." It was "God's purpose that man should enjoy health." (38) It was essential to "take care of the body, for it is 'fearfully and wonderfully made'." Biblical authority could even be cited that physical exercise was "profitable." (39) Indeed physical exercise was a religious duty in itself, as salvation was at least in part dependent upon "the redemption of the body." (40) The mind too was capable of being improved by sporting participation. Moral strength was in fact "directly dependent" upon physical strength, suggested one Sunderland doctor. A robust body was essential in promoting "high moral courage." Another medical man had already persuasively argued that Britain's "success as a nation is largely due to the games of boyhood and the sports of our manhood." (41)

Finally, as well as the more obvious practical benefits, and the alleged moral improvements sport engendered, the involvement of YMCA members also made another contribution to religion and the churches. The emergence of the "muscular Christian" was thought by some to have done much for the image of the pious. James Laing, a member of a shipbuilding family and the chairman of the Sunderland YMCA saw the Association's sporting achievements as countering the perception of "religious young fellows" as "milksops." Another member thought that even taking up tennis might help to dispel the image of the Christian as "a namby-pamby creature, with a white face, an air of discouraged clericalism, and a Bible always under his arm." (42) Such a realignment of perceptions allegedly reached their zenith during the Great War, when the achievements of sporting YMCA members finally laid to rest this image of the Christian young man as one who gave no trouble to his mother, [and] one in whom his aunts rejoiced." (43)

Thus it is clear that the role of sports and games in the YMCA was a topic around which there was an active debate. Arguments supporting them for their utilitarian values were countered by suggestions that they were morally degrading. Those who cited the body as a temple, were criticised for allowing sport to become a counter-attraction to the churches. Within its branches there were very real debates as to the utility, necessity and importance of sports, games and exercise within the YMCA curriculum. In some cases, especially amongst those who sought to minimise the importance of sports, the arguments presented a marked continuity with those espoused by the antecedents of the YMCA'S leaders. Robert Gray, a Sunderland curate, had agitated against the revival of horse racing in the town in the 1830s, and produced a pamphlet that condemned meetings as promoting drunkenness, sabbath breaking, and immorality. It was a view shared by his contemporaries in both Gateshead and South Shields. (44) Even "lawful recreat ions" were seen as impinging on time that should be put to more spiritually uplifting activities. Yet an earlier Bishop of Durham had been a noted follower of the hounds, and was happy to be painted with his fishing rod in his hand. (45) The dichotomy was to continue. As early as 1853 one Sunderland clergyman was extolling his flock to take physical exercise in order to counter "those evil passions which disturb mankind," while another was diving into a ring in order to prevent "a prize pugilistic encounter" on the sabbath morning. (46) "Muscular Christianity" in its various forms was far from a monolithic concept. Nor were the attitudes displayed by Christians towards sports and recreations simple or inviolate. The contradictions and controversies that could emerge are perhaps neatly summed up in the writings of the two earliest biographers of collier turned Sunderland Methodist preacher, Peter Mackenzie. One related the tale of how Mackenzie gave a would-be robber a "damned good thrashing," and cited it as proof that he was a "thorough believer in muscular christianity." For the other, this and similar tales were "apocryphal stories ... calculated to place him in an unenviable light." (47) The YMCA movement in north Durham provided a further arena in which similar debates could be continued.

Yet if these ongoing debates were very real and lively ones, the actual role to be played by sports in this case at least, was probably defined more by practical considerations than the cerebral considerations of the moralists. All the YMCA branches in this area were apparently run on shoe-string budgets. At the Sunderland annual general meeting in 1897 the poor financial position of the branch led to a number of bad tempered exchanges between the floor and the platform. By 1909 an annual loss of almost [pounds sterling]165 was recorded, and a total debt of [pounds sterling]872 was owed to creditors. (48) Given the financial constraints, the sporting facilities that the local Associations could provide were sometimes limited, and often inadequate. The room used as a gymnasium in Sunderland in 1893 was "insufficient to swing a cat" in. In 1906 the losses recorded by the gymnasium necessitated the removal of the assistant instructor that had been employed there. (49) In South Shields it was found necessary to i mpose a sixpenny subscription charge for the gymnasium in order to "put things in a better state." Playing fields were no more easily obtained than gymnasia. In 1909 attempts to form a football team at the YMCA in South Shields were frustrated by the lack of a pitch. (50) In Sunderland an appeal for a "centrally situated field" in 1894 fell on deaf ears, and the association football and rugby teams continued to play at an isolated venue, some miles from the branch buildings. Two years later both teams had lapsed. (51) A renewed appeal in 1897 saw a pitch secured, but again it was at such a distance as to deter both players and spectators. Again the teams dissolved, only for renewed calls for a football pitch to be made in 1902. (52) Negotiations for a more convenient field collapsed in 1905 due to "the financial difficulties." (53) Even when premises were secured, the constant urban expansion in the area often saw clubs quickly displaced. The Sunderland YMCA Boat Club, one of the most successful of the associ ated groups, received notice to quit their boat shed in spring 1897 due to the extension of one of the town's shipyards. The club subsequently sank without trace. (54)

Even more importantly though, the advance of sporting activity within the Association was probably limited by the apathy of both members and the general public toward physical exercise. In 1911 the Wearside Physical Culture Society, which had been founded ten years earlier, was wound up primarily due to "a lack of public enthusiasm." (55) Appeals for men to form a rambling club in the Sunderland YMCA in 1894 resulted in only three potential members coming forward, and within two months of this the cycling club was disbanded due to a lack of members. (56) Plans to field a football team for the 1901/2 season were abandoned "the demand not being too great." (57) Overall it seems that despite the very best efforts of enthusiasts, sport was destined to be a minority interest for both YMCA members and the wider population in the area.

Finally it should be realised that all the YMCAs in the district faced stiff competition for members, and were just one type of club among many that offered social and sporting activities. In Gateshead the meagrely equipped YMCA had to battle for members with the North Eastern Railway Literary Institute, with its well equipped library, games room, billiard table and football teams. (58) In Sunderland the Kensington Cycling Club offered not only physical exercise, but a clubhouse with "a homely appearance," a reading room, and two billiard tables. (59) The implication is that the YMCAs' real and unique attraction did in fact lie in its religious activities, rather than any subsidiary events. The relative importance of the religious element in YMCA activities might be judged from figures supplied at the Sunderland YMCA annual general meeting in 1898. The branch's cricket club had 32 members, while there were 30 footballers. But 50 gospel meetings averaged attendances of more than 80 members, while bible classes also attracted 40 pupils to each meeting. In 1892 of a total of 675 members, a maximum of 200 took part in physical activity of some sort through the Association. (60) Eventually, however, Sunderland's YMCA also developed an alternative means of attraction for potential members. Educational classes, including those in short-hand and bookkeeping, became an indispensable part of the Association programme. As the branch chairman was eventually to suggest, although such classes "did not pay in pounds, shillings, and pence" they had the immeasurable advantage of bringing "large numbers of young men about the Association." By 1903 more than half of the members of the Sunderland YMCA were members of such classes, and more than 1,000 examination entries were made. (61) Here was a means of encouraging men to attend the YMCA that apparently had a broader appeal than simple religious evangelism, but which was free from the moral debates which surrounded the use of sport. Classes for draughtsmen and clerks were rather m ore attractive than perhaps either a gymnasium or a gospel meeting. In reality sports had little to offer the YMCA beyond a neat line in rhetoric. Meanwhile the YMCA was effectively handicapped by both its financial shortcomings and its own morals, from providing the sportsman with what he needed and required.

Neal Garnham, "Both Praying and Playing: 'Muscular Christianity' and the YMCA in North-east County Durham"

Sport apparently played an uncertain role in the YMCA in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Although the moral messages of sport were well recognised in the public schools and universities of the day, evangelical organisations such as the YMCA, have generally been seen as being reluctant to become involved in sporting ventures. Sport was condemned as sinful, immoral and an unwarranted distraction from the vital work of evangelism. In practice however, some YMCA branches did promote sports and games for the moral, physical and spiritual benefits they were seen as imparting. At the same time, there remained a seam of scepticism and opposition within the organisation. The debate within the local YMCA branches as to the role, if any, sport should play, was in fact often protracted and keenly contested. In the case of County Durham it was the sceptics who largely won the day. This triumph should not be seen simply as a victory for moralists and the spiritually minded over the more liberal evangelical Christians. Rat her the failure of the YMCA in Durham to effectively utilise sport as a means of mobilising their constituency was the result of both scepticism within the organisation, and apathy without.

ENDNOTES

(1.) See, for example, P. McIntosh, Sport in Society (London, 1987) pp. 71-4; J.A. Mangan, Athieticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School (Cambridge, 1981) passim; N. Vance, The Sinews of the Spirit (Cambridge, 1985) passim; R. Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford, 1992) pp. 92-4,136-9; J. Walvin, Leisure and Society, 1830-1950 (London, 1986) pp. 86-8.

(2.) P. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control 1830-85 (London, 1978) p. 93; A. Warren, "Sport, youth and gender in Britain, 1880-1940" in J.C. Binfield and J. Stevenson, eds., Sport, culture and politics (Sheffield, 1993) p. 60.

(3.) W.J. Baker, "To pray or to play? The YMCA question in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1850-1900" in International Journal of the History of Sport, XI, No 1 (1994): 42-62.

(4.) For the early history of the YMCA see J.C. Binfield, George Williams and the YMCA: A Study in Victorian Social Attitudes (London, 1973).

(5.) Gateshead Observer Dec 11, 1858, Jan 8, 1859 and Oct 22, 1864.

(6.) Havelock's Records of Northern England (Nol5, II) Oct 1885 p71; Gateshead Daily Chronicle 27 Jan 1887.

(7.) South Shields Evangelist July 1874.

(8.) South Shields YMCA, First Annual Report (30 Sep 1880) p. 1.

(9.) South Shields YMCA, Eleventh Annual Report (30 Sep 1890) pp. 1, 6-7; Shields Daily Gazette 20 Oct 1890.

(10.) Sunderland Times 16 Dec 1871. 1am very grateful to my colleague Graham Potts for information on the early life of Frank Caws.

(11.) Sunderland Daily Echo (hereafter SDE) Mar 24, 1887.

(12.) The Sunderland YMCA produced the magazine Flashes from September 1893. In South Shields YMCA publications began with The Dart in 1890, though no copies of this seem to have survived. In later years Lux and Forward were produced. Gateshead YMCA does nor seem to have produced a magazine before the 1920s.

(13.) Lux (Feb 1892) pp. 99-100; Flashes IV No6 (Feb 1897) p. 68.

(14.) Flashes I No2 (Oct 1893) p. 24.

(15.) Flashes II No6 (Feb 1895) p.64; Primitive Methodist Magazine LXXV (1894) p.359. Again I am grateful to Graham Potts for this latter reference.

(16.) SDE 7 Sep 1893.

(17.) Flashes I No 2 (Oct 1893) p. 15 and I No 6 (Feb 1894) p. 69.

(18.) Flashes IV No 8 (Apr 1897) p. 90 and IX No 12 (Aug 1902) p. 138.

(19.) Flashes XI No 127 (Mar 1904) p. 71 and XII No 134 (Oct 1904) p. 34.

(20.) Flashes XII No 136 (Dec 1904) pp. 43-5 and XIII No 155 (Jul 1906) p. 112.

(21.) SDE 7 Sep 1893.

(22.) Lux (Jun 1893) unpaginated.

(23.) Flashes I No 2 (Oct 1893) p. 14 and IV No 9 (May 1897) p. 107.

(24.) Flashes II No 7 (Mar 1895) p. 75 and XII No 138 (Feb 1905) p. 66.

(25.) Flashes IV No 3 (Nov 1896) p. 33.

(26.) Flashes VI No 10 (Jun 1899) p. 119.

(27.) Flashes IV No 3 (Nov 1896) pp. 30-1.

(28.) SDE 23 Sep 1898 and 23 Oct 1907.

(29.) Flashes II No 6 (Feb 1895) p. 65.

(30.) Flashes I No 1 (Sep 1893) p. 10 and I No 4 (Dec 1893) p. 48.

(31.) G.W.E. Russel, For Better? For Worse? Notes on Social Change (London, 1902) p. 186, cited in J. Lowerson, Sport and the English Middle Classes 1870-1914 (Manchester, 1995) p.72.

(32.) Flashes XII No 134 (Oct 1904) p. 34.

(33.) Flashes II No 10 (Jun 1895) p. 112, IV No 1 (Sep 1896) p.8 and IV No 2 (Oct 1896) p. 14.

(34.) Flashes XI No 131 (Jul 1904) p. 129 and XIII No 149 (Jan 1906) p. 59.

(35.) Report of the East End Commission, presented to and adopted by the ruridecanal conference on Friday November 20th 1896 (Sunderland, 1896) pp. 15, 20; [Rev T. Nicholson] The East End of Sunderland-St John's Parish: Its Work and Its Limitation [Sunderland, 1896] pp. 16, 21-2.

(36.) Flashes V No 10 (Jun 1898) P. 115; SDE 19 Oct 1892.

(37.) South Shields YMCA, 25th Annual report (30 sep 1904) pp. 3,6.

(38.) Flashes XII No 134 (Oct 1904) p. 15.

(39.) Flashes II No 8 (Apr 1895) p. 88; Lux (Jan 1892) pp. 82-3.

(40.) Flashes XIII No 150 (Feb 1906) p. 75.

(41.) Flashes XIII No 139 (Mar 1905) pp. 82-3 and VI No 11 (Jul 1899) p. 131.

(42.) Flashes IV No 3 (Nov 1896) pp. 28-9 and IV No 6 (Feb 1897) p. 67.

(43.) Rev. A.J. Gadd, Under the red triangle [Gateshead, 1919] pp. 2-3.

(44.) R. Gray, The Sin and Danger of Frequenting the Racecourse (Sunderland, 1836); J. Rewcastle, The Gambler's Career; or the Progressive Course of Ruin [Newcastle, 1856]; R. Clayton, Dissuasives from Frequenting the racecourse: A Sermon Preached at St Thomas's Chapel on Sunday June 27, 1841 (Newcastle, 1841); Sunderland Herald 16 Sep 1837.

(45.) J. Lindow The Beauty of Holiness; Or, a Treatise on the Lord's Day (South Shields, 1793) p. 19; P. Brown and T. Nelson (eds) The Works of William Paley, DD (Edinburgh, 1828) pp. xix and xxii.

(46.) J. Muir, "The Hill difficulty; or, the means of self-improvement" in Ten Lectures Addressed to the Working Classes, Delivered in the Lyceum, Sunderland in the Winter of 1853-4, by Dissenting Ministers of Various Denominations (Sunderland, 1854) p. 35; E. Hall, The Earnest Preacher: The Memoirs of the Reverend Joseph Spoor (Third edition, London, 1874) pp. 135-6.

(47.) J.A. Noble, From Coalpit to Pulpit: Anecdotes and Incidents from the Life of the Reverend Peter Mackenzie (London, 1895) pp. 56-7; J. Dawson, Peter Mackenzie: His Life and Labours (London, 1896) p. 172.

(48.) SDE 20 Oct 1897 and 29 Oct 1909.

(49.) Flashes I No 1 (Sep 1893) p. 10 and XIV No 158 (Oct 1906) p. 23.

(50.) South Shields YMCA 10th Annual Report (30 Sep 1889) p. 7; Forward (Aug 1909) p. 124.

(51.) Flashes I No 5 (Jan 1894) p. 60 and IV No 4 (Dec 1896) p. 48.

(52.) Flashes IV No 12 (Aug 1897) p. 144, V No 1 (Sep 1897) p. 12, IX No 10 (Jun 1902) p. 115, and X No 1 (Sep 1902) p. 12.

(53.) SDE 1 Nov 1905.

(54.) Flashes IV No 7 (Mar 1897) p. 84.

(55.) SDE 26 Sep 1911.

(56.) Flashes I No 8 (Apr 1894) p. 96 and I No 10 (Jun 1894) p. 120.

(57.) Flashes IX No 1 (Sep 1901) p. 12

(58.) NER Literary Institution, Gateshead, minute book 17 Apr 1889-13 July 1891 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, DT/NER 2/41/1).

(59.) SDE 17 Aug 1900.

(60.) SDE 27 Oct 1898 and 19 Oct 1892. The figure of 200 is probably inflated by single Association members who were affiliated to more than one sports club within the branch.

(61.) SDE 1 Nov 1905 and 29 Oct 1903.