ABSTRACT

In 1940 the journalist Bernard Darwin, writing a pamphlet for a series on British life and thought, claimed:

Sport, to use the term in its widest sense, is an older thing here than elsewhere with a more settled custom and more generally accepted place in the national life … In fact sport is one of the most obvious features in the general background of life, and of all interests it is perhaps the one which is common to the greatest number of people of all classes.1