Fen Skating - Matches

Matches

When it froze, skating matches were held in towns and villages all over the Fens. In these local matches men (or sometimes women or children) would compete for prizes of money, clothing or food. "During severe winters it is no uncommon thing to see joints of meat hung outside the village pub, to be skated for on the morrow". The winners of local matches were invited to take part in the grand or championship matches in which skaters from across the Fens would compete for cash prizes in front of crowds of thousands.

The championship matches took the form of a Welsh main or "last man standing" contest. The competitors, 16 or sometimes 32, were paired off in heats and the winner of each heat went through to the next round. The farmers and gentry who organised the matches would raise a subscription for prize money. £10 was a typical purse in the mid-nineteenth century, with about half going to the winner and the rest divided amongst the other runners according to how far they had got in the contest. This was at a time when agricultural labourers typically earnt about 11 shillings a week.

A course of 660 yards was measured out on the ice, and a barrel with a flag on it placed at either end. The course was divided down the middle with more barrels, sods of earth or piles of snow. The skaters were drawn in pairs, and started one either side of the barrel, skate down the course, round the barrel and back again, with each skater keeping to their own side of the ice. For a one-and-a-half mile race the skaters completed two rounds of the course, with three barrel turns. If there were 16 competitors the winner and runner-up would have skated a total of 6 miles.

There were also matches for women although they didn’t attract quite the same attention or prize money as the men’s matches. The Cambridge Chronicle, after a long account of a match at Ely in February 1855 in which Turkey Smart beat Larman Register to win £7, told readers merely that "the white-bonneted Mepal girl won 10 shillings easily, and beat the Lynn girl – a good race". By the 1890s the women had at least acquired names; the Hunts County Guardian reported in February 1892 that Mrs Winters of Welney had beaten 13-year-old Miss Dewsbury of Little Thetford in the final of a half-mile match at Littleport.

As well as competing in matches, the top skaters issued challenges via the press. Brothers Larman and Robert Register announced in the Cambridge Chronicle in 1853 that they could be backed to skate any two skaters in England for £20. And three years later Larman Register had teamed up with his vanquisher Turkey Smart to issue a similar challenge.

Another challenge for the fastest men was the straight mile with a flying start. In 1821 a Newmarket man made a wager of 100 guineas that a skater could cover a mile in three minutes. John Gittam of Nordelph won him his wager at Prickwillow with 7 seconds to spare. A generation later Turkey Smart was backed to skate a mile in two-and-a-half minutes, but failed by 2 seconds.