Other Old News 1: The £100 Mile Race

Memories

I was browsing through some old press reports of local bowling news from over 100 years ago when I started to find some adjacent reports of more interest. These reports covered all sorts of events but I thought they were of more interest than the bowling news at that time so I want to share some of them with you. Here is the first from the Leeds Mercury in 1909.

The last sentence in this report creates more questions than answers and throws up some doubt about the authenticity of the timing of this race. The text states that the first lap of four run was 'practically a crawl' but the timing of the full mile was 'just over 5 minutes'. This at a time when the 4-minute mile was not even a deliverable target indicates some writer's licence within the report or a watch that needed winding up. How much would £100 in 1909 be worth today?

From the same edition of the Leeds Mercury came the Situations Vacant column giving an insight into the types of occupation that folk took up including an advertisement for 200 farm workers to go to Australia and for a 'respectable girl' to join the Elland fairground troop and willing to travel.