Newspaper and magazine articles about John Hulley

1861 Dec 5 Liverpool Mercury - Grand Assault on Arms
The Liverpool athletic club held an assault-at-arms at the Theatre Royal, Williamson Square last evening. (incl.) After an interesting address on the importance of physical education by Mr John Hulley, the honorary secretary, the programme was proceeded with.

1862 Jun 16 Liverpool Mercury - The Grand Olympic Festival
(incl.) Mr Melly, addressing the company assembled in front of the grand stand. When the last prize was presented, said before they left the ground he thought it was his duty to tell them through whose exertions that delightful afternoon’s amusement had been afforded to them. They were indebted for it to Mr John Hulley, the excellent honorary secretary of the club, and it was entirely owing to his indefatigable and praiseworthy exertions that the festival had been brought to such a successful and highly satisfactory issue. Mr Melly then called for three cheers for Mr Hulley, which were given right heartedly, with "one cheer more.”

1862 Sep 29 Liverpool Mercury - Advertisement
The Rotunda Gymnasium, Bold Street, will open on Monday next, the 6th of October. For further information, apply at the Gymnasium. John Hulley, Director.

1863 Mar 17 Liverpool Mercury - Physical Education.
We have frequently with pleasure noticed the efforts made to establish a regular system of physical education in different parts of this country, and trust they will be persevered in until final success is attained. The importance of physical training and exercise, in order to fit, not only the body but the mind for the race and battle of life, is widely recognized now, and we do not despair of seeing the principle still more extensively accepted and acted upon. The good example set by Mr Hulley has successfully reawakened throughout the country the old English passion for manly exercises, and it is with great pleasure we hear that Manchester has worthily followed the lead of Liverpool, and established an Athletic Club, which purposes holding its first grand assault-at-arms in the Free Trade Hall, on Tuesday next. Several of the pioneers of the physical education movement have `been invited to attend and take part in the proceedings. Liverpool will be represented by Messrs Hulley, Shrapnell, Roberts, and Parkinson. The chair will be occupied by the Mayor of Manchester.

1863 May 6 Liverpool Mercury – Correspondence - Physical Education
To the Editors of the Liverpool Mercury Gentlemen
I think there could not be a better time than the present, now that such a deal is being made, said and written on the important subject of physical education, to express my opinion with regard to a testimonial being presented to Mr John Hulley, honorary secretary of the Athletic Club. I think no one man in Liverpool has done more for his fellow-townsmen than Mr Hulley. He, in a great measure, may be called the pioneer of the great movement in this town. Although gymnasia have existed here sometime, yet the attention of the whole world has not been drawn to them and physical education, generally, as has been the case since the opening of the Rotunda: and I think it but just he that those who have been brought to see it in a proper light through his exertion should in some way show their esteem, and prove that his endeavours have been properly appreciated, and so encourage him in his great enterprise; and the Athletic Club, whose honorary secretary he is, also deserve the warmest praise for the assistance they have rendered Mr Hulley, in his arduous labourers.
Yours, &c., A .B. C. New Brighton, May 4, 1863.

1863 May 29 Liverpool Mercury - Imperial Parliament - House of Commons on Thursday, May 28
The Progress of Physical Education.
The following letter furnishes another proof of the interest which is being excited throughout the country on the subject of the conservation of athletic habits as a necessity for the proper development of the nature and powers of man.
Severn End, Upton-on-Severn, May 20 7, 1863. Sir Edmund Lachmere presents his compliments to Mr John Hulley, and will feel much obliged to him if he will have the kindness to send to Sir Edmund the rules and other particulars of the Liverpool Athletic Club. Sir Edmund is very desirous to encourage athletic sports and a competition for prizes in the pleasure grounds at Worcester, and he wishes to procure all the information he can as to the establishment of athletic games in other places. If Mr Hulley will kindly send him any rules, papers, or reports (from the newspapers or otherwise), and especially the particulars of the competition in June next, Sir Edmund would gladly return them, and pay postage &c.
Mr John Hulley Liverpool.

1863 Jun 15 Liverpool Mercury - Grand Olympic Festival
The second annual great international Olympic Festival in connection with the Liverpool Athletic Club took place on Saturday last, at the Mount Vernon Parade Ground (incl.) Mr Hulley, the indefatigable honorary secretary, and the committee, had used every excursion to render the affair a complete success, and the thousands who were present on Saturday, must admit that this second Olympic Festival was highly successful in every respect.

1863 Oct 7 Liverpool Mercury - Gymnasium for Ulverston
We again repeat that the town will be highly honoured by the visit of Mr Hulley and his associates; and we feel confident that these gentlemen will meet with a brilliant reception, and ever look back with pleasurable feelings to the visit to the old town. Soulby’s Ulverston paper.

1863 Oct 24 Liverpool Mercury - The Athletic Society at Ulverston on Thursday evening.
John Hulley, Esq, Vice-president of the Athletic Society, delivered a lecture in the Victoria Concert Hall, Ulverston, on the importance and advantages of physical education. The appearance of the platform was most picturesque, and had a most pleasing effect. Mr Hulley was accompanied by 12 members of the Athletic Society, who had in the most handsome manner placed their valuable services at the disposal of the Ulverston committee.

1863 Dec 3 Liverpool Mercury - Grand Assault at Arms
A new winter festival and assault at arms in connection with the Liverpool Athletic Society was held last evening, at the Theatre-Royal, and was attended with that remarkable success, which has ever characterised the gatherings that have from time to time taken place under the auspices of the society. As the public generally are aware, it few years ago it was established that mainly through the instrumentality of Mr John Hulley, an association designated. The Liverpool Athletic Society, which had for its object, the promotion of physical education. (Incl.) He would ask Mr Charles Melly, the previous president of the club, to second the vote of thanks to Mr Hulley, he having been witness to Mr Hulley indefatigable exertions.

Mr Melly said he had the greatest possible pleasure in seconding the motion, fully satisfied that it had been well earned. When Mr Hulley undertook to bring forward the athletic exercises in Liverpool, it was for no self-seeking on his part, but through love of the cause. Mr W. Rathbone had described Mr Hulley as a very odd fellow, but added "He is an enthusiast, and I love enthusiasts; they will carry the day." He believed that they would find that in backing up enthusiasts Mr Rathbone had not been wrong in other cases – certainly not in this case. (Hear, hear.) Mr Hulley had backed him (Mr Melly) up in the establishment of the gymnasiums, which had had but a poor beginning, but owing to the self-sacrificing energies of Mr Hulley had spread beyond all example. Two years since they were in their infancy, nobody cared for them; but what they had become the result of that evening would best prove.

Mr Melly requested that the vote of thanks to Mr Hulley should be carried with three cheers, as the most fitting termination of the meeting. The cheers were given enthusiastically. Mr Hulley returned thanks briefly and in most appropriate terms, and after a few observations from Mr J. R. Geoffrey approving of the club and expressing pleasure at the evenings proceedings, the meeting terminated about 11 o'clock.

1863 Dec 4 Leeds Mercury - Athletic Education in Liverpool
The promotion of physical training has during the last 12 months received an immense stimulus in Liverpool by the establishment of the new Gymnasium founded by Mr John Hulley, and by the periodical "Olympic festivals", which Mr Hulley has organised for the display of gymnastic skill and dexterity in the use of arms. On Wednesday evening, the Theatre Royal was crowded on the occasion of the award of prizes to the successful athletes who contended at the summer festival.

Mr S. R. Graves (the president of the Liverpool Athletic Club), took the chair (which was placed upon the stage), and was surrounded by some of the leading people of the town, including the mayor, Mr Chas. Mozley. The boxes were for the most part filled with ladies in evening costume. The stage was profusely decorated with flags and banners, and during the speaking portion of the proceedings a chosen band of the Athletic Society formed a guard of honour, and were stationed near the chair, but after the more formal business had been completed, they improvised a gymnasium upon the stage, and went through a variety of exercises in vaulting, high leaping, and with ropes, rings, and trapeze, which exhibited a wonderful amount of agility and strength.

There were also some exciting contests with the broadsword, sword and bayonet and with the clubs. Amongst the feats performed by one of the swordsmen (Corporal-Major Waite, who contended in some of the exercises with members of the Athletic Society) was the cutting through a bar of lead, severing a carcass of a sheep, and divided an apple upon a gentlemen's hand without injuring the hand. Mr Hulley's influence and example in the matter of physical education and beginning to be felt in other towns, were as yet, this branch of training has been quite neglected.

1864 Mar 19 Liverpool Mercury - The New Gymnasium Company
At length, we believe, we are in a position to congratulate the town on the proximate establishment of an institution which will secure, and still further develop the advances which have lately been made in physical education. This movement has been taken up by gentlemen well able from their intellectual pre-eminence to appreciate its capabilities of extension and usefulness, and whose wealth, position, and commercial address will ensure it for moneyed support. A prospectus lies before us, which differs in every respect, except in holding out the prospect of remunerative returns from the ordinary announcements of limited liability companies. The directors are, for the most part, men not less noted among us for philanthropy than for those qualities which are essential to commercial success; and their object, though pursued in such a manner as to promise pecuniary profit, is primarily to confer on society the great boom which is offered by an institution, which establishes a centre whence may be defused what will perhaps be soon recognised as the prime want of the age – physical culture.

The direction consists, as it is important we should state, of such men as Mr Thomas Brocksbank, Mr S. R. Graves, Mr J. R. Jeffrey, Mr Charles Langton, Mr Alfred Holt, Mr Charles Melly, Mr Brandon Morley, Mr S. G. Rathbone, Mr W. H. Manifold, Dr Grimsdale, and Mr J. J. Stitt, and it is presided over by our excellent Mayor. The prime object of the company is to erect in a suitable place a gymnasium, such as shall fairly express the devotion to physical education, which has happily become so common in Liverpool, chiefly through the exertions of its most eminent and spirited apostle, Mr John Hulley, and such as to spread widely around the conviction of the necessity and the appreciation of its enjoyments. We believe the directors have selected a site which will admirably meet the requirements of the case; and they have done still better in securing the services of Mr Hulley, without whom any athletic undertaking would lack a great prerequisite and assurance of success.

The commercial illegibility of the enterprise is self-evident. Not only did the abundant support formally recorded to the Rotunda prove how great a field there is for it, and how certain a gymnasium properly and liberally conducted of being sustained, but the very nature of the outlay in which the capital of the company is embarked offers the best guarantee that, whether the philanthropic designs of the directors be realised or not - and they are almost certain to be accomplished - the pecuniary interests of the shareholders cannot suffer. Nearly half the required capital has already been subscribed by gentlemen interested in the institution, and the greatest part of the expenditure will be secured on land and buildings. Thus the directors are able to say with evident sincerity that it would have been easy to accomplish their purpose without resorting to a joint-stock organisation, had it not been desirable to give it a public recognition, and a win for it a locus standi in public esteem, such as only proved success as a joint-stock enterprise paying a good dividend could secure.

It cannot be too often reiterated that the considerations on which gymnasiums and the physical education movement are based are of crying importance. They have too long been neglected, and they must no longer be suffered to remain unrecognized or lightly regarded. Plato, the greatest of ancient philosophers says, "Excess of bodily exercise may render us wild and unmanageable; but excess of art, science, and music makes us fuddled and effeminate. Only the right combination of both makes us wise and manly." Another distinguished writer observes that "all sensual passions are found in effeminate bodies; while the more they are roused the less they are satisfied. A weak body weakens the mind."

Medical men unanimously agree that callisthenic academies, under scientific and practical instructors for the physical education of women, are much-needed; most female complaints, consumption included, result from an ignorant and murderous management of girls. One of the most eminent physicians of London, in a work recently published, dwells forcibly on this subject, and states that "while 100 girls are receiving a ‘complete education,’ namely, a smattering of two or three languages, a little knowledge of mathematics, some skill in music, singing, and drawing, all obtained by 17 years of age, 25 have died by the ‘disease of learning, 25 have lost their rosy cheeks for sallow complexions, irremediable deformities, and certain consumption, while the balance have been dulled down into mere breathing astomta, like the trees of old French gardeners, all cut by the same stiff pattern into the same formal shape.’ Such academies would demonstrate to mothers how useful variety of exercise was in addition to the symmetry of form, and lighting up and invigorating life by which that form is animated.

The common remark that parents are too much absorbed in the accomplishment of their daughters to give any attention to their health is absurd. Mothers know that the happiness of their girls, as well as the character of their settlement in life, turns up more upon health and exuberance of spirits than upon French and music. To suppose that, while thousands are at freely given for accomplishments, hundreds would be refused for bodily health and bloom, is to doubt the parents’ sanity. If the father were fully satisfied that his daughter could exchange her stooping form, pale face, lassitude for erectness, freshness, and elasticity, does anybody suppose he would hesitate? Fathers give their daughters Italian and driving, not because they regard these as the best of the good things of life, but because they form a part of the established course of education.

Only let the means for a complete physical development to be organised and announced as an integral part of our system of education, and parents would gladly avail themselves of it; no want is so universally, none so deeply felt." These facts have of late been impressed upon the public mind with a force never before attained, and it can scarcely be doubted that immediately on the presentation to the public of the facilities of this institution a large number of ladies will avail themselves of them, while such arrangements will be concerted with schools, as will in effect been within its scope the elite of the rising female generation. All that has been said with reference to ladies applies a fortiori to the youth of the other sex.

Amongst the first in this country to perceive the vast importance of these principles of life, conduct, and education was Mr C. P. Melly. For years he has been energetically endeavouring to spread them in his home town, and his name is a tower of strength to the good cause throughout the country. It will, therefore, be a high assurance of the philanthropic and practical value of this undertaking that Mr C. P. Melly is the prime mover in it. By originating this institution and gathering around it the influence and support of his friends he has added largely to the already deep obligations under which he has placed his town and his country; and by placing the management of the institution in the hands of Mr Hulley, who is second to no man in Europe as a practical and thoroughly skilled gymnastic preceptor, the board have proved that they are working in Mr Melly's spirit, and likely to enjoy the tangible success which has hitherto been the reward of Mr Melly’s philanthropic labours.

1864 Jun 28   Liverpool Mercury – The Athletes of Our Times

Those who are interested in the physical progress of their countrymen will apparently have reason to congratulate themselves on the results of the great Olympic Festival which will take place on Saturday.  The Athletic Society of Great Britain have secured for the occasion the Zoological Gardens, and have reserved them exclusively to their own use, while Mr Hulley, who has had so much experience and who has achieved so many triumphs, is engaged in completing arrangements which will be on the most liberal scale, and most perfect in their completeness.  The announcements which Mr Hulley has made have sufficed, such is his fame as a gymnasiarch, to call forth a great demonstration of athletic enterprise, and the 250 entries which have been made represent a body of gentlemen athletes of position, influence, and skill such as never before been collected upon any similar occasion.  The names from Liverpool and the neighbourhood are numerous and well-known, and it is fortunate that the élite of the fair sex of the town and locality will, as usual, be present to encourage the local champions, with their smiles, or they might have to look seriously to their laurels in competition with so much and such varied prowess.  We give a few of the names of those who are about to come from a distance to engage in this honourable strife, and it will be seen by all familiar with these matters that the list comprises the picked men of the universities, the army, and the athletic circles of principal towns.  The entries include the following non-local names:-- (there follows a list of 39 names).

The interest taken in the festival is shown in many very gratifying ways.  Many of the leading families of Liverpool have signified their intention to be present.  The hero of Delhi, Sir John Jones, who has so often been foremost in fight, will be found foremost also as president of the festival in encouraging the competitors by his presence and the recollection of his brave deeds; while such men as the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown and the Rev. Nevison Loraine have, ápropos  the festival, expressed themselves most cordially towards the institution and its objects.  We again congratulate Mr Hulley on the abundant evidence of the effect of his labours, which, it is no exaggeration to say, have drawn the eyes of the world upon Liverpool as the centre of physical education and progress.  Facilities will be afforded to attend the festival from many parts of the country by means of excursion trains, and we cannot doubt that a fresh impulse will be given to this important movement by the proceedings of the day.

1864 Jul 16 Liverpool Mercury - Laying of the Foundation Stone of the new Liverpool Gymnasium
Another step is to be taken towards the complete establishment amongst us at that centre of physical education, which has been some time so admirably sustained by Mr Hulley, and which is now under the auspices of almost all the most eminent men of station and intelligence in Liverpool. On Monday next the first stone is to be laid of the new Liverpool Gymnasium, which is to be raised, on plans which secure to the town the possession of another very handsome building, by the company of which Mr C. P. Melly is the principal promoter, in Myrtle-Street, opposite the Philharmonic Hall.

1864 Jul 16 The Penny Illustrated Paper – German Gymnastic Festival.
The Turnverein, or German Gymnastic Society, founded in 1861, held its annual festival in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, on the sixth inst. From small beginnings the body has steadily grown in prosperity and influence, gathering round in other societies of a kindred character; and a spacious hall is now being built at King’s cross, for the accommodation of the rapidly increasing numbers of members, who join in the athletic exercises directed by Mr E. G. Ravenstein.

After the distribution of prices the company dined in the Palace, the chairman -- Mr Ravenstein -- being supported by Mr Hulley, of Liverpool, who is a very active concerning gymnastics in that city, we're a large building is being erected for the purpose by C. P. Melly, Esq.

1864 Jul 19 Liverpool Mercury - Laying of the Foundation Stone of the new Liverpool Gymnasium
Account of ceremony and presentation of prizes from the 3rd Olympic Festival by the Mayor.

1864 Oct 18 Liverpool Mercury Award of Silver medal to John Hulley
An Olympic Festival took place at Wenlock last week. The Wenlock Society has elected Mr Hulley, of Liverpool, to honorary membership, and awarded to him a silver medal in appreciation of his valuable services in the cause of physical education.

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