Address by the
Revd Graham Murphy B.A. Dip.Post.Theol

Minister of Toxteth Unitarian Chapel Liverpool

I consider it a great honour of Ray Hulley, and the other trustees of the John Hulley Memorial Fund to have invited me to conduct, with their assistance, the rededication of this restored grave of a pioneer of the movement which helped establish today’s British Olympic Association. 

John Hulley must rank as one of the most colourful characters of the Victorian Age.  As a boy, his childhood was blighted by the death of his father, and it was in search of a mentor, a father figure, that John became a star pupil of the French gymnast, Louis Huguenin, who taught in Liverpool  for nigh on a quarter of a century.  Hulley took over from Huguenin and publicised gymnastics with an efficiency that would put to shame a public relations programme of the present day.  Exploiting the connection of athletics with pantomime and circus acts, Hulley, without compromise to its status as a science, drew attention to himself as an extraordinary athlete by the invention and assumption of the title “Gymnasiarch Professor."  Dressing himself in eye-catching costumes, he appeared prominently at all manner of public gatherings in and around Liverpool, from the polite garden fete to the stage of the city Amphitheatre.

He spent summers on the North Wales coast, promoting general fitness and swimming by running on the Great Orme, wearing his Biarritz bathing outfit.  Other occasions demanded a velveteen suit, Highland dress or a gown and turban.  His greatest achievement through all this publicity was to raise sufficient capital for the setting up of new gymnasia in the heart of Liverpool, the most successful of which was on Myrtle Street, opposite the Philharmonic Hall.  This was filled with the best equipment and judged by a contemporary with a wide knowledge of gymnasia to be second to none in Europe or America.

There were important aspect of Hulley's approach to athletics, which singled him out as a pioneer of values and ideals which the modern Olympic movement, even now, struggles to attain.  Athletics for the promotion of personal health had entered public school education in Britain with the appointment of Edward Thring to the headmastership of Uppingham.  There he established the first school gymnasium, supervised by the German gymnast Carl Beseigel.  As an adviser to the setting up of a similar gymnasium at Rugby School, John Hulley lent his support to what rapidly became an important trend in education.  But he realised its limitations.  With the sympathy, and, I would guess, some considerable financial support from the Liverpool philanthropist, William Rathbone, Hulley introduced gymnastics for the benefit of poorer children in Liverpool, whose health was often deeply impaired by the circumstances of their upbringing.

For Hulley, athletics was not primarily about the winning of  prizes, but rather achieving a high degree of personal fitness.  He introduced diplomas awarded on the basis of an all-round competency in the various activities; to achieve such a qualification required proficiency in running, high jump, long jump, rope climbing, shot put, exercises on the parallel bars, exercise with clubs and swimming.  Hulley's goal was maximum health and fitness for rich and poor, young and old, male and female.  He abhorred imbalance of human faculties by the over-specialisation of training and any dependency on drugs; allied to athletics was temperance, personal morals and exemplary behaviour, in short, self-discipline.  The first festivals he organised were militaristic in style, mindful as he was of the appalling unfitness of the nation's troops in war.  With the incorporation of facilities for women at his Myrtle Street Gymnasium it appeared that the emphasis on martial arts was lessened.

Hulley was mercilessly lampooned in the press for what were perceived in his day to be eccentricities.  Newspaper reporters consistently failed to appreciate what was needed at the time if athletics was to achieve popularity among all classes.  That Hulley married somewhat late in life was due, I suspect, to this notoriety.  Indeed, when he did find the love of his life, Georgiana, her wealthy and respectable parents were so horrified to discover his celebrity status that they locked their daughter in her room, causing the marriage in the Ancient chapel to be delayed by a day. Hulley's happy union produced a daughter, but the onset of persistent chest disease severely shortened the father's life.  Most winters Hulley would go abroad to avail himself of a warmer climate.  On the one occasion he stayed in Liverpool he became fatally ill and died, in January 1875, at the age of 42.  An obituary writer summed him up well:  “Hulley was born with a mission, which he fulfilled; and taking for all and all, we may never see his like again."

Let a press reporter based in Llandudno, where Hulley organised an athletics festival and a torchlight water pageant, have another last word in an amusing anecdote of when he was very much alive:  "He is undergoing an immense course of training, passing his time in the mountains or swimming out to sea with nothing on, but a cigar in his mouth.  Wandering in a secluded mountain fastness in his bathing dress, he was accosted by a mercantile-looking person in drab inexpressibles: "Pardon me, but are you not the Gymnasiarch of Liverpool?"  To which came the reply: "I am the Gymnasiarch of the World!"

Perceptive men and women of Hulley's time recognized the boundless vitality, enthusiasm and daring of a true pioneer of sports science.  It was easy to ridicule him, and there was no shortage of armchair critics to do just that, not realising how Hulley was simply ever reinventing himself to ensure his cause was never out of public view.  If the advancement of athletics required him to be a showman, that he would be;  he was nothing if not brave and indomitable.

If I were to make a comparison with another idiosyncratic and equally impressive pioneer of the same era, who also worked in the North West of England, it would be to a somewhat weakling child, who gained strength in Carl Beseigel's gymnasium at Uppingham and settled for the rest of his long life in the Lake District, Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley.  Both John Hulley and Hardie Rawnsley were key figures in the open air and public health movements of the 19th century.  As founder and first Secretary of the National Trust, Rawnsley was pivotal in opening the Lake District for the benefit of working class rambling clubs and the development of mountain sports.  Similarly, Hulley looked to improve physical health in the vicinity of where people in the age of industry ordinarily  lived and worked. 

Until now, Hulley has suffered from obscurity, following his early death.  Let the restoration of his grave be an end to that.   It is with great pleasure that I declare this restoration to be the granting to John Hulley of a place in history, which he undoubtedly deserves.

Concluding Prayer

We bow our heads respectfully in honour of those who have gone before us, thinking at this occasion, of the men and women who pioneered organisations for the improvement of health.  Theirs was a dream that all might have the means to attain their full potential for a happy life, whatever the fortune or misfortune of their circumstances -- the pursuit of excellence in the use of the human body as well as the mind is for the benefit of many generations. 

We are especially grateful that in this city there was such an advocate of athletics as John Hulley; that he had the foresight to see the need to revive those Olympian ideals which in ancient times were seen as essential for the creation of a good society and the promotion of peace.  Thinking little of his own reputation, Hulley did what he perceived to be the best for the advancement of his cause; putting to rout those who ridiculed his endeavours, he succeeded where others might have failed. 

Having overcome adversity, he can truly be accounted one of our city's great sons, to be remembered in the story of human progress.  Well done brave soul!  Let we who seek to rescue your name from the mists of time take heed of your audaciousness and resolve to make our lives, likewise, temples of a pure spirit and a love of all human kind. Amen.

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