In 1886, the nation was gripped by a bizarre trend that saw plucky Britons racing wheelbarrows across the country. David Musgrove takes up this strange-but-true story
ILLUSTRATION BY FEMKE DE JONG
Sawdust Jack and James Gordon are not names that have gone down in the annals of sporting history. Yet in 1886, they were at the centre of an athletic endurance contest that briefly held the eyes of the British nation.
It was mid-November, and John Martin, better known as Sawdust Jack, was whipping up a storm in Newcastle. He was trying to make his way through the city, but he was blocked by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, lustily cheering him on, at every turn. He was a slim-built man, dressed as a labourer, but with an oversized and battered high silk hat, upon which was affixed an advertisement for a Newcastle hairdresser. The key item of his equipment was being pushed, rather than worn: after all, this was the year that the great wheelbarrow craze began.
Sawdust Jack, if he could only extract himself from the crowd, intended to race all the way from Newcastle to London, but with the impediment of a heavy wheelbarrow to push in front of him. He proposed to cover at least 30 miles a day, but his main object was to overtake another wheelbarrow pedestrian and beat him to the capital.
His adversary was a Scotsman named James Gordon, who had the disadvantage of having started on his barrow attempt almost 200 miles further north, but the advantage of a lighter barrow and a considerable head start. Gordon had left his hometown of Dundee in early November, clad in a brown tam o’shanter, coat and trousers of a similar hue, and stout leggings. He passed through Newcastle on 13 November, where he was similarly met by a surging crowd, cheered on by massed street urchins and serenaded by a band from a travelling menagerie. When Sawdust Jack finally extricated himself from his supporters and left Newcastle on 21 November, Gordon was long gone – more than 100 miles south of him in Doncaster, with but 170 miles left between his wheelbarrow and London.
The race was on, but unsurprisingly, it never really got going. Sawdust Jack only made it as far as Selby, after 105 miles and four days, when he gave up owing to lack of support. However, James Gordon progressed onwards to London, where he was welcomed like a conquering hero. He was even treated to write-ups in several major newspapers, including the Illustrated London News, which described him as “a very poor man, but a brave one”.
After rec
