Victorian Era Sports

Popular Activities, Sports, and Hunting During the Victorian Era As leisure time became more available during the Victorian Era due to inventions and innovations in technology that made life easier, sports and activities became popular pastimes among the British. Early versions of soccer (football), rugby (union or league), tennis, and golf, popular sports today, started to gain traction. The Victorians made rule changes to these sports to make them more organized, and in some cases, less brutal. The Victorian Era brought about many firsts: golf’s first major, The Open Championship, was played on October 17, 1860 in Ayrshire, Scotland; on December 19, 1863, the first game of soccer was played; the first official Test cricket match was played

Butcher Ned Haig, the founder of rugby sevens, created the game for a charity event. The game has been popular ever since.
The modern game of tennis was created by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield in 1858. He patented the game in 1874 and had his patent signed by none other than Queen Victoria herself. He called the game “The Ancient Game of Tennis.” Other people have tried to create similar games.
The sport of tennis used to come in a box set that included balls, a net with poles, court markers and an instruction manual for setup. Wingfield’s idea was to create a portable version of “The Ancient Game of Tennis.” He envisioned the game being “constructed on croquet courts and providing people with physical exercise and social amusement” (International Tennis Hall of Fame 1).
The sport spread quickly, replacing croquet as England’s most popular sport. The first Wimbledon tournament commenced in 1877. A man by the name of Spencer Gore won the first Wimbledon championship on July 9, 1877. In 1879, men’s doubles were added to the event list. In 1889, women’s singles were a new part of the event and almost twenty five years later women’s doubles were