THE GREAT WHEELBARROW CRAZE

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

- David Musgrove

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.