Sport in History
ISSN: 1746-0263 (Print) 1746-0271 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsih20
Indian club swinging in the early Victorian period
Conor Heffernan
To cite this article: Conor Heffernan (2017) Indian club swinging in the early Victorian period,
Sport in History, 37:1, 95-120, DOI: 10.1080/17460263.2016.1250807
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2016.1250807
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SPORT IN HISTORY, 2017
VOL. 37, NO. 1, 95–120
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2016.1250807
Indian club swinging in the early Victorian period
Conor Heffernan
Department of History, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
ABSTRACT
Although relatively unknown to the modern fitness enthusiast, Indian club
swinging, the practice of swinging bottle shaped clubs for gymnastic exercise,
was once a highly popular form of recreation and rehabilitation in Victorian
England. Inspired by the centuries-old Indian practice of jori swinging, club
swinging first emerged in England in the 1820s, thanks to its adoption by the
British army. Although first viewed as a military training practice, club
swinging was soon appropriated by England’s upper-classes with an eye to
gender identities. For Victorian men, Indian clubs were seen as a means of
bolstering their masculine credentials through the cultivation of physical
strength. Similarly for women, club swinging was presented as an innocuous
method of preserving or increasing their beauty. By tracing the importation of
Indian club swinging into English society, this article examines the ways in
which the practice was used to both bolster and re-interpret the gender
identities ascribed to Indian clubs by both physicians and lay authors.
In the early seventeenth century, British travellers to India began noting the
local practice of Indian club swinging, which, at first glance, was unlike anything they had previously encountered.1 Nevertheless, within two centuries,
British colonisers were not only familiar with club swinging, they had
adopted it for themselves. A form of exercise that for Indians carried strong
religious, militaristic and masculine connotations was remodelled into a
tool for British military practices with new and diverse meanings. From the
British army stationed in India, the clubs were transported to England in
the opening decades of the nineteenth century where they became a
popular exercise tool for upper-class men and women.2 While Indian club
swinging remains a relatively unknown form of exercise for current exercisers,
the practice of swinging weighted clubs for health purposes was highly
regarded amongst pockets of England’s upper-classes in the early years of Victoria’s reign. Although some used Indian clubs to bolster traditional gender
identities, others used the clubs to challenge early ideas about Victorian masculinity and femininity. Using Indian clubs as an object of enquiry, this article
CONTACT Conor Heffernan
tleknock, Dublin 15, Ireland
heffercp@tcd.ie
© 2017 The British Society of Sports History
University College Dublin, 7 Hadleigh Green, Cas-
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C. HEFFERNAN
explores, first, how Indian clubs were transported from India to England and,
second, how the practice of club swinging was used to negotiate public gender
identities in the first decades of Queen Victoria’s long reign.
In doing so, the article will first give a brief survey of the clubs’ history so as
to establish their pre-colonial significance for Indian exercisers. Following
this, attention will be turned to the British appropriation for the exercise
and how this appropriation changed not only the clubs’ appearance, but
also their significance. Having discussed the Indian context, attention will
be turned to Victorian England, which saw the clubs used in both fitness
and medical settings. Although the literature of these settings often sought
to reinforce hegemonic forms of gender, the article argues that English exercisers were able to use the clubs to challenge, re-interpret and re-create normative gender identities through club swinging. The article thus sheds light on
the clubs’ silent yet important presence in English culture.
Tracing the clubs’ origins
While Indian clubs appeared in early Buddhist and Jain writings, their Indian
origin and indeed significance, is best understood through Hindu epics such
as the Mahabharata, written between 400 BCE and 400 CE .3 Highly allegorical,
the text focused on two warring sects, the Pandevas and Kauravas, with their
battle a metaphor for life itself.4 Although several figures used gadas, Indian
club precursors, throughout the epic, it was the gada battle between Bhima,
the king, and Duryodhan, the man vying for Bhima’s throne, that became
synonymous with the clubs.5 That each man, famed for his power, wielded
gadas linked the clubs to overt images of strength and masculinity. Similarly,
that Bhima killed Duryodhan with his club demonstrated its destructive capabilities.6 Such tools were not confined to mortals as Vishnu, a revered Hindu
deity, had a long history of wielding the clubs for martial purposes. Indeed,
Vishnu was responsible for forging the original gada and it was stemming
from Vishnu’s association that Indian clubs’ identity as a symbol of power
and destruction was re-iterated.7 Lord Hanuman’s concurrent allegorical
use of Indian clubs solidified this association for Hindu worshippers. A
demigod praised for his devotion to Lord Rama, Hanuman was and is intensely related to Indian clubs in Hindu texts and iconography.8 As the Hindu
God of wrestling, Hanuman explicitly linked Indian clubs with athleticism,
a connection reiterated daily for Indian exercisers, who for centuries,
prayed to Hanuman before training.9 Thus, one facet of the clubs’ reverence
before the British arrival in India was its religious significance in the battlefield
and the gymnasium.
Hindu reverence for Indian clubs stemmed in part from their martial applications, as depicted in the religious epics. It is thus pertinent then to note that
the Mahabharata was written soon after the Indian Vedic Age (1500–500
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97
during which Indian clubs regularly appeared in battle.10 According to
Shankar Nath Das, Indian clubs were one of the most prominent weapons
of the period, which perhaps explains the continual reference to the clubs
in the Mahabharata.11 The clubs’ popularity proved particularly enduring
as the rising prominence of other weapons such as swords, spears, axes and
lances in the centuries following the Vedic Age did little to displace the
clubs’ battlefield application. Nevertheless, such weapons did signal a
change in the clubs’ use over the following centuries.12 While still used by soldiers, the clubs’ usage slowly began to shift from the battlefield to the training
arenas of the military camps that littered the Indian landmass. This appears to
have been a gradual process as it took until the early decades of the twelfth
century for the first Indian club training manual, the Manasollasa, to be published.13 Describing contemporary exercise systems, the text devoted considerable space to wrestling and club swinging, which, Rosalind O’Hanlon
argued, showcased the tripartite relationship between club swinging, military
practices and physical exercise.14 Although now established as a gymnastic
exercise, it appears that the clubs continued to serve as a martial tool for
several more centuries.15
Within a century of the Manasollasa’s publication, another Hindu exercise
text, the Malla-Purana, expanded on the clubs’ training capabilities.16 An allegorical text, the Malla-Purana discussed Lord Krishna and Balarama’s prescriptions regarding wrestlers’ bodies and training methods, such as club
swinging.17 In reading the text one is struck by two points, first that club
swinging had long been a regulated practice and second that one needed significant strength to wield the clubs effectively.18 Indeed, Sarva Daman Singh
previously noted that although all men could wield Indian clubs, only those
with extraordinary strength excelled.19 Those possessing such strength were
relatively privileged within martial and physical culture fields, as club swinging became an effective means of using the body to gain employment and
social prestige.20 The Malla-Purana helped fuel the clubs’ masculine associations as, in the post-Purana period, club swinging became linked to wrestlers’
celibacy and semen retention. Those wielding Indian clubs effectively were
depicted as being in complete control of their desires.21 The anthropological
studies of Joseph Alter, an American scholar interested in Hindu wrestling
practices demonstrate that such ideas still permeate the wrestling akharas
(gymnasiums).22
So entrenched had club swinging become within Hindu training programmes that the sixteenth century Mughal invasion of India did little to
temper its popularity. Moghul interest in wrestling was itself centuries old,
and when Moghul leader Z ahīr-ud-Dīn Muh ammad (‘Babur’) consolidated
his Indian empire, he endorsed Hindu and Moghul wrestling styles.23
Babur’s subjects mirrored his affection with the result being that Hindu wrestling took on several Moghul elements.24 Surveying Indian wrestling’s history,
BCE )
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C. HEFFERNAN
Alter concluded that from the sixteenth century, Hindu wrestling became a
crossbreed of Hindu and Moghul techniques whose traditions only differed
culturally.25 It was perhaps stemming from the similarities between the two
athletic practices that Indian clubs grew in political significance during
Moghul rule, as princes began retaining wrestlers and club swingers in their
palaces to showcase their strength.26 Such athletes acted as ‘muscular metaphors’ and toured India, competing against rival princes’ retinues.27 Such
explicit ‘soft power’ demonstrations allowed kingdoms to prove their superiority over one another without engaging in warfare, while at the same providing an outlet for displays of Hindu masculinity as distinct from Mughal
conceptions of manhood.28 European travellers were well aware of this practice. In 1536 Fernao Nuniz noted in his travel that the king of Vijayanagara
kept wrestlers, who although having ‘a captain over them … they do not
perform any other service in the kingdom.’29 Unbeknownst to the Portuguese
traveller, the wrestlers were symbols of the king’s power. Similar to the religious and martial context, Indian clubs in the health context held multiple
functions. For some, they cultivated self-discipline and increased vital energies, while for others they were tools of political showmanship.
While Indian clubs’ multiplicity was not immediately apparent to colonial
onlookers in the early seventeenth century, Englishmen were soon alerted to
this fact. As Britain’s Indian interactions intensified during the seventeenth
century, East India Company men became increasingly exposed to the daily
exercise regimes of Hindu and Muslim wrestlers.30
Such exercisers projected a highly masculine and militaristic image31 – an
imposing image known to Englishmen in India at that time. In 1798, Hugh
Boyd noted the vast number of muscular bodies one encountered on
Indian streets, suggesting that public exhibitions were a popular outlet for
showcasing Hindu physical culture’s utility and impressiveness.32 The
influx of Indian troops into army garrisons in the eighteenth century would
see Englishmen fully exposed to the clubs’ martial elements. At the century’s
end, English soldier W. Ouseley wrote of Indian troops’ practices of whirling
dumbbells and heavy pieces of wood overhead ‘in order to supple their limbs
and give grace and strengthen [sic] to their bodies.’33 At the dawn of the nineteenth century, English knowledge of the clubs had grown exponentially from
two centuries previous. The upcoming decades would see Indian clubs
become a prominent part of English life.
Admiring, adopting and adapting: Englishmen and Indian clubs
What prompted colonisers to undertake club swinging at the beginning of the
nineteenth century? Was this adoption ‘almost inconceivable’ as Alter previously opined, or was it a manifestation of colonial fears about maintaining
health?34 While concurring with Alter that the adoption of club swinging
SPORT IN HISTORY
99
should not be treated lightly, the high mortality rates for East India Company
employees and soldiers make the adoption somewhat unsurprising and,
indeed, highly advisable.
Surveying nineteenth century writings from colonial doctors and administrators presents two starting points for the colonial appropriation of Indian
clubs. The first is that the life expectancy for British colonisers was being
severely curtailed due to unfamiliar diseases and the second is that British
men desperately sought solutions.35 An 1831 article published in Gleanings
from Science illustrated the nature of this problem. According to the article,
from 1790 to 1828, annual deaths of newly appointed East India Company
writers varied between 50 and 100 deaths per 200 to 800 appointees.36
Although the article’s tone was one of overwhelming despair some, such as
the East India Sketchbook, sought to find humour in the perilous mortality
rates facing colonisers at that time. In the years following the article, the
Sketchbook published a short story entitled ‘The Sick Certificate’. Despite its
highly satirical nature, the protagonist’s cry, ‘you know in this country how
soon one is pulled down’, nevertheless indicated the matter’s seriousness.37
Such writings contrasted with earlier English writings that had optimistically
opined that Englishmen would sooner or later acclimatise to the Indian
climate.38 Malaria, cholera, plagues and, in some cases, the deleterious
effects of epicurean lifestyles seemingly coalesced to ensure that the English
existence in India was not a pleasant one.39
Significantly, information regarding the Indian climate’s deleterious effects
was available in both India and England, which Arthur Gilbert argued made
‘service in India terrifying for many Englishmen.’40 The situation was similar
in the martial field, as contemporary reports into the health of English troops
attested. In an 1832 report to the House of Commons, a select committee
revealed that high troop mortality rates in India continued despite troops’
favourable living conditions.41 Particularly galling was the Report’s finding
that troops were often needlessly exposed to the climate, had few means of
exercising and lived a highly sedentary existence.42 For David Arnold, the
mortality rates for British civil and military colonisers threatened the very sustainability of the British presence in India as such rates raised realistic questions about the feasibility of the British presence.43 Indeed, Sudip
Bhattacharya’s recent monograph on the topic, Unseen Enemy, seems a particular apt metaphor for the threat levels facing the British in India. As European medicine failed to sustain or improve health, it was perhaps inevitable,
and indeed highly advisable, that colonisers turned toward indigenous
medical practices.44
While diseases struck all subjects without regard for nationality, there was
awareness amongst British men that their Indian counterparts were faring
better in the deleterious climate, especially those engaging in Hindu wrestling
or club swinging practices.45 As more British workers came to India in the
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early 1800s, colonial doctors began appropriating Indian medicinal and exercise regimens to treat patients.46 Encouraged perhaps by colonisers’ openness
to Indian culture in other fields, doctors briefly embraced various Hindu
forms of medicine.47 This flirtation with Hindu medicine was not enough
for some, such as William Jones, who lamented in the late eighteenth
century that ‘I cannot help wishing that ancient Hindu medicine be fully
tried’. Nevertheless, that Jones, a noted Indian scholar, wrote, ‘fully tried’,
suggests that it was already occurring to some degree.48 Following Jones’s
passing in 1794, scholarly articles published in The London Medical and Physical Journal and The Asiatic Journal revealed that English doctors were indeed
applying Indian health practices when necessary, including club swinging.49
Writing in 1827, the agent to the Governor General of Bengal, David Scott,
noted that although he had yet to begin swinging Indian clubs for health purposes, he would do so in the future.50 Not all doctors exhibited such openness
to Indian medicinal or exercise practices. While the early nineteenth century
witnessed the foundation of numerous Indian medical schools teaching both
English and Indian medicine, the 1830s saw many of them abolished in favour
of English medical institutions.51 For Ishita Pande, the institutions’ abolition
was an indication that those pursuing European medicine sought supremacy
over indigenous practices.52
While the abrogation of Indian medical schools undoubtedly affected
future medical training in India, it did not prevent practising colonial
doctors from using Indian forms of medicine.53 Regarding club swinging
and European medicinal practices, this relationship became explicit in Frederick Harrington Brett’s 1840 publication, A Practical Essay on some of the Principal Surgical Diseases of India. As a member of Bengal’s medical service, Brett
had overseen the treatment of hundreds of British workers. In a book aimed at
his fellow physicians, Brett was adamant that for colonisers to remain healthy,
they must moderate their eating habits alongside ‘practicing athletic exercises
… and wrestling in imitation of the Puhlwans [Hindu Wrestlers].’54 Strongly
in favour of Indian exercise systems, Brett revealed that ‘the writer [Brett] has
long admired and practiced the callisthenic exercising of the Asiatics, and
attributes a better state of health and stamina, and a capability for active pursuits … to a systematic use of these exercises.’55
Brett’s praises showcased the reverence held by English doctors for Indian
exercise systems. Furthermore, the medical community’s generally positive
response to Brett’s work illustrated that club swinging as a form of treatment
was held in high regard despite increasing suspicions of Indian medicine more
generally.56 Similarly, other contemporary texts discussing English doctors’
use of ‘Asiatic’ exercises reveal that Brett was not alone in his prescriptions.57
How such doctors rationalised their decisions is difficult to establish, but
Brett’s work is telling. Conceding that Indian practices, such as club swinging,
were beneficial, Brett stressed that Hindu medicine was, overall, still markedly
SPORT IN HISTORY
101
Figure 1. ‘Daily Exercise, Mahratta Camp’, Thomas Duer Broughton, Letters Written in a
Mahratta Camp During the Year 1809 (London, 1813), 218.
inferior to European medicine.58 Club swinging was an exception to the rule,
and European medicine still reigned supreme. Nevertheless, it was clear from
Brett and others, that club swingers’ physical capital, as represented in their
robust health, encouraged doctors to prescribe club swinging when
necessary.59
The martial field in India echoed the medical community’s receptiveness to
Hindu exercises. In 1809, English soldier Thomas Broughton wrote admiringly of Indian troops’ physical culture practices, concluding that not only
were such exercises beneficial, those undertaking them were extraordinarily
athletic.60 A sketch by Broughton (Figure 1) illustrates such practices in the
context of a British military camp in Mahratta.
While Broughton made no mention of Englishmen engaging in such exercises, Mountstuart Elphinstone’s 1815 travel report did just that. Surveying
troops in Persia, Elphinstone praised one Englishman for performing 600
dands (push-ups) followed by club swinging. Remarking that Englishmen stationed in Persia and India regularly engaged in such exercises, Elphinstone
opined that Englishmen’s strength paled in comparison with that of
Hindus.61 Concluding, Elphinstone stated, ‘the degree to which these exercises bring out the muscles and increase the strength is not to be believed
… They are one of the best inventions which Europe could borrow from
the East.’62
Beginning in the 1820s, army officials began ‘borrowing from the East’ in
the way Elphinstone envisioned. In 1824, Henry Torrens, Adjutant-General
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C. HEFFERNAN
to the British Forces, recommended wooden clubs ‘in order to supple the
recruit, open his chest and give freedom to the muscles.’63 Following the
Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) Torrens was tasked with improving recruits’
discipline and fitness levels, a task he saw befitting the clubs.64 Torrens was
not the only martial officer interested in the clubs. In 1825, Army and Navy
Superintendent of Gymnastic Exercise, P.H. Clias, advocated club swinging
for English troops and the wider English public.65 Within a decade of
Torrens’ and Clias’ endorsements, club swinging had become commonplace
within the martial field as evidenced by Donald Walker’s 1834 work British
Manly Exercises, which casually referred to club exercises ‘adopted by the
army’.66 The British army’s openness towards Indian clubs was echoed in
upper-class English society, which began experimenting with the clubs in
the late 1820s.
Indian clubs and the English public
While the British army’s appropriation of Indian clubs was not the sole contributor to the clubs’ broader English popularity, it was highly significant in
introducing the clubs to a wider audience. In particular, it was the 1825 callisthenics work of Army and Navy Superintendent of Gymnastic Exercise,
P.H. Clias that proved pivotal in promoting the clubs amongst England’s
upper-classes. Drawing upon three years’ experience training troops and a
personal lifetime interest in exercise, Clias’ work promised to correct
health, build strength and resolve anxiety.67 Inspired by German physicaleducator Gutsmuths, Clias’ routines used gymnastic exercises to strengthen
both the body and the mind.68 Complementing such exercises was the
‘Indian club’, a label Clias seemingly coined.69 Clias’ gymnastic exercises
proved relatively unique in a field that often centred on athletic and rural
sports for exercise.70 Illustrating Clias’ importance was the Morning Post’s
assertion that Clias was singlehandedly responsible for introducing the
word ‘callisthenics’ into the English lexicon.71 Amidst the few other proponents of purposeful exercise, Clias distinguished himself owing to his impressive physique. In 1823, the Literary Gazette reported as much,
The form of Captain Clias is by far the most perfect of any man who has ever
been exhibited in England. In him we discovered all those markings which we
see in the antique, and which do not appear on the living models, from their
body not being sufficiently developed by a regular system of scientific exercises,
such as Captain Clias.72
Some went so far as to argue that it was Clias’ impressive physique, as opposed
to his scientific knowledge, which made his works so popular.73 Nevertheless,
Clias’ teachings struck a chord amongst interested parties, as evidenced by his
highly attended clinics for upper-class students seeking to build a comparable
SPORT IN HISTORY
103
body.74 Thus, when The Morning Post credited Clias with exciting ‘great interest in the upper-classes of society’ for exercising, few objected.75 While others
discussed Indian clubs immediately after Clias, it was Clias’ work that became
the reference point.76 Indeed, when Donald Walker set out to write a definitive account of English athletic pursuits in 1834, he credited Clias as a
pioneer.77
Although Clias’ contribution cannot be understated, another important
factor in the clubs’ quick assimilation into English life was undoubtedly the
medical community’s passing acquaintance with such forms of exercise.
Despite the fact that the first medical tracts discussing the Indian clubs did
not emerge until the 1830s, Jan Todd has noted that the practice of swinging
ninepins for health purposes had emerged in the previous century.78 This
occurrence stemmed from Nicolas Andry’s seminal orthopaedic tract, Orthopaedia. Although originally published in France in 1741, by 1743 Orthopaedia
had reached England to great acclaim.79 Focused primarily on the correction
of physical deformities, Andry’s teachings included a passing description of
the application of ninepin swinging in the development of muscular strength
and endurance.80 That C.H. Harrison, a practising doctor in the nineteenth
century, credited Andry’s theories in his own tract on the use of Indian
clubs for medicinal purposes hints at some form of continuity from the eighteenth century.81
Combined, the medicinal, military and lay interests in Indian club swinging made the assimilation of Indian clubs into English society a relatively
unproblematic affair. For physicians, the clubs represented a piece of equipment used to maintain health and prevent disease. For army officials, the
clubs represented changes in training techniques, which sought to build a
more robust English soldier. Finally, for exercisers, the clubs were a means
to improve or correct one’s physical health and fitness. Introduced to the
English public in this diverse way, little mention was made of the clubs’
origins or previous connotations. This echoed the English experience with
the clubs in India. Utilising the theory of ‘empty sports’, Alter has persuasively
argued that soon after their military adoption, the Indian clubs were stripped
of their original religious and racial meanings by British army officials and reimbued with new Eurocentric understandings of exercise.82 This emptying
was equally apparent in the English context, where the clubs were presented
as relatively neutral and banal objects, with some vague Indian connection,
that served an important health function. The instrument thus became a
wooden club wielded by Bhima in the Mahabharata. Although writing in
the 1880s, Captain Crawley’s claim that whether or not the clubs ‘were first
used in India is a matter of small importance … as our business is to see in
what way they can assist the amateur gymnast’, told of the general Victorian
reception towards the clubs, alongside the ignorance surrounding their origins
and indeed, their significance.83
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C. HEFFERNAN
Gender identities, Indian clubs and the world of fitness
Patricia Vertinsky previously argued that Victorian science created many narratives of fitness that either implicitly or explicitly focused upon genderrelated notions of health and strength.84 If she is correct, Indian clubs are
an ideal case study, as, beginning in the 1830s, numerous instructors
attempted to use Indian clubs to help exercisers become ‘better’ men or
women. That is to say, Indian clubs were used to reinforce gender identities
amongst those persons thought deficient in their masculinity or femininity.
Indian clubs were also used to reinvent and challenge these normative
gender identities, thereby lending credence to Vertinsky’s claim of multiple
narratives. Simultaneously, as fitness instructors were recommending club
swinging to willing clients, English physicians began using Indian clubs to
treat mental and physical ailments, while echoing instructors’ views regarding
the clubs and gender identities. Discussing Indian clubs in early- to mid-Victorian England, from 1830 to 1850, this section will first examine training
manuals to explore how Indian clubs reinforced and challenged masculine
and feminine norms. Following this, the use of Indian clubs by English
doctors to treat mental and physical disorders will be reviewed with an eye
to gender identities.
Although Indian clubs would be ubiquitous in English society by 1900,
their initial users were derived primarily from England’s upper-classes,
namely the aristocracy, gentry and aspiring upper-middle classes. This was
reflected in the attendance lists for callisthenic classes and also in training
manuals, which made clear that their writings were not aimed at the ‘vulgar
and inferior classes’.85 Similarly, records detailing Victoria’s own use of the
clubs and her insistence that her children be trained with them spoke of an
aristocratic interest in the practice.86 Although several training manuals
were published in the 1830s, it was Donald Walker’s British Manly Exercises
(1834) that proved the most popular.87 While Walker seemingly stemmed
from the gentry, his writings spoke to both upper and upper-middle class
readers seeking to use exercise to distinguish oneself and enhance one’s cultural capital.88 Walker’s audience thus seemed open to his assertion that
the physical body could be moulded into a signifier of social class.89 The
popularity of his work also stemmed from its holistic approach to exercise,
which emphasised the reciprocity between physical and mental strength.90
This holism was made clear in the monograph’s opening section, which
stated that, ideally, man’s education consisted of reading and exercising. It
was a simple idea, which Walker believed Englishmen had forgotten in
favour of mental exertion.91 This was no trivial matter either, as Walker
was keen to stress. Those men possessing the rare combination of physical
and mental strength could ‘confer beauty of form … impart an elegant air
and graceful manners … inspire confidence in difficult situations and …
SPORT IN HISTORY
105
render the most important services to others.’92 Such an explicit connection
between strength and loftier ideas about masculine behaviour was a recurring
theme in Walker’s work and his suggestion that ‘elegance distinguished the
gentleman’ enticed readers.93 In this way, Walker created a narrative
linking nebulous ideas about health to masculinity.
Reviewers appeared to agree. According to the Sporting Review, few books
were as popular amongst the upper-classes, noting: ‘the substitution of manly
exercises … for effeminate and useless plays was a speculation as full of
advantage as promise. It only needed that the system be taught … ’94 – a
system Walker seemingly created. The Literary Gazette labelled it: ‘a capital
work … a provocative to manly sports and exercises – exercises far too
much neglected among us.’95 Even notionally critical reviews appeared
favourable: Bureaud-Riofrey’s criticism that the work’s exercises outstripped
men’s existing fitness levels was more a charge against Englishmen than
Walker.96 The critical appraisal of Walker’s work was echoed amongst consumers who ensured it enjoyed numerous reprints, suggesting that Walker’s
norms were becoming desirable.97 Such norms were not confined to adults, as
the 1839 children’s book Sergeant Bell and his Raree-show illustrated.
Sergeant Bell informed boys that in order to be strong and courageous
men they had to engage in ‘manly’ exercises such as club swinging.98
Outside the world of discourse, it appears that the clubs proved popular
amongst English exercisers, as the proliferation of private classes offering
the exercise following Walker’s works points toward a real engagement
with the clubs.99
How did one engage in ‘manly’ exercises? Although the monograph provided information on everything from balancing to walking, Walker argued
that Indian clubs were one of the most effective ‘manly’ exercises available
for Englishmen. This was demonstrated in Walker’s descriptions of exercises
five and six with the Indian clubs, pictured in Figure 2. Seeking to emphasise
the clubs’ utility, Walker declared, ‘as an adjunct to training, there is nothing
in the whole round of gymnastics [emphasis added] that will be found of more
essential service than this exercise with the Indian clubs … ’100
It is interesting to note that the men in Walker’s sketches exercised in nondescript uniforms at a time when English athletic attire was increasingly being
delineated based on specified sporting pursuits.101 This suggests that the club
exercises were primarily aimed at laymen, as opposed to athletes.
Walker re-emerged in 1836 with an entirely different work aimed at Englishwomen. While Walker’s work for Englishmen had only alluded to their
potential for middle-class readers, his work on Englishwomen specifically discussed the ‘enlarged and powerful’ middle-class facing his readers.102 Catering
to both upper and upper-middle class women, Walker’s work sought to aid
sedentary upper-class women and provide a means of social mobility
through comportment for the upper-middle class.103 In a highly charged
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C. HEFFERNAN
Figure 2. ‘Exercises Five and Six’, Donald Walker, British Manly Exercises: In Which Rowing
and Sailing are Now First Described, and Riding and Driving are for the First Time Given in a
Work of this Kind … (London, 1834), 26.
opening section, Walker’s Exercises for Ladies argued, ‘few women are exempt
from some degree of deformity, which always increases unless means of prevention are … employed.’104 In identifying these deformities Walker
implicitly revealed larger ideals regarding upper-class women. Explaining
the deformities’ origins, Walker cited excessive housework, ungainly postures
and sedentary lifestyles as the main culprits.105 To avoid deformities, women
were instructed to delegate rigorous household duties to their servants, a recommendation that Jan Todd argued reinforced a bifurcation between
women’s activities that deprived upper-class women of real exercise.106
Additionally, Walker recommended purposeful exercise, a suggestion that
revealed divisions between the sexes’ exercise systems. According to
Walker, such divisions stemmed from the fact that ‘woman, by her less
stature, weaker organisation, predominant sensibility, and peculiar function
of multiplying the species, was not destined by nature to such toilsome
labours as man.’107
Walker did not attribute these statements to mere opinion, but rather to
the informed studies of anthropologists, physicians and educators. Walker’s
appropriation of such studies for his work substantiates Vertinsky’s wellknown argument that the medical community, and those inspired by it,
often depicted women as ‘eternally wounded’ during this period.108 Owing
to woman’s frailty, Walker’s exercises were lightweight and aimed at
SPORT IN HISTORY
107
correcting women’s aforementioned ‘deformities’. Shunning horse-riding,
leaping and even excessive walking, Walker turned towards lightweight
Indian clubs to help preserve women’s natural grace.109 The Indian clubs,
which Walker recommended for men, were deemed unsuitable for women.
Owing to the fact that ‘the constitution of women, bears only moderate exercise’, Walker created a ‘female friendly’ Indian sceptre, shown in Figure 3.110
Lighter and longer than Indian clubs, Indian sceptres were deemed ideal for
female exercisers, as they tested women without causing unnecessary strain.
While the etymology of the sceptre is unfortunately unknown, one would
hazard it spawned from Walker’s flair for marketing and belief that
women’s exercise necessitated something more elegant than a mere club.
It is difficult to resist the temptation to make comparisons between
Walker’s clubs and his thoughts on gender identities. Men exercised with
sturdy and robust clubs, much like the men Walker sought to build. Likewise
Indian spectres were slender, ornate and beautifully decorated, qualities
Walker sought for Englishwomen. Walker’s illustrations are equally fascinating in that they depicted women exercising without corsets, which contrasted
with other training manuals.111 Walker’s illustrations were also at odds with
the common exercise practice of exercising in corsets, something both the
Lancet and British Medical Journal regularly lamented as foolish.112 While
this could suggest that Walker intended his exercises to be more vigorous
than corsets would allow, the women’s ankle length dresses shown in the illustrations, similar to normal daywear attire, suggest that the exercises could be
performed during the day, without much exertion.113
Although not as popular as British Manly Exercises, Walker’s Exercises for
Ladies met with a generally positive reception. Within months of publication,
Figure 3. ‘The Indian Sceptre Exercise’, Donald Walker, Exercises for Ladies (London,
1836), 112.
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C. HEFFERNAN
Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine deemed it ‘invaluable’ and a ‘first class work.’114
Similarly, The Lady’s Magazine commended Walker for excluding ‘masculine
gymnastics’ in favour of those that preserved women’s beauty.115 The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, reserved the greatest praise however
when it somewhat sarcastically stated,
We are perfectly certain that without this book there is not a woman in the
country who knows how to stand, sit, walk, lie or get up … how they
managed to perform these operations for so many years, is to us
unaccountable.116
The review added that ‘the moment we go into a room, we can tell whether the
young ladies … are Walker’s pupils or not.’117 Although said somewhat in jest,
the magazine’s comments suggest that Walker’s prescriptions became a
measuring stick for femininity and that one’s bodily movements were increasingly a point of scrutiny. The impact this Foucauldian gaze had on Englishwomen is difficult to ascertain, although historians commentating on daily
life and girl’s education in the nineteenth century have noted concerns
amongst some women regarding their posture as a social signifier.118 This
illustrates Walker’s success in linking health to ideas of gender, a relationship
his reviewers often accepted as fact. Walker’s exercise system was thus perceived as having a significant effect for women as it impacted the manner
in which they held themselves in public.
Given Walker and his reviewers’ writings on women, it is perhaps unsurprising that historians have credited Walker with creating a female identity
that was weak, subservient and lesser.119 Contemporary criticisms of his
work however suggest that such scholars have perhaps been unfair to
Walker as, for many, Walker presented a radical vision of womanhood. Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine condemned Walker for recommending dumbbells and Indian sceptres for women, believing such tools to be excessively
masculine.120 Similarly Bureaud-Riofrey questioned Indian sceptres’ applicability for women, arguing that while they may be serviceable for boys, women
needed gentler forms of exercise.121 Walker’s views on women aside, his work
encouraged women to exercise with dumbbells and sceptres – methods of
exercise similar to those employed by men. Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine
made the implications of this clear in a jocular message,
Should Mr. Walker’s advice be followed by our fair ladies of Britain, we are
almost certain they would become so strong and muscular, that it would
remain a query whether even in case of war we could not easily dispense
with at least half our army.122
While the army remained a masculine enterprise, some women did use
Walker’s methods to gain greater employment opportunities and economic
freedoms. Beginning in the 1840s, middle-class women such as Leonora
Geary, Mrs Thomas and Madame Ferzi opened independently run Indian
SPORT IN HISTORY
109
sceptre and dancing classes for Englishwomen.123 Gaining both employment
and prestige from their competency with sceptres, such women were able to
re-interpret Walker’s teachings to forge new societal roles. Their careers were
not short lived either. Beginning work in the early 1840s, Madame Ferzi continued for at least a decade and the scant material that exists suggests that
Leonora Geary was operating well into the 1870s.124 That each woman
openly targeted the ‘nobility and gentry’ of their respective towns demonstrates the demand for upper-class women to engage in club swinging and
the opportunities this opened up for middle class women.125Similarly, for
those seeking employment as governesses, the ability to teach sceptre exercises
made them more desirable for some employers.126 Although Walker’s views
on women were far from egalitarian, some women were able to use his teachings to achieve relative independence and social prestige.
Indian clubs as a medical device
Indian clubs and spectres were just not confined to the fitness field however,
as the medical community briefly experimented with the devices in the 1830s
and 1840s. Although it is true that English-based doctors mirrored the openness of their colleagues in India to club swinging, English doctors were distinct
in associating strong gender messages to the clubs.127 This was seen in
William Coulson’s 1836 treatise, which provided several case studies on his
upper-class male patients suffering from spinal and chest deformities. Depicting himself as successful in his treatments, Coulson’s notes strongly echoed
Walker’s masculinity prescriptions. One study discussed a gentleman who
‘set his frame in a state of tremulous agitation exercising with boy’s clubs’,
a state of affairs Coulson was eager to change. For Coulson, those sickly
men unable to wield ‘male’ clubs weighing seven-pounds were in need of
urgent attention.128 In this instance, Coulson’s patient returned to make
‘use of men’s sized clubs thus becoming an altered man.’129 Many of Coulson’s patients would graduate to male clubs, a point of considerable pride
for the doctor.130 Coulson’s classification of two-pound clubs as ‘boy clubs’,
and seven-pound clubs as ‘male clubs’, overtly sought to classify one’s identity
based upon strength. And while the same publishing house represented
Coulson and Walker, which may explain their writings’ congruence,
doctors Druitt and Bell both used clubs independently in their practices.131
That unaffiliated doctors exhibited Coulson’s willingness to evaluate men
based on their club swinging capabilities was indicative of a medical complicity in prompting Walker’s ‘manly’ ideal.
Female patients, on the other hand, were prescribed Indian clubs for both
physical and mental ailments. Regarding the latter, in 1836 Princess Victoria’s
doctor prescribed club swinging in a bid to treat her melancholy, a prescription given by several other doctors in the early 1830s.132 Although relatively
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C. HEFFERNAN
novel, this practice did exist. Club swinging for physical ailments was, on the
other hand, a far more common prescription. Returning to Coulson, he
echoed Walker’s view that ungainly postures and sedentary existences
caused female deformities. 133 For Coulson, ‘young ladies’ … time for amusement is too little … [they] sit for hours at needlework, or in learning what are
called accomplishments.’134 Treating the resultant deformities through club
swinging, Coulson and others such as Dr Harrison, dedicated considerable
space to discussing the physiological differences between the sexes. Detailing
everything from women’s teeth to digestive organs, women’s bodies were
deemed lesser or more delicate than those of their male counterparts.135
This necessitated that women use Indian spectres as opposed to Indian
clubs. This treatment thus marked a demarcation between male and female
bodies as symbolised by the clubs.
While the medical community’s role in reinforcing gender stereotypes in
the nineteenth century has been thoroughly examined by historians, it is
worth considering treatments through a more body-centred lens.136 Although
at first glance the medical club prescriptions seemed to reinforce gender
norms for men and women, the exercise itself was distinct from such messages. As Broderick Chow noted in his recent article on weightlifting, club
swinging invited men and women to ‘step off script’ and engage in a practice
that at its core, was free from words and discussions.137 The exercise represented a form of ‘extra-daily practice’ in which the actor’s club swinging
exercise went beyond language constructions and entered a specialised state
of consciousness in which attention was paid to the clubs’ movement, the
rush of blood to the muscles and to one’s breath.138 This ineffable experience
was alluded to by medical texts’ use of the words ‘beautiful’, ‘ease’ and ‘grace’
to describe the correct form and accompanying effect.139 Returning to
Walker’s illustrations from Exercises for Ladies, we can see such movements’
complexity in Figure 4.
The illustrations could not do justice to the exercisers’ experience, which
the sociologist Loïc Wacquant referred to as a ‘total surrender to the exigencies of the field’ whereby individuals become indistinguishable from the exercise itself.140 In spite of the fact that each exerciser’s club swinging technique
was informed by other’s descriptions, the practice itself existed outside this
world of language and discourse.141 A person’s experience in this state,
however brief, mirrored that of Hindu wrestlers who had long likened the
practice to meditation.142 Scholars studying a slightly later period have
alluded to the importance of this world for women’s health and wellbeing,
noting that many retreated to this space to ‘lose themselves in exercise’ and
feel better.143 Similarly, Coulson’s work included discussions on his male
patients’ improved mental health following exercise.144 While described in
normative terms, the act of club swinging arguably allowed upper-class
men and women to reinterpret their daily experiences through exercising,
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111
Figure 4. ‘Indian Sceptre Exercises’, Donald Walker, Exercises for Ladies (London, 1836),
112.
something that went beyond ideas of gender. Although it is attractive to focus
solely on medical prescriptions as a means of reinforcing strict gender norms,
it is important to note that physical exercise allowed exercisers to briefly
escape from such rigid linguistic strictures.
Conclusion
While Indian club swinging remains a relatively unknown form of exercise for
current exercisers, the practice of swinging weighted clubs for health purposes
was highly regarded amongst pockets of England’s upper-classes in the early
years of Victoria’s reign. The purpose of this article was to examine firstly how
Indian club swinging, a traditionally Indian practice, emerged in Victorian
England and, secondly, how this practice became related to ideas of gender
for both exercisers and physicians.
In the first instance, the British appropriation of Indian club swinging in
colonial India was seen as illustrative of the dire health situation facing
many English workers in eighteenth-century India. The British appropriation
saw the clubs reimagined as tools dedicated to the preservation of colonial
health – a far cry from the semi-mystical identity held by the clubs for
several centuries amongst Hindu soldiers and wrestlers. That the clubs’
Indian origins were almost entirely forgotten by British users demonstrates
how quickly the modified practice became seen as English in its own right.
Emptied of its traditional meanings, the clubs were moulded to suit English
tastes. The appropriation of Indian clubs can thus be placed into wider
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C. HEFFERNAN
historiographical conversations regarding the emergence of other Indian
practices, such as polo and yoga, in nineteenth and early-twentieth century
England.145
Transported from India to England through the British army, the Indian
club exercise underwent another significant transformation in the late
1820s and early 1830s. Although first viewed as a military training practice
owing to its method of introduction, club swinging was very quickly appropriated by England’s upper-classes with an eye to the improvement and
further development of early Victorian gender identities. Both laymen and
physicians presented Indian clubs as a means of bolstering one’s masculine
credentials through the cultivation of physical strength. One layman,
Donald Walker, promoted Indian clubs as a means of curing the one-sided
mental development of his fellow Englishmen who had neglected their physiques. By first attacking his contemporaries for their physical weaknesses,
Walker was able to advertise the Indian clubs as cures to current problems.
Significantly, members of the medical community who used the clubs to
correct physical ailments amongst their male clientele endorsed Walker’s
work, thereby lending a further credence to the clubs for male exercisers.
While male exercisers used Indian clubs to rebuild a perceived lost masculinity, female exercisers were encouraged to engage in the practice for vastly
different reasons, such as the retention of beauty and prevention of deformity.
The differentiated female practice was symbolised in the clubs themselves, as
the creation of the Indian sceptre for women overtly segregated male and
female exercisers. Although boys would occasionally use the Indian sceptres
as an introduction to the exercise, there is no documentation of men using
the sceptres. Similarly, details of women using ‘male’ Indian clubs during
this period are sparse at best. The differences between the Indian clubs and
Indian sceptres were representative of a fitness discourse that depicted
women as weaker, frailer and less robust than men – a depiction bolstered
by the medical endorsement of the sceptres for women.
While this article focused predominately on the narratives of fitness and
gender identities surrounding the exercise, space was also afforded to the
lived experience of the exercise. The focused act of swinging the clubs for
minutes and hours on end afforded users a temporary space free of such discourses. This space, well known to the field of performance studies, is often
seen as acting outside the rigours of daily life, a space in which men and
women can briefly lose themselves in the moment. Highly significant, this
space was often mentioned in discussions of male and female exercisers
who reported upon their improved disposition and wellbeing following the
exercise. Thus, the gender-heavy views presented by Indian club training
manuals during this period were often counterbalanced by the wordless
experience of the practice itself.
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113
Despite the short-lived popularity of Indian club swinging in England, the
clubs’ nineteenth-century history speaks of the importance of purposeful
exercise, as opposed to competitive sport, within England. The clubs’ transnational usage similarly points towards an international fitness community that
was still in its infancy. A profitable area of future research would compare and
contrast the use of Indian clubs and their marketing within other British colonies and the United States, where the clubs’ experienced a similar popularity.
While more work needs to be done on the clubs’ proliferation during the nineteenth century, the current article has demonstrated the club’s silent yet profound importance during this period.
Notes
1. Michael Fisher, Visions of Mughal India: An Anthology of European Travel
Writing (New York: Ib Tauris, 2007), 76.
2. This article focuses primarily on upper and upper-middle class exercisers. This
paper understands upper-class during this period as referring to both the nobility, those who for generations had inherited lands along with titles and the
landed gentry. Andrea Broomfield, Food and Cooking in Victorian England:
A History (Westport: Praeger, 2007), 5. While middle-class is understood as
being comprised of ‘all employers, all non-manual employees and all (apart
from the landed aristocracy and gentry) people supported by independent
income.’ Richard Trainer, ‘The Middle Class’, in The Cambridge Urban
History of Britain, ed. Martin J. Daunton (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 673–714.
3. For Buddhist or Jain sources see Soma Basu, Warfare in Ancient India: An Historical Outline (Delhi: DK Printworld, 2014), 205; for the Mahabharata see J.L.
Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics (London: Brill, 1998), 160–1.
4. Shamya Dasgupta, ‘An Inheritance from the British: The Indian Boxing Story’,
The International Journal of the History of Sport 21, no. 3–4 (2004): 431–40.
5. Pratap Chandra Roy, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Calcutta, 1884), 37; Kaushik Roy, Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South
Asia: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 21–3.
6. Roy, Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia, 23.
7. Devdutt Pattanaik, Vishnu: An Introduction (Mumbai: Vakils, Feffer & Simons
Pvt Ltd, 1999), 95; Maria Mariottini Spagnoli, ‘Some Further Observations on
the Symbolic Meaning of the Club in the Statue of Kaniska’, East and West
(1970): 461; Soma Basu, Warfare in Ancient India, 205.
8. Philip Lutgendorf, Hanuman’s Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 1–20.
9. D.C. Mujumdar, Encyclopaedia of Indian Physical Culture (Delhi, 1950), 614.
10. Shankar Nath Das, Physical Education, Games and Recreation in Early India
(Delhi: The Upper India Publishing House, 1985), 24–5.
11. Ibid., 24-25.
12. B.P. Singha, ‘Art of War in Ancient India (600 BC–300 AD)’, in Studies in the
Cultural History of India, ed. Guy Metraux and François Crouzet (Agra: Shiva
Lal Agarwala, 1965), 115–63.
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C. HEFFERNAN
13. Abhijit Gupta, ‘Cultures of the Body in Colonial Bengal: The Career of Gobor
Guha’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 29, no. 12 (2012): 1689.
14. Ronojoy Sen, Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India (Columbia: Columbia
University Press, 2015), 21; O’Hanlon, ‘Military Sports and the History of the
Martial Body in India’, 493.
15. Krishnaswamy Rajagopalan, A Brief History of Physical Education in India.
Reflections on Physical Education (Delhi, 1962), 172; Stewart Gordon, Marathas, Marauders and State Formation (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1994), 182–208.
16. Bhogilal Jayachandbhai Sandesara and Ramanlal Nagarji Mehta, Mallapurān a:
A Rare Sanskrit Text on Indian Wrestling Especially as Practiced by the Jyes t himallas (Baroda, 1964), 6.
17. Ibid., 1–30.
18. Such strength was equated with a raw and powerful physical capital (body
shape, stature and muscle strength). L. Wacquant, Body & Soul (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 81–2; Steven P. Wainwright, Clare Williams,
and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Varieties of Habitus and the Embodiment of Ballet’,
Qualitative Research 6, no. 4 (2006): 536.
19. Sarva Daman Singh, Ancient Indian Warfare: With Special Reference to the
Vedic Period (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 1989), 111.
20. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
215–17.
21. Joseph S. Alter, ‘Indian Clubs and Colonialism: Hindu Masculinity and Muscular Christianity’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 46, no. 3 (2004): 517.
22. Ibid.
23. Annette Susannah Beveridge, The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and
Emperor (London, 1922), xiii.
24. M.N. Pearson, ‘Recreation in Mughal India’, The International Journal of the
History of Sport 1, no. 3 (1984): 336.
25. Joseph S. Alter, The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India (California: University of California Press, 1992), 6.
26. Alter, ‘Indian clubs and colonialism’, 507.
27. Joseph S. Alter, ‘The Body of One Color: Indian Wrestling, the Indian State, and
Utopian Somatics’, Cultural Anthropology 8, no. 1 (1993): 60.
28. Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York:
PublicAffairs, 2004), 1–10. In this instance, Indian princes asserted their superiority through the victories of their wrestlers and club swingers.
29. Nilakanta Sastri and N. Venkataramanayya, Further Sources of Vijayanagara
History (Madras, 1946), 165.
30. C.E.A.W.O., ‘Review’, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain
and Ireland 4, no. 2 (1930): 414.
31. Alter, ‘The Body of One Color’, 60–5.
32. Hugh Boyd, et al., The Indian Observer. By the Late Hugh Boyd, Esq. With the
Life of the Author, and Some Miscellaneous Poems (London, 1798), 339.
33. W. Ouseley, ‘Extract of a Journal and Memorandum Written during a Tour in
the Nizam’s Country in the Month of November 1791’, Oriental Collections 1
(London, 1797–1800), 101–2.
34. Alter, ‘Indian Clubs and Colonialism’, 510.
35. Philip D. Curtin, Death by Migration: Europe’s Encounters with the Tropical World
in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4.
SPORT IN HISTORY
115
36. J.T., ‘On the Duration of Life in the Bengal Civil Service’, Gleanings from Science
3 (1831): 273.
37. Anonymous, ‘The Sick Certificate’, The East India Sketch-book: Comprising an
Account of the Present State of Society in Calcutta, Bombay, & C in Two
Volumes Volume One (London, 1832), 220.
38. Mark Harrison, Climates & Constitutions: Health, Race, Environment and
British Imperialism in India, 1600–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 25.
39. David Arnold, ‘Cholera and Colonialism in British India’, Past & Present 113
(1986): 118–21. Muhammad Umair Mushtaq, ‘Public Health in British India:
A Brief Account of the History of Medical Services and Disease Prevention
in Colonial India’, Indian Journal of Community Medicine 34, no. 1 (2009):
6–8.
40. David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in
Nineteenth-century India (California: University of California Press, 1993),
1–20; Arthur N. Gilbert, ‘Recruitment and Reform in the East India
Company Army, 1760–1800’, The Journal of British Studies 15, no. 1 (1975):
92–3.
41. Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India
Company, Military: Appendix to the Report, 16th August 1832 Minutes of Evidence (London, 1833), 313, 340.
42. Ibid.
43. Arnold, Colonizing the Body, 27.
44. Sudip Bhattacharya, Unseen Enemy: The English, Disease and Medicine in Colonial Bengal, 1617–1847 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 1–20.
45. Ibid.
46. Harald Fischer-Tiné, ‘The Drinking Habits of Our Countrymen: European
Alcohol Consumption and Colonial Power in British India’, The Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History 40, no. 3 (2012): 383–408.
47. Elizabeth Collingham, Imperial Bodies (London: Polity Press, 2001), 3–20.
48. Lord Teignmouth, The Works of Sir William Jones: With the Life of the Author.
In Thirteen Volumes. Volume Four (London, 1807), 369–70.
49. Thomas Sievewright, ‘On the Medical and Surgical Science of the Hindus’, The
London Medical and Physical Journal 50 (London, 1823), 451–50; ‘New Hindu
College at Calcutta’, The Asiatic Journal 14 (London, 1822), 551–6.
50. David Scott was agent to the Governor General of Bengal at this time. A. White,
Memoir of the Late David Scott, Esq. Agent to the Governor General, on the
North-East Frontier of Bengal, and Commissioner of Revenue and Circuit in
Assam (Calcutta, 1832), 90.
51. Gerrit Jan Meulenbeld and Dominik Wujastyk, Studies on Indian Medical
History (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 2001), 119.
52. Ishita Pande, Medicine, Race and Liberalism in British Bengal: Symptoms of
Empire (London: Routledge, 2009), 67.
53. Ibid., 68–70.
54. F.H. Brett, A Practical Essay on Some of the Principal Surgical Diseases of India
(Calcutta, 1840), 39. Collingham, Imperial Bodies, 20–25, discusses the consumption patterns of the more epicurean Company employees during this
period.
55. Brett, A Practical Essay on Some of the Principal Surgical Diseases of India,
39–40.
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C. HEFFERNAN
56. James Forbe, British and Foreign Medical Review; Or, Quarterly Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery, XI: July – October (London, 1841), 424; James
Johnson, The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine,
35: April to September (London, 1841), 384.
57. The Anglo-Hindoostanee Handbook; or Stranger’s Self-Interpreter and Guide to
Colloquial and General Intercourse with the Natives of India. With a Map of
India, and Five Illustrations (London, 1850), 228–9.
58. Brett, A Practical Essay on some of the Principal Surgical Diseases of India, 201.
59. Laura R. Graham and H. Glenn Penny, Performing Indigeneity: Global Histories
and Contemporary Experiences (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2014),
285, noted the tendency for colonised males to mimic the masculine habitus of
their rulers. Indian clubs would seem to be an inversion to this.
60. Thomas Duer Broughton, Letters Written in a Mahratta Camp During the Year
1809: Descriptive of the Character, Manners, Domestic Habits, and Religious
Ceremonies, of the Mahrattas (London, 1813), 218–25.
61. Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India (London, 1815), 263–64.
62. Ibid.
63. Henry Whitelock Torrens, Field Exercise and Evolutions of the Army (London,
1824), 3–4.
64. Hew Strachan, From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology, and the British
Army, 1815–1854 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 16. The 1833
revision of Field Exercise and Evolutions of the Army published by the War Office
(London, 1833) made no mention of the wooden club discussed by Torrens
despite the fact that it had become commonplace in the British army.
65. Peter Heinrich Clias, An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises: Intended to
Develope and Improve the Physical Powers of Man, Etc, 4th ed. (London, 1825),
16. The first three editions of Clias’ work, published from 1823 to 1825, made
no reference to Indian clubs.
66. Donald Walker, British Manly Exercises: In Which Rowing and Sailing are Now
First Described, and Riding and Driving are for the First Time Given in a Work
of this Kind … (London, 1834), 22. So ubiquitous had club swinging become in
the British army over the following decades that when Lieutenant Anderson
wrote a tract on club swinging for the British army in the 1860s, he commented
on clubs’ long existence within the martial field. Lieutenant Anderson, A Series
of Exercises for the Regulation Clubs (London, 1863), 1–4.
67. Peter Heinrich Clias, An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises: Intended to
Develope and Improve the Physical Powers of Man, Etc, 4th ed. (London, 1825),
1–10.
68. Peter McIntosh, Landmarks in the History of Physical Education (London,
1957), 223.
69. This was the first mention of an Indian club in an English work. Clias, An
Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises, 16. Prior to this, Indian clubs
were often referred to as wooden clubs, jori, muggah, mugdars or variations of.
70. Andy Croll, ‘Popular Leisure and Sport’, in A Companion to 19th-Century
Britain, ed. Chris Williams (Swansea: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 397.
71. ‘Calisthenic Exercises’, Morning Post, April 12, 1826, 3.
72. Clias, An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises, XIX.
73. Franz Lieber, ‘A Review: Art. VI. – A Treatise on Gymnastics: Taken Chiefly
from the German of F.L. Jahn’, American Quarterly Review 3, no. 3 (1828): 139.
SPORT IN HISTORY
117
74. In 1823, Clias had 1,400 regular clients, a figure that rose to 2,000 by 1826. Jan
Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of
American Women, 1800–1870 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998), 39.
75. ‘Callisthenic Exercises’, The Morning Post, April 11, 1826, 3.
76. George Roland, An Introductory Course of Modern Gymnastic Exercises (Edinburgh, 1832), 17–22.
77. Donald Walker, British Manly Exercises: In Which Rowing and Sailing are Now
First Described, and Riding and Driving are for the First Time Given in a Work
of this Kind … (London, 1834), 5.
78. Jan Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful, 22.
79. David M. Turner, ‘Introduction’, in Social Histories of Disability and Deformity:
Bodies, Images and Experiences, eds. David Turner and Kevin Stagg (London:
Routledge, 2006), 1–15.
80. Nicolas Andry, Orthopaedia, Volume Two (London, 1743), 219.
81. C.H. Harrison, Deformities of the Spine and Chest, Successfully Treated by Exercise Alone; and Without Extension, Pressure, or Division of Muscles (London,
1842), 133.
82. Alter, ‘Indian Clubs and Colonialism’, 510.
83. Captain Crawley, Popular Gymnastics, Athletics, Pedestrianism, Dumb Bells,
Bar Bells, Indian Clubs, Calisthenics, Boxing and Wrestling, Training
(London, 1880), 26.
84. Patricia Vertinsky, ‘Making and Marking Gender: Bodybuilding and the Medicalization of the Body from One Century’s End to Another’, Culture, Sport,
Society 2, no. 1 (1999): 4–5.
85. Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful, 94–96; Walker, British Manly
Exercises, 263.
86. See Cecil Woodham Smith, Queen Victoria: Her Life and Times: 1819–1861
(Hamilton: Hamish Hamilton, 1972), 134; Joespeh Lowe, A New Most Excellent
Dancing Master: The Journal of Joseph Lowe’s Visits to Balmoral and Windsor
(1852–1860) to Teach Dance to the Family of Queen Victoria (London: Pendragon Press, 1992) 33.
87. By 1860 Walker’s book was in its tenth edition. Peter McIntosh, Landmarks in
the History of Physical Education (London: Routledge, 1957) 81.
88. Walker regularly affixed the term esquire after his name in his correspondences
suggesting he was from the gentry. See for example ‘Advertisements & Notices’,
The Examiner, 3 December 1837, 11; Donald Walker, Exercises for Ladies
(London, 1836), X. This perhaps explains why Shepard labelled Walker as a
magistrate and an author. Roy Shephard, An Illustrated History of Health
and Fitness (Toronto: Springer, 2015), 647. Having corresponded with
Shepard, he was unfortunately unable to locate his notes regarding Walker’s
magistrate career.
89. S. Gunn, ‘Translating Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and the English Middle-class
in Historical Perspective’, The British Journal of Sociology 56, no. 1 (2005): 61; L.
Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes (London: Routledge, 1987), 397–415;
Elizabeth Langland, Nobody’s Angels: Middle-class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1995), 1–24.
90. Jan Todd, ‘The Strength Builders’ A History of Barbells, Dumbbells and Indian
Clubs’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 20, no. 1 (2003): 73;
Roberta J. Park, ‘Biological thought, Athletics and the Formation of a “Man
of Character”: 1830–1900’, The International Journal of the History of Sport
118
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92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
C. HEFFERNAN
24, no. 12 (2007): 1543. In arguing for the reciprocity between physical and
mental health, Walker echoed the writings of Renaissance writers such as Baldassare Castiglione, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all of whom
stressed the importance of physical and mental strength.
Walker, British Manly Exercises, 1. This line of argument was admittedly well
established by this time. In 1769 William Buchan’s highly popular work
Domestic Medicine argued that ‘Sedentary employments render men weak
and effeminate.’ William Buchan, Domestic Medicine (London, 1769), 45.
Ibid., 3–4.
Ibid., 131.
John William Carleton, The Sporting Review (London, 1842), 147–8.
‘Walker’s British Manly Exercises’, The Literary Gazette: A Weekly Journal of
Literature, Science … 18 (London, 1834), 153.
Antoine Martin Bureaud-Riofrey, Treatise on Physical Education: Specially
Adapted to Young Ladies (London, 1838), 77.
By 1888, Walker’s work had gone through 11 separate editions. Todd, Physical
Culture and the Body Beautiful, 96.
Thomas Tegg and George Mogridge, Sergeant Bell and his Raree-show (London,
1839), 397.
Todd, ‘The Strength Builders’, 73 touches upon this somewhat. For more contemporary reports see ‘Health of a Rising Generation’, Hampshire Telegraph,
April 26, 1841, 3 and ‘Athletic Game at Woolwich’, The Era, October 14,
1849, 4.
Walker, British Manly Exercises, 25–6.
See Dave Day and Samantha-Jayne Oldfield, ‘Delineating Professional and
Amateur Athletic Bodies in Victorian England’, Sport in History 35, no. 1
(2015): 19–45.
Walker, Exercises for Ladies, 188.
Works aimed at sedentary upper-class Englishwomen had been published for at
least a decade. See for example Mason, Marion, On the Utility of Exercise: Or a
Few Observations on the Advantages to be Derived from its Salutary Effects, by
Means of Calisthenic Exercises, as Approved by Some of the Most Eminent Gentlemen of the Faculty in London (London, 1827), 2, which was dedicated to
upper-class Englishwomen.
Walker, Exercises for Ladies, XV.
Walker also used the more benign term ‘one-sidedness’. Ibid., 263–5.
Ibid., 48. Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful, 100.
Walker, Exercises for Ladies, 75.
Ibid., 61. Patricia Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Doctors,
and Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 10–12.
Walker, Exercises for Ladies, 109.
Ibid., 72.
Ibid., 69–70. Pamela J. Creedon, ‘From Whalebone to Spandex: Women and
Sports Journalism in American Magazines, Photography and Broadcasting’,
in Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values, ed. Pamela J.
Creedon (London: Sage, 1994), 112.
Kathleen E. McCrone, Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation
of English Women, 1870–1914 (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1988),
218.
SPORT IN HISTORY
119
113. Jan Todd, ‘The Classical Ideal and Its Impact on the Search for Suitable Exercise: 1774–1830’, Iron Game History 2, no. 4 (1992): 7–16.
114. ‘Literature, Reviews & c.’, Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine Volume One (1836): 16.
115. ‘Exercises for Ladies. By Donald Walker’, The Lady’s Magazine and Museum
of the Belles-Letres, Fine Arts, Music, Drama, Fashions & c., January (1836):
128.
116. ‘Exercises for Ladies. By Donald Walker’, The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, July (1836), 56–7.
117. Ibid.
118. In other fields, scholars have used Foucault’s gaze theory to argue that health
ideals, similar to those discussed here, often caused those ‘caught in the gaze’
to modify their behaviour and undertake health programmes to conform to
standardised ideals. Hila Haelyon and Moshe Levy, ‘Mirror, Mirror on the
Wall: The Woman, The Gaze and The Fitness Room’, Sport in Society 15, no.
9 (2012): 1196–208. For works on posture see Sally Mitchell, Daily Life in Victorian England (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996), 181; Philippe
Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth
Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 90.
119. McCrone, Playing the Game, 100.
120. ‘Exercises for Ladies, Founded on Physiological Principles. By Donald Walker’,
Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine Volume One (1836): 376.
121. Bureaud-Riofrey, Treatise on Physical Education, 77.
122. ‘Literature, Reviews & c.’, Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine 1 (1836): 16.
123. For Leonora Geary see ‘Advertisement’, Brighton Gazette, October 12, 1843, 2;
For Mrs Thompson see, ‘Accomplishments’, Yorkshire Gazette, January 16,
1841, 4; For Madame Ferzi see, ‘Advertisement’, Brighton Gazette, September
17, 1846, 4.
124. ‘Companion to the Ballroom’, Brighton Gazette, November 24, 1870, 6 and
‘Drawing, Exercises and Deportment’, Brighton Gazette, October 11, 1849, 4.
125. Ibid.
126. Cornwell Baron Wilson, Chronicles of Life in Three Volumes, Vol. III (London,
1840), 162.
127. Physicians often described these deformities as the greatest medical challenge of
the age. Dr Ryan, ‘Lectures on the Physical Education and Diseases of Infants.
From Birth to Puberty’, London Medical and Surgical Journal 7 (1835): 297–
301.
128. William Coulson, On Deformities of the Chest (London, 1836), 155.
129. Ibid., 156–8.
130. Ibid.
131. Robert Druitt, The Surgeon’s Vade Mecum: A Manual of Modern Surgery
(London, 1839), 264; John Bell, Health and Beauty: An Explanation of the
Laws of Growth and Exercise; Through which a Pleasing Contour, Symmetry
of Form, and Graceful Carriage of the Body are Acquired: and the Common
Deformities of the Spine and Chest Prevented (Philadelphia, 1838), 223.
132. ‘Victoria feeling unwell, ill and light headed … doctor recommended plenty of
fresh air, not too much time spent on studying, exercising with Indian Clubs
and correct digestion (through proper mastication).’ Woodham Smith,
Queen Victoria, 134.
133. Coulson, On Deformities of the Chest, 107
134. Ibid.
120
C. HEFFERNAN
135. Ibid., 103, 155–67. Harrison, Deformities of the Spine and Chest, Successfully
Treated by Exercise Alone, 22–4.
136. Two early works on this topic are Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman
and Martha H. Verbrugge, Able-bodied Womanhood: Personal Health and
Social Change in Nineteenth-century Boston (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988). For more recent works see Hilary Marland, ‘Women, Health,
and Medicine’, in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine, ed. Mark
Jackson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 484– 502; Dominic Janes,
‘Emma Martin and the Manhandled Womb in Early Victorian England’, in
The Female Body in Medicine and Literature, eds. Andrew Mangham and
Greta Depledge (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011), 107–18.
137. Broderick Chow, ‘A Professional Body: Remembering, Repeating and Working
Out Masculinities in Fin-de-siècle Physical Culture’, Performance Research 20,
no. 5 (2015): 30–41.
138. Phillip Zarrilli, ‘Negotiating Performance Epistemologies: Knowledges About,
In and For’, Studies in Theatre and Performance 21, no. 1 (2001): 31–46.
139. Harrison, Deformities of the Spine and Chest, 139; Coulson, On Deformities of
the Chest, 156; Walker, Exercises for Ladies, 75.
140. Loïc Wacquant, Body & Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 11.
141. Loïc Wacquant, ‘Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter’, Qualitative Research in Psychology 8, no. 1 (2011): 81–92.
142. Joseph S. Alter, The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India (California: University of California Press, 1992), 6.
143. Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman, 206. There is a biological element
to this area as physical exercise has been clinically proven to improve mood
levels. Peter Thorén et al., ‘Endorphins and Exercise: Physiological Mechanisms
and Clinical Implications’, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 22, no. 4
(1990): 417–28.
144. Coulson, On Deformities of the Chest, 107.
145. See Suzanne Newcombe, ‘Stretching for Health and Well-being: Yoga and
Women in Britain, 1960–1980’, Asian Medicine 3, no. 1 (2007): 37–8. Patrick
McDevitt, ‘The King of Sports: Polo in late Victorian and Edwardian India’,
The International Journal of the History of Sport 20, no. 1 (2003): 1–27.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This present work would not have been possible without the generous funding of the
Darwin College Travel Grant, University of Cambridge; Sir John Plumb Charitable
Trust, University of Cambridge.
ORCID
Conor Heffernan
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5001-4257