Organised Cycling and Politics: the 1890s & 1900s in Battersea

I began to be interested in sports history as a result of undertaking a family history research commission into Percival Powell, a professional roller skating floor manager in the Edwardian roller-skating boom of 1908 to 1912. Many cyclists took up roller-skating with enthusiasm, there were races between cyclists and rinkers as the skaters were called, and there were ‘doom and gloom’ merchants deploring the adverse effect rinking was having attracting people away from cycling and other sports. The Society published an article by me on the boom in 1991.