Kiwi connection to running legend Deerfoot
New Zealand's list of running achievements has always been a source of fascination, given the country's smaller population and its unprecedented levels of success.
But not many may appreciate that the link to the world of running stretches to the birth of modern competition, the foot races usually staged by professionals in Britain in the middle years of the 19th century.
It was in the wake of the Industrial Revolution that interest in various sporting pursuits mushroomed, with the usual subjects, rugby, football, cricket, boxing and rowing, all emerging.
Running, being such an individual pursuit, had been around since humankind wanted to move at a pace faster than a walk, not least during the original Olympics of ancient Greece.
But in sports enlightenment, competitiveness, usually tinctured with the chance to gamble, emerged, and it was helped to some extent by the visit to England of the American Indian Deerfoot. He stayed for three years and drew huge crowds wherever he raced, not always successfully, but with a showman's appreciation of how to add to his contests, he brought attention to long-distance running, then known as pedestrianism, in the early 1860s in Britain and Ireland.
Running historian Peter Lovesey said that Deerfoot, while involved in a sometimes tawdry business, had an impact on the sport.
Hindsight permits us to see Deerfoot's impact on the Victorian athletic scene as an instance of a natural, uncoached athlete exposing the inhibitions of current athletic theory. There are many parallels: the sporting world today is acclaiming the excellence of African runners who have opened new vistas in the future of distance running. But to athletics experts in 1861, Deerfoot's achievements assumed epic status.
He astonished everybody by running sixteen distance races in his first fourteen weeks in the country, and improving his times consistently despite the onset of winter. Few of the insular English can have realised that a native of America's east coast, at latitude 42, muffled in a huge bear-skin coat and raccoon skin hat when he was not quickening his circulation on the track, was unlikely to be troubled by our iciest days.[1]
During 22 months in Britain and Ireland, he ran 130 races, an average of one every four and a half days, more often over 10 miles.
It was in Sheffield on November 4 that the Great One Mile Handicap was staged. Interest was so high among competitors that three heats were held, with the winner to be placed in the final to be run a few days later.
The Sunday Times listed the first heat contenders as C. Mower on scratch, Deerfoot on 40 yards, A Day of Brighouse on 70 yards, Mr McDonald [sic], Cambridge and W. Richards of London sharing 80 yards. McDonald, who was at Trinity College, was described as 'a gentleman amateur of Cambridge, and only runs for the love of the sport.'
The Daily Telegraph provided a description of the first heat.
On the pistol being fired, Richards left his companion McDonald [sic], and proceeding at a rapid pace, quickly assumed a commanding lead. The Indian followed at his best pace, but his style of going was certainly inferior to any of the rest of the competitors. Day ran in good form, and gradually decreased the distance which Richards had been making, and when three rounds of the course had been run, Day supplanted McDonald. At this period, Mower had retired from the contest, whilst the Indian was labouring away in fruitless pursuit of his three opponents, who the further they went, the further they left the American in the rear. Richards was 'pumped out' on passing the house the second time, and gave way in favour of Day, who carried on the running and won by 30 yards.[2]
Day won the race, and Macdonald finished second. As a cash race, Macdonald was not able to accept a monetary payment. And this is where the New Zealand connection kicks in. Because he was unable to accept money, Macdonald may have been presented with a cup.
The Cup now rests on display in the Northern Club of Auckland, and has done so since it was presented to the Club by Macdonald's wife and daughter.
Judge John Macdonald’s cup (courtesy of Northern Club, Auckland)
Some reports have claimed that the pair were involved in a race of their own with the rest of the field left in their wake, but the access to digital newspapers at the time, suggests that their Sheffield encounter was the only time they met, and it was undoubtedly the only time Deerfoot ran the mile distance.
After completing his studies at Cambridge University, the track club of which is regarded as the first track and field club in the world, Macdonald married a professor's daughter, and they moved to New Zealand in 1865.
Macdonald set up a legal firm, Macdonald and Miller [it later became Miller and Poulgrain] in Thames, then a busy centre with a bigger population than Auckland. He duly became the first elected Mayor of Thames.
In 1878, Macdonald was enticed by some in the commercial world on the North Island's east coast to set up another business in Napier. It was from there that he was appointed a judge to the District Court in Auckland, and then, in November 1882, he was appointed Chief Judge to the Native Land Court.
After he died in 1902, his Cup was passed to the Northern Club.
The inscription on the Cup reads,
This cup was won by Judge Macdonald in a running race with Deerfoot, the Indian runner, and is presented to the Northern Club by Mrs Macdonald and Miss Flora Macdonald.
With Deerfoot having failed in his heat, he didn't run in the final, which went to Day. As a result of his loss, Deerfoot said he would never run such a shot distance again, and he didn't.
He continued to race in front of impressive crowds until 1863 and achieved world records.
On April 3, 1863, he broke John Levett's world-best time of 51 minutes 45 seconds over 10 miles, shaving 19 seconds off the record. Deerfoot's time stood until 1884 when Walter George, the first amateur to hold the record, lowered it by six seconds.
Earlier, on October 27, 1862, he set a distance of 11 miles 740 yards when running for an hour. On January 12, 1863, he added another 50 yards to the record. On February 23, he lifted the record to 11 miles 880 yards, and on April 3, he extended it to 11 miles 970 yards.
It was another 24 years before his record was broken by Englishman Fred Bacon, who ran 11 miles 1143 yards.
The first amateur to claim the one-hour record was Frenchman Jean Bouin in Stockholm in 1913 when he covered 11 miles 1442 yards.
By the time New Zealand's Bill Baillie joined the list of those who had held the record, including Paavo Nurmi and Emil Zatopek, he was able to run 12 miles 960 yards on August 24, 1963.
The Deerfoot connection to New Zealand may be tenuous, but it is a link nonetheless.
NOTE: In some areas, Macdonald is referred to as John Edward Macdonald, but in official New Zealand Government documents, especially Gazetted legal items, he is listed as John Edwin
[1] Peter Lovesey, The Kings of Distance, Eyre and Spottiswood, London, 1968
[2] The Daily Telegraph, London, 6 November 1861