The Wenlock Olympian Games is an annual sports festival that was founded in 1850 by a local man, Dr William Penny Brookes. The festival is significant for its legacy of physical activity, its philosophy of sport and its contribution to the development of organised sporting festivals, including the Olympic Games.
Brookes was born in 1809 in the town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. He was the son of the town’s doctor, a position that he took up following his father’s death in 1830 from typhoid, a disease spread by dirty water that killed thousands of people annually in Britain. His father’s death undoubtedly had a profound impact on Brookes and the work he carried out for the rest of his life.
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