Forest Early History - sponsored by I‘m Red Till Dead

[I'm Red Till Dead]

I'm a bit fed up of the Pearce debate, and have just got a cheap 1 month subscription to some old newspapers so have been looking to see if I could find a report in the papers about the formation of Forest or our first game.

I'm still going through the Nottinghamshire Guardian's for 1865 and 1866 but thought I would share some things I have seen.

The Club history page shows the following:

IN THE BEGINNING (1865)

In 1865, a group of Nottingham-based shinney - a sport similar to hockey - players met at the Clinton Arms on Shakespeare Street. It was here that JS Scrimshaw's proposition to begin playing football instead was passed, and Nottingham Forest Football Club was born.

The founder members were, A Barks, W Brown, W P Brown, C F Daft, T Gamble, R P Hawkesley, T G Howitt, W I Hussey, W R Lymberry, J Milford, J H Rastall, W H Revis, J G Richardson, J S Scrimshaw, J Tomlinson

The first official football match took place on 22 March 1866 against Notts County, who were formed in 1862.

The Notts Guardian of Friday March 23rd 1866, however, has a report stating that on thursday, Nottingham played Sheffield ar Sheffield. It was a return match. Given that the Captain and most of the players appeared in other games before or after for Notts County it would appear to be them not us. If they did play against Sheffield that day, they couldn't have played us



There appear to be a few Forest founders in the team -

C Daft (censuses for Notts in 1860 show only a Charles F daft so I believe its the same one)
W Lymberry (Again the Notts censuses for 1860 only show a Walter Roe Lymberry)
JH Astill - I suspect this may be a mistranscription of JH Rastall


C Daft and R Daft both played for Notts County and Notts Cricket Club.

Charles F Daft sold Cricket equipment in 1865 as this notice from the Notts Guardian of May 5th 1865 shows -




I'm still going through the Notts Guardians but if I find anything which might be interesting I will add in here. If anyone has got the book from Pineapple Books that covers the early years I would be interested what they say. It does give you an understanding of why the books could take some time to compile i must say!

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Not club related but intersting I hope. The Notts Guardian for June 29th 1866 carries a scorecard for a Cricket team called the Nottingham Garibaldi Club who played on the Meadows ground -



They didn't appear to be too good though!

 

[Strummer]

Re: Forest Early History

Please keep this up.

It's a hell of a lot more interesting than having to wait for Pineapple Books history books to turn up (which they still haven't, for me).

 

[Francis Benali (on loan)]

Re: Forest Early History

I hoped they were docked points for that wicket.

 

[Ricochet]

Re: Forest Early History

Garibaldi opener in the second innings 2 not out

 

[Strummer]

Re: Forest Early History

Not club related but intersting I hope. The Notts Guardian for June 29th 1866 carries a scorecard for a Cricket team called the Nottingham Garibaldi Club who played on the Meadows ground -

View attachment 9046

They didn't appear to be too good though!

By the look of that cricket scorecard, it's a bloody good job we stuck to football!

 

[valspoodle]

Re: Forest Early History

Interesting that both teams fielded an umpire in the Sheffield football match. I'll bet the Lt Colonel stood no nonsense.

Perhaps two referees today would be a good idea. Though not, I suppose, supplied by each club involved!

 

[valspoodle]

Re: Forest Early History

Is Widdowson a common Nottinghamshire name? Might the opener for the Garibaldi be related to Sam Weller Widdowson? Thereby establishing a link to the Forest club.

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Is Widdowson a common Nottinghamshire name? Might the opener for the Garibaldi be related to Sam Weller Widdowson? Thereby establishing a link to the Forest club.

There are about 250 male Widdowson's or Widowson's in Nottinghamshire and about 50 in Nottingham in the 1861 census, so without digging around in Ancestry which I don't have a subscriptiuon for at the moment I can't say. According to Wiki though Sam Widdowson was born at Hucknall. There are no G Widdowsons shown as born in Hucknall so probably not a brother.

 

[Otis Redding]

Re: Forest Early History

Just to add some useless info to the 'Widdowson' discussion, Kevin, a direct descendent of Sam, was a highly regarded member of Forest's youth team in the late '70s before injury curtailed his professional career.

 

[winnits]

Is Widdowson a common Nottinghamshire name? Might the opener for the Garibaldi be related to Sam Weller Widdowson? Thereby establishing a link to the Forest club.

My ex is a Widdowson and she always understood they hailed from Newark way and worked on t'boats.

 

[valspoodle]

Re: Forest Early History

Interestingly noted that Sam Weller was born in Hucknall Torkard, the team the Garibaldi's were playing. Probably nothing in it, but it's fun delving about the census. Which I did after asking the question, something I should really have done before. Just laziness on my part. As noted by Red til Dead I couldn't find a G Widdowson in Levi Widdowson's family (he Sam's Dad) in either 1851 or '61. I do a bit of family history on my own family so have an Ancestry sub.

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Interestingly noted that Sam Weller was born in Hucknall Torkard, the team the Garibaldi's were playing. Probably nothing in it, but it's fun delving about the census. Which I did after asking the question, something I should really have done before. Just laziness on my part. As noted by Red til Dead I couldn't find a G Widdowson in Levi Widdowson's family (he Sam's Dad) in either 1851 or '61. I do a bit of family history on my own family so have an Ancestry sub.

I get a bit OC with the family history so only take out 1-3 month subscriptions. I have about 7,500 people in my tree and a load more not entered! I'm avoiding the temptation at the moment

 

[Otis Redding]

Re: Forest Early History

At the risk of raising a couple of pairs of eyebrows for even daring to post this, I believe that authentic documentary evidence charting the origins of NFFC dates at least as far back as that of the seemingly unquestioned "oldest professional football club in the world".

 

[Finding Remo]

Re: Forest Early History

Great find. I'm guessing football wasn't too popular back then, as that match report for the Sheffield/Nottingham game has more about the weather and after match dinner than the game itself!

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Great find. I'm guessing football wasn't too popular back then, as that match report for the Sheffield/Nottingham game has more about the weather and after match dinner than the game itself!

It doesn't seem too popular in the Nottingham area that's for sure. I've just gone through the back 2 pages of the Notts Guardian for the whole of 1865 and there is no ,mention of Forest and very little of County other than playing a couple of games against Sheffield (Nofolk probably but not stated I don't thisk). The first game reported was either on on Jan 2nd 1865 or December 26th 1864. The back two pages appear to have the sport and local news so seemed the likeliest to have what I was looking for. I will go through the same for the first half of 1866 and see what I find there.

However Here is some background on the period as remembered from going through those pages fot 1865.

The country and in fact much of Europe was in the grip of a cattle plague.

Nottingham was subjected to 3 small earth tremours on January 2nd



According to the paper, there were over 2 million accidents in 1864. Over 10,000 resulted in death. A search showed the figures for 2010 were 1.2m accidents and under 300 dead as a result. It seems H&S works!

There used to be an annual pony race at Heanor.

They loved poetry - every paper seems to have at least one poem. There was an extract of a long one by pharmasist (I think that wass his job), F R Goodyer called The Modern Voyager; or, Barney Flinn the Circumnavigator which reminded me a little of an eary version of the style of Stanley Holloway, but with a Notts accent.

A man swam something like half a mile to a mile smoking a cigar and wearing a straw hat. (It doesn't say why though!)

The mines were incredibly dangerous then. They were still using naked candles so there were many explosions. If the mines weren't exploding, they were caving in or people were falling down the shafts.

They must have felt very stressed as there were always lots of ads purporting to help people to calm their nerves and help them sleep.

Partially related to the above there were a lot of suicides and accidental poisonings. A number of babies died from laudnum overdoses because there mothers put too much on their dummies.

There were a lot of crimes where people stole food - cheese, eggs, apples and chickens in particular.

The railways didn't seem a particularly safe place to travel. Several crashes were reported and a number of trains blew up! That said, there were many instances of children putting stones on the tracks - it seems little changes there then except the stones may be bigger now.

The papers carry lots of reports of murders from around the country and often in fairly graphic detail.

To travel by train to London from Nottingham cost 23s (£1.15) 1st class, 17s (85p) 2nd class, and 10s 5d (52p) 3rd class. The journey took 4 to 4 and a half hours.
Nottingham to Mansfield cost 2s (10p), 1s 6d (7.5p) or 1s (5) for 1st, 2nd or 3rd class and took between 40 minutes and a hour.

Giuseppe Garibaldi visited the UK in 1864. He doesn't seem to have got north of Bedford on the visit but together with newspaper stories may explain why he would be in the minds of the founders -http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/03/garibaldi-london-visit-editorial

Hope you find the above interesting

 

[Captain Sinister]

Re: Forest Early History

I'm a bit fed up of the Pearce debate, and have just got a cheap 1 month subscription to some old newspapers so have been looking to see if I could find a report in the papers about the formation of Forest or our first game.

I'm still going through the Nottinghamshire Guardian's for 1865 and 1866 but thought I would share some things I have seen.

The Club history page shows the following:

IN THE BEGINNING (1865)

In 1865, a group of Nottingham-based shinney - a sport similar to hockey - players met at the Clinton Arms on Shakespeare Street. It was here that JS Scrimshaw's proposition to begin playing football instead was passed, and Nottingham Forest Football Club was born.

The founder members were, A Barks, W Brown, W P Brown, C F Daft, T Gamble, R P Hawkesley, T G Howitt, W I Hussey, W R Lymberry, J Milford, J H Rastall, W H Revis, J G Richardson, J S Scrimshaw, J Tomlinson

The first official football match took place on 22 March 1866 against Notts County, who were formed in 1862.

The Notts Guardian of Friday March 23rd 1866, however, has a report stating that on thursday, Nottingham played Sheffield ar Sheffield. It was a return match. Given that the Captain and most of the players appeared in other games before or after for Notts County it would appear to be them not us. If they did play against Sheffield that day, they couldn't have played us

View attachment 9044

There appear to be a few Forest founders in the team -

C Daft (censuses for Notts in 1860 show only a Charles F daft so I believe its the same one)
W Lymberry (Again the Notts censuses for 1860 only show a Walter Roe Lymberry)
JH Astill - I suspect this may be a mistranscription of JH Rastall


C Daft and R Daft both played for Notts County and Notts Cricket Club.

Charles F Daft sold Cricket equipment in 1865 as this notice from the Notts Guardian of May 5th 1865 shows -

View attachment 9045


I'm still going through the Notts Guardians but if I find anything which might be interesting I will add in here. If anyone has got the book from Pineapple Books that covers the early years I would be interested what they say. It does give you an understanding of why the books could take some time to compile i must say!

Did they have the topless barmaids at the Clinton Arms in 1865?
Does the Clinton Arms still exist?
Do they still have the topless barmaids there?

 

[Strummer]

Re: Forest Early History

Did they have the topless barmaids at the Clinton Arms in 1865?
Does the Clinton Arms still exist?
Do they still have the topless barmaids there?

Probably not.

No, and

No.

Sadly.

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Did they have the topless barmaids at the Clinton Arms in 1865?
Does the Clinton Arms still exist?
Do they still have the topless barmaids there?

There is a picture of what it used to look like here http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;DCHQ504745&pos=2&action=zoom

Ar least they think its the shakespeare street pub

 

[Otis Redding]

Re: Forest Early History

Clinton Arms is now the student-dominated Orange Tree.

When I worked as a steel-fixer on the construction of Victoria Centre flats in the early-70s, I remember the place being packed on Friday lunchtimes with blokes from the site. The main attraction was the weekly lunchtime strip show they put on rather than the Shippos and the cheese and onion cobs.

I've always maintained the place should have a blue plaque above the front door......to celebrate the foundation of NFFC, not the topless barmaids and strippers I hasten to add!

 

[Redtedng9]

Re: Forest Early History

Clinton Arms, a classic pub with entertainment ,cheese and onion cobs and Shippos. Life was simple, but so enjoyable.
Many appear unaware of our history, with a lot of fans not connecting the Forest Recreation Ground to the name Nottingham Forest.
We also once played on derby Road in Lenton, at the back of the Raleigh works. The field is still there today, at the back of a medical centre, and you can still see the bank which was the actual terracing.
Before moving to the City Ground we played in the Meadows, where the bus depot now stands today.
Please keep the history coming-it is certainly a pleasant distraction from our current plight.
I am now off to the CG. I hope any one else going down today has a good day.
Clinto Arms. A classic.

 

[Red Duster]

Re: Forest Early History

I get a bit OC with the family history so only take out 1-3 month subscriptions. I have about 7,500 people in my tree and a load more not entered! I'm avoiding the temptation at the moment

Wow, that's amazing!

Your OP mentioned "shinney", is that a typo? I thought it was, "shinty".

 

[Finding Remo]

Re: Forest Early History

Wow, that's amazing!

Your OP mentioned "shinney", is that a typo? I thought it was, "shinty".

I remember reading on the article on many football teams being based on shinty teams that "shinty" was known as "shinny" in Derbyshire. I'm assuming that "shinney" was therefore a Nottinghamshire colloquialism.

 

[Captain Sinister]

Re: Forest Early History

I remember reading on the article on many football teams being based on shinty teams that "shinty" was known as "shinny" in Derbyshire. I'm assuming that "shinney" was therefore a Nottinghamshire colloquialism.

Shinney is correct... for Nottingham.

 

[I'm Red Till Dead]

Re: Forest Early History

Shinney is correct... for Nottingham.

When I was young I was always told we started as a shinty team (but I was born in Derbyshire - just!). The quote at the start is from the Forest web site so I kept their name and spelling for it.