What are the origins of the olympic games?
Contrary to popular myth, Baron Pierre De Coubertin did not conceive the idea of the modern Olympics in Athens, 1896. So instead let us acknowledge Dr William Penny Brookes, father of the modern Olympian movement, the Games of which first took place in 1850 in Much Wenlock, a town in Shropshire. Dr Brookes’ inspiration William Penny Brookes was born in Much Wenlock in 1809, the son of a doctor. Continuing in his father’s footsteps, he too studied medicine and, following the sudden death of his father in 1830, he returned to the town the following year to take over his father’s practice. With wide-ranging interests including art, music and science, Brookes became a prominent local figure and it was his further engagement in local affairs that sowed the seeds of the first Olympian Games. From becoming a magistrate in 1841, Brookes gained an insight into the result of misdirected energies and ignited a desire to develop the need for structured physical exercise and education for the worki
