How old is pigeon racing

The serial number is recorded, the clock is set and sealed, and the bird carries the ring home. When the first bird returns, its trainer removes the ring and places it in a slot in the clock.

The time that the ring was placed in the clock is recorded as the official time that the competing bird arrived home. From this timestamp an average speed is measured and a winner of the race can be found.

The latest development for timing racing pigeons is the? Electronic Timing System. When using an electronic system, the pigeon fancier doesn?

Birds are fitted with a band that has a tiny RFID? At the home loft the electronic scanning records the pigeons arrival. The pad? The serial number of the transponder ring is recorded along with the time of arrival. This is very similar to? Remember me Log in. Lost your password? Yet it did not really get going until the arrival of the electrical telegraph, a little over a decade later. With birds no longer needed to carry information, traders, newspapers and government agencies sold their stock on, making them more readily available to early hobbyists.

Pigeon racing appears to have first put down roots in the south of England. The documentary record is patchy, but some of the first people to keep birds are found in London. Weavers in Spitalfields were rearing pigeons for flying no later than From there, the practice spread northwards.

By it was so well established in Bolton that it attracted the attention of public health officials; by it had reached Derbyshire; and in it made its first known appearance in Northumbria.

By then, races had already become a weekly activity in many parts of the country. They were, at first, short-distance affairs and generally involved enthusiasts from a single village or community. The set-up was rudimentary. The birds were taken to a pre-determined location, usually no more than ten miles away, and then released to fly back to their coops.

When they arrived, their owners had to take them to an agreed meeting point, often a pub or shop. The first to get there was the winner. Later, longer races, organised along more formal lines, became the norm. Participants could come from all walks of life.

Longer races, in particular, tended to attract people from a wide range of different backgrounds. In a club in Newcastle counted doctors, businessmen and colliery managers among its members and, in , the Prince of Wales even won a race in Lerwick. But, from the beginning, shorter races were dominated by working men and the sport as a whole continued to be seen as a stereotypically working-class activity.

Miners — especially in South Wales, northern England and central Scotland — were among the most ardent racers. A few years later, a Welsh miner estimated that in Rhondda villages, there were four or five lofts in every street. For these communities, pigeon racing was only possible because of dramatic transformations in the material conditions of working-class life.

The passage of the Factory Act, introducing the So, too, the extension of the rail network in the s and s opened up the possibility of affordable travel and made long-distance races practicable for the first time. The abolition of taxes on newspapers in fostered the growth not only of mass-circulation newspapers, but also of the specialised journals essential to the bird enthusiast. Pigeon racing was, however, a demanding sport, which most miners were able to pursue only with difficulty.

Space was the most obvious problem. Pigeon lofts took up a lot of room. Today, most pigeon racing organisations recommend that each bird has a minimum of ten cubic metres of air; but even in the 19th century, when estimates were lower, the necessary volume could still be considerable.

Most miners simply did not have the space; the few that did often struggled with unclean conditions. Of the ten examples he provided — from Wigan, Sheffield and Barnsley — most were too damp or dangerous for the attic to be of any use and none had a yard. Such conditions were, admittedly, not always typical; but Orwell nevertheless gives some sense of how difficult it could be simply to build a loft in older housing, right up until the eve of the Second World War.

Newer, social housing was little better. Occasionally, racing organisations managed to negotiate a compromise. But, even then, many enthusiasts felt that additional space had been won only at the cost of prohibitive restrictions.

Money was an even greater challenge. In comparison with other working-class pastimes, pigeon racing was expensive. Lofts cost a pretty penny.

There were also clocks to buy or rent, baskets to carry the pigeons in; and, of course, the birds themselves. Membership of a club — essential for those who wanted to compete — was not cheap, either. In the Oughtibridge Homing Society in Yorkshire charged an annual fee of 17s; and it cost extra to race.

Then there was the food. While a pigeon could do well enough on simple seeds, which could be found, cadged or bought in most villages without much difficulty, serious racers preferred a more sophisticated — and expensive — diet. Taken together, all this meant that pigeon racing was simply beyond the means of many miners.

After basic expenses had been met, little — if anything — was left for leisure activities. For those who raced pigeons, it entailed considerable financial sacrifice.