What Happened In 1860, the Founding Year of Cray Wanderers FC

I first researched and created the following information as an A4 printable page that could be downloaded for free from the official Cray Wanderers website in 2005. At that time, I was into my second year as custodian of the website, which I later had to relinquish in 2012 for personal reasons.

While looking through some of my old articles and creations on some of my numerous USB sticks, saved from my even older computers, I came across this and thought it would provide an interesting read for visitors to this blog site. Everything I have written below is unique; that is to say, the information I researched is true, but it is written in my own words.

Please enjoy!

What Happened In 1860, the Founding Year of Cray Wanderers FC

• Garibaldi's 'Redshirts' captured Sicily and invaded Italy.

• Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States.

• The British Open Golf Championship was established.

• Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations.

Richard Cobden (1804-1865), a Liberal Party politician and a campaigner for free trade and peace, negotiated a commercial treaty with France. Britain cut import tax on French wine and cognac; France cut import tax on British coal and manufactured goods. The increased trade improved relations, which was prudent at a time when France was taking territory in Italy and planning to build the Suez Canal, which would give it a direct sea-route from the Mediterranean to the Far East.

• 12% of the population lived in Lancashire because of its cotton mills and factories.

• The reigning monarchy was the House of Hanover (Queen Victoria).

• The currency was Pounds, Shillings and Pence - £sd.

• The average income per head of the population was £44 a year.

Victorian Britons were a God-fearing Protestant nation, although about a quarter of them didn’t bother to go to church. Christian duty was expressed through the high moral tone of public life and in the desire of the better-off to do good deeds. In everyday life, it meant that all classes tried to be respectable and moral. Duty took precedence over inclination, morality over pleasure. But Protestantism also meant prejudice: Roman Catholic bishops were banned from using their titles in Britain, and there was considerable prejudice against Jews. And moralism meant repressing any mention of sexuality, which often led to double standards.

• J. M. Barrie (Author of Peter Pan) was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland.

• Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) founded the world’s first professional school of nursing at St Thomas’s Hospital in London – the direct ancestor of the current Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery at King’s.

• Benjamin and John Cadbury dissolved their partnership of the famous chocolate factory, and John retired in 1861, leaving his sons, Richard and George to continue to build the business.

• Russian Playwright Anton Chekhov was born.

And Cray Wanderers Football Club was formed, making it the oldest continuously active association football club in Greater London.

Trevor Mulligan