Today marks the 250th anniversary of Robert Jones’s conviction.
On this blog, Jones is best known for his Treatise on Skating—the oldest known book about ice skating—and his skates, which I tried to reproduce. Jones is also known for child molestation. Today day in 1772, he was convicted of molesting Francis Henry Hay, a 12.5-year-old boy.
Jones’s book on skating was published in the same year as his trial, possibly during the trial. The popularity and visibility of the trial helped advertise his book. It’s possible that this popularity is why the book has survived so long.
Today’s book report is on Schaatsen en schaatsenmakers in de 19e en 20e eeuw [Skates and skatemakers in the 19th and 20th centuries] by A. C. Broere. I have the 1988 edition (dark blue cover); there’s also a version with a white cover. I don’t know what the difference is.
It’s only 80 pages long but full of information, in Dutch but with the figure captions in both Dutch and English and an English summary at the end. Most of the figures are pictures of skates in Broere’s collection.
Like virtually all skating books, it starts out with a little on bone skates. It moves pretty quickly through those and early metal-bladed skates, including the picture of St. Lydwina’s accident and the one from Bodleian MS Douce 5.
By page 12, it’s into the 19th century. That section focuses on three types of skate: Dutch curl skates, Frisian skates, and Dutch track skates. It also looks at figure versus speed skates and skates from England and Germany. At the end, there’s a fascinating montage showing different ways of fastening skates to boots with straps in 1928.
Ways to fasten skates. From the Catalogue of the firm of G. A. A. van de Wall of Arnhem, 1928; reprinted in Broere 1988, p. 29.
My favorite chapter was the one on skate-making because it shows pictures of a skate being sharpened on a giant grinding wheel, a blade being forged, and other parts of the skate-making process.
Sharpening and forging skates in about 1930. Broere 1988, 32.
The next chapter covers well-known skate-makers and skate-sellers. Broere argues that the between the latter part of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth, skate-makers and -sellers went from being individual craftspeople (e.g., blacksmiths) to corporate factories and sport shops. The text concludes with some examples of new skate technology, like klapskates (new, that is, to the 1980s). It is followed by two appendices—catalogs of skate labels and makers’ marks.
Overall, it’s a great little book. You can buy a copy from bol.com as long as you have a shipping address in the Netherlands or Belgium.
Reference
A. C. Broere. Schaatsen en schaatsenmakers in de 19e en 20e eeuw. Franeker: Van Wijnen. 1988.
This post continues the backlog of skating books books I have to write about. This one is in Dutch, and the title means “roaming on skates through Holland.” It’s a small book—only 96 pages and about 5″x7″—published by Van Gorgum in 1942.
The book includes short chapters on the organization of skating in the Netherlands, winter in Holland, a failed electoral meeting that led to ice roads, birds in winter, winter in history, medals and prizes for tour skates, a wedding on the ice, training and technique, and what tour skaters need to know. The bulk of the book describes skating routes through Holland
The chapter on historical winters references Samuel Jackson Pratt’s description of his winter visit to Rotterdam in 1774. This has not made it into the English-language literature on skating! Apparently, he remarked that “the most dead season in other lands is the most living in Holland” (28). I dug up the original:
It has been justly remarked, that the deadest season in other countries is the most lively in Holland. While this little watry world is frost-locked, which it is sometimes for three months together, it is a kind of universal fair or jubilee. Booths are erected upon the ice, with good fires in them. Horses, rough-shod to the element, run races. Coaches glide over the smooth expanse, like pleasure barges. Men, women, and children, are equally expert. The peasant scates to town with his panniers, the country girl with her milk pails, and many merchants take their longest journies during the season of the ice. You may some|times see a string of twenty or thirty young people, of both sexes, holding each other by the handkerchief, and shoot away almost with the rapidity of lightning.
Pratt 1795, 253–254
The most useful part of the book is the skating routes. The book includes written descriptions of all of them, plus there’s a map at the end that summarizes them all. Someone has colored them in with blue pencil and pen in my copy of the book.
The map from pages 88–89, with coloring.
You can read Zwerven op de schaats door Holland online at the University of Connecticut. It’s one of a series of similar books. There’s also Zwerven op de schaats door Friesland and several books that are simply Zwerven without “op de schaats”—presumably not necessarily about skating.
References
Samuel Jackson Pratt. Gleanings through Wales, Holland and Westphalia. Volume 2. London: Longman and Seeley, 1795.
This book was published in 1966 by the US Figure Skating Association, but exists outside of the Rulebook and test structure. It, according to the foreward [sic], exists
to help further interest, proficiency and enjoyment to the skaters who like this phase of our sport.
Ice Dances, p. 3
The book can be divided into three major sections: Skating fitness, dance figures, and dances.
The section on skating fitness is a fairly short description of exercises for improving posture and flexibility. Most are for off-ice use, but a few are on-ice stroking exercises.
The syncopated roll, p. 19A twizzle exercise, p. 24.
The dance figures are dance steps on a figure eight. The one that survives today is the waltz eight, which is now on the pre-preliminary moves in the field test. Some are quite complex, and I’d have trouble fitting them onto a standard figures circle.
The dance section begins with a glossary of dance terms before presenting a catalog of dances you’ve probably never heard of. Many of the patterns can be found on Skate Dance Diagrams and Tools
The amount of context provided varies. Some include lengthy descriptions, others are just diagrams. The dances are at different levels, from easy to quite difficult. They’re a reminder of age of social dance and should be fun to try on the ice.
The idea of designing your own figure is something that goes way back in figure skating. Late nineteenth-century competitions in the International style invited skaters to create their own patterns on the ice, called special figures. Many of these were published in books like Holletscheck’s Kunstfertigkeit im Eislaufen. Some were actually what we’d call freestyle elements today, like Axel Paulsen’s famous jump. Special figures were included in the 1908 Olympics.
An interesting survival is on the current US Figure Skating Adult Gold Figure test. The test is a sampler; the skater selects six figures from different categories:
One forward paragraph eight
One double three
One bracket
One change bracket
One loop
One change loop
The seventh figure is a creative figure. The compulsory figures rules (not linked here because they’re hidden behind the Members Only login screen) don’t have much to say about it—just that it’s required. Or skaters can choose to do any other figure from the test structure.
The Adult Gold Figure test seems to have come into existence at about the time figures began to be phased out of competition. It’s first mentioned on Skating‘s “Laurels” page in April 1991 (though nobody passed it then). The creative figure requirement goes back to the beginning; it’s listed in my 1992/93 Rulebook. The only change I’ve found is the deletion of TR 2.022 in 1997.
TR 2.022
To qualify for any Adult Figure Test, the candidate cannot have passed the Fourth Test or higher.
“Report of Action of the Board of Directors,” p. 29.
This may have been part of a scheme to keep figures going. Skating records the announcements of competitions held in Vail, CO in June, 1989 and in 1992, that included creative, original, new era, and team figures. It’s unclear how many people entered these events, but I suspect the number was small, because not many were offered. Creative figure events have been a staple of ISI competitions for years, and still are, though finding the details can be a bit tricky as the website says to refer to the printed Handbook.
The Adult Gold Figure Test is still on the books, though not many skaters have passed it. Digging around in the Skating Magazine Archive, I found only these 11 skaters:
Maureen Hughes, Peninsula FSC, May 1992
Laura Dully, The Skating Club of Boston, November 1992
Cynthia Brett, Warwick Figure Skaters, November 1993
Lori Nelson, St. Moritz ISC, Inc., November 1993
Lynne Maker Kuechle, Roseville FSC, November 1993
Pamela Medeiros, Smithfield FSC, August 1997
Miki Marciniak, Fraser FSC, January 1998
Elaine Livingston, Binghamton FSC, August 1998
Margaret Szymanski, North Jersey FSC Inc., August 1999
Dawn M Peterson, Sun Valley FSC, Inc., October 1999
Alicia DeLalio, North Jersey FSC Inc., October 2007
(Dates refer to the issue the test was published in, which may be several months after it was passed.)
I passed it last week, so I’m on the list now too.
References
“Calendar of events.” Skating, June 1989, p. 41; May 1992, p. 21.
“Report of action of the board of directors.” Skating, August 1997, pp. 22–42.
United States Figure Skating Association, The 1992–93 Official USFSA Rulebook. Colorado Springs, CO: USFSA, 1992.
Traité du patinage(Treatise on Skating) by Georges Deney, was published twice: in 1891 or 1892 and again in 1914. WorldCat gives the date of the first edition as 1891, but Fowler includes it in his list of books published in 1892. Everyone has the year in square brackets, which means nobody’s really sure. Fowler’s description is minimal:
Just the title, publisher, size (octavo) and number of pages: 4+4+166. Plus it cost 2 francs. Source: Fowler 1898, 96.
There’s not a lot about this book online, other than a few copies in libraries and bookstores, often with a note saying that it’s rare. I can’t find a difference between the 1891 (or 1892) and 1914 editions. Catalog entries give the same number of pages and size for both. I suspect the latter was simply a reprint, especially since the author died in 1898.
Georges Deney was a pen name for Julian-Félix Delauney (1848–1898). He also wrote Traité du canne, boxe et baton(Treatise on boxing, cane, and stick) under his real name for the same publisher in about the same years as the skating book. I think the 1914 editions of both may be parts of a grand reprint scheme by the publisher.
Deney advises starting by sliding in shoes before progressing to skates. He calls skating “le cousin germain de la danse” (the first cousin of dance) (p. 45). While diagrams of some figures—including threes to a center, the Maltese cross, and a heart—are included, the emphasis is clearly on free skating. Deney’s skating is meant to appeal to an audience.
The book concludes with a few brief chapters on different attempts to produce ice by feats of engineering and the rules of the “cercle des patineurs” (circle of skaters).
This short video illustrates the major advantage of metal-bladed skates over bone skates. Even if the earliest metal-bladed skates were used with poles (I’m not sure when people started pushing with their feet), it was much easier to turn on them.
Here I’m trying to keep the hockey circle between my feet on my archetype skates (left) and on my bone skates (right). Note that it actually works with the archetype skates! The bone skates keep going their own way.
Courtney Jones is being the third Jones discussed on this blog, after Robert Jones and Ernest Jones. I have no idea whether they are related.
This Jones’s achievement is the publication of a memoir, Around the Ice in Eighty Years: An Irreverent Memoir by an Accidental Champion, currently for sale only in the UK. It covers much of what he is known for in both skating and fashion design, including his own competitive experience, his involvement with the ISU and, perhaps most famously, the costumes he designed for Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.
The book begins with an introduction, “Life’s Rich Tapestry,” that introduces all the characters. This is important because the book is not entirely in chronological order; people come and go throughout it, and it’s nice to have them all lined up in one place.
The bulk of the book is a roughly chronological summary of Jones’s life on the ice, with some excursions into his professional education and life as a fashion designer. It includes descriptions of his five World and six European Championship medals with two different partners along with the difficulty of balancing skating with working to support himself.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter is 6, “You Have To Go Down To Go Up,” which covers several transitions in his life: trying to get a job in fashion design, moving in with his partner Bobby Thompson, and joining the ISU Dance Committee. There’s quite a lot in this chapter, but one important thing is missing: photographs of Jones and Thompson’s two cats, Charlie and Fred. Jones does include an interesting prediction for the future of figure skating:
“[i]t’s obvious that sooner or later the ISU will have to capitulate and allow same sex couples to compete in the Pairs Skating and Ice Dance events; so many sports now have to reassess their basic rules and regulations and I doubt whether, as the years progress, ours will have any alternative but to follow suit.”
Jones 2021, 103
We’ll see what happens.
The last three chapters stand alone: “Creating a Winning Performance” (advice to skaters), “Golden Boys: Curry and Cousins,” and “Our Last Golden Couple: Torvill and Dean.” The latter includes a photograph of the spoon used to stir the dye used on their famous Bolero costumes (p. 188).
The writing is lively and conversational throughout. The casual layout—including the eccentric but consistent capitalization and punctuation—adds to the homey feel and “irreverent” conversational tone. Overall, it’s a broad overview of many years in skating with some very interesting insights. You can get it from YPD Books and Amazon UK.
Reference
Courtney Jones. 2021. Around the Ice in Eighty Years: An Irreverent Memoir by an Accidental Champion. York: Herstory Writing & Interpretation / York Publishing Services.
Find 22/1524 is 130 mm long and features roughening of the “topside”, where the foot would rest, and an axial hole in the proximal end, under the skater’s heel (215). This feature is characteristic of skates from Great Britain (Thurber 2020, 112).
The other skate, find 22/1536, is only 89 mm long. It is described as having the “underside missing, proximal end sawn, topside polished from use” (215). It sounds like this is one of the unusual skates where the palmar side was used as the gliding surface. Usually the dorsal side glides on the ice. The missing “underside” makes me wonder if this skate was part of a pair of split bones, which would be highly unusual for Great Britain! Those skates, which have the top half of the bone removed to create a nice footrest, are generally only found in Scandinavia (Thurber 2020, 106).
These skates join five others found in Lincoln (Thurber 2020, 110). They unique in being made from cattle metatarsi; the others are three cattle metacarpi, a horse metacarpus, and a possible cattle radius, according to my database.
The book also mentions “an unfinished piece” found with the two fragments, which led the authors to propose “these were being turned out of a workshop nearby” (32).
Jonathan Clark, Justin Garner-Lahire, Cecily Spall, and Nicola Toop. Lincoln Castle Revealed: The Story of a Norman Powerhouse and its Anglo-Saxon Precursor. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
In A Treatise on Skating—the first book on skating, published exactly 250 years ago—Robert Jones describes, in great detail, his ideal skates. I made a pair and tried them out.
Jones’s skates are the type used in England at his time, in contrast to the Dutch type. They have short, curved blades to allow skaters to do edges.
[S]kating is used here [in England] as an exercise and diversion only; hence an easy movement and graceful attitude are the sole objects of our attention. To arrive at these, nothing can be better imagined than the present form of our skates.
Jones 2017 [1772], 34.
He provides a drawing of the skates, which is what I worked from:
Jones 2017 [1772], 36.
I made the wood part from popular using a variety of power tools in the woodshop at CIADC. The holes for the straps were the most difficult part and I ended up carving out sections of the top with the table saw, sawing the holes in, then placing inlays on the top to fill the carved-out sections. It would have been better to make the skates in two parts, top and bottom, then glue them together.
I had the blades laser-cut from 1/4″ mild steel by Send Cut Send. They were very quick! What I wasn’t able to capture was the taper. Jones specifies that the blades should be 1/4″ wide at the heel, increasing in size to 5/16″ at around the point labeled B, then increasing more sharply to 5/8″ in the front. Mine are just 1/4″ wide all the way. That may or may not make a difference for skating.
I used an angle grinder to polish the blades and sharpened them by draw-filing with a hand file, following Jones’ advice not to give them a hollow. He considered fluted skates too bad to even describe!
Putting the wood and metal parts together was quite simple once I had the wood carved to fit. The blade slid into its groove and stayed there—the little hook at the front was enough to hold wood and metal together.
Attaching the blades to the boots was the next step. The boots are just a pair of old Riedells I had sitting around unused. For straps, I used fake leather. The three “little sharp points of iron” Jones represents by I, I, and I (35) were little nails glued into the wood. The heel screw was more of a challenge, and mine doesn’t quite match his. I just drilled a hole through metal, wood, and leather boot and stuck a #4 screw in. I think his system was better—it sounds more complicated—but I need to see some skates that have it before I can reproduce it. In any case, what I did worked pretty well.
Skating in them was very hard. The lack of a hollow meant the blades slide all over the place instead of digging in when I push. And the blades are very, very curved. Jones wasn’t kidding about that when he compared them with Dutch skates:
ours would by no means be proper for travelling, because the irons are short and circular; not above two inches of their surface touch the ice at a time; all our attention is required, to keep the body in an equilibrium on so small a base, which would be almost impossible to continue for any length of time
Jones 2017 [1772], 33.
The difference in curvature is clear when comparing a Jones blade with an MK Silver Test blade (rocker radius = 7 ft).
My first couple of times out on them were not promising, but I will persevere.
Reference
R. Jones and W. E. Cormack. 2017. A Treatise on Skating. Edited by B. A. Thurber. Evanston, IL: Skating History Press.
