World Clog Dance Championships

World Championship Belt, Bow, 1898

It is important to remember that there was no underlying national or international structure for competitive clog dancing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Indeed no such structure exists today.  Individuals simply organised competitions with whatever rules they felt appropriate.  Several individuals styled themselves as “World Champion” in the years before 1880.  Whether they had ever actually competed against other dancers in acompetitive way is unknown as may dancers simply styled themselves as a champion and invited others to dance against them, usually with prohibitive conditions.

Against this backdrop, a theartri=cial manager, J.H.Wood had the idea of holding a “World Championship” in his theatre in Leeds in 1880.

 

There was much discussion in the press and the competition was a great success.  Other competitions followed often at irregular intervals.  It seems to have been generally accepted by the professional clog dance community that Wood’s competitions were genuine World Championships.  The sequence seems to have stopped after 1901.

You can explore what we know of each of the competitions via the boxes below.

 

Leeds 1880

The first in the series of World Championships Won by Dan Leno.

Manchester 1881

Won by Tom Ward, causing much resentment by Dan Leno who was unplaced..

Manchester 1882

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Oldham 1883

Held at the People's Music Hall, Oldham. Won by Dan Leno.

Stockton 1884

Held at the Star Music Hall, Stockton. Won by J.H. Haslam.

Greenock 1885

Held at the Circus of Varieties, Greenock, Lanarkshire. Winner not known.

?? 1891-3

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Bow, London 1898

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Leeds 1899

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Hull 1902

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London 1903

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Manchester 1906

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Manchester 1915

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