Sporting Successes

Home Office Championship Swimming Cup of Great Britain, 1908

The cup was presented by the Under-Secretary of State and the Staff of the Home Office. The winners were the Ardwick Green Industrial School, where swimming was taught to the pupils. To encourage the boys to swim and to stimulate and reward competition and excellence, local personalities donated prizes. One such donor around this time was Mr Ziba Ward, who was a long-serving president of Withington Golf Club and well-known in the district for his sporting generosity.

Athletics champions, 1910

These thirteen fit and healthy-looking boys pose with instructors after being successful at the North of England Home Office Schools’ Athletic Festival, held at Birkenhead in June 1910. The Ardwick Green Industrial School won six Championship Cups. Looking on, left foreground, is a black cat: perhaps it was the school’s lucky mascot.