Australian
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Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows silent, black-and-white footage of the semifinal and final of the 130-yard (120-m) sprint at the Stawell Gift’s Golden Jubilee carnival in 1927. It shows Stawell’s Central Park where the carnival is still held, some of the 30,000 spectators who attended the 1927 event, race officials, two broadcasters from radio station 3LO calling the race, and the results board. Race winner TJ Miles is presented with the 'Sporting Globe sash and badge’, a gold medal and a cup. In the final scene WJ Millard, winner of the first Stawell Gift, congratulates Miles. The clip includes intertitles.

Educational value points

• The Stawell Gift is one of the oldest footraces in the world and has been held in all but 2 years since 1878. With its origins in races held by local goldminers, the Gift became part of a 3-day carnival organised by the Stawell Athletic Club and held over Easter at Central Park in Stawell, Victoria. The Club was founded by a group of local farmers and businessmen to provide entertainment for people living in the region, and attract visitors to the town. The crowd of 30,000 spectators who attended the Golden Jubilee Gift, which marked the fiftieth anniversary of the carnival, and the fact that the race was broadcast on radio attest to the carnival’s popularity.

• Professional footracing, or 'pedestrianism’, began in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. While the races varied in length from short sprints to events covering hundreds of kilometres, the 130-yard (120-m) sprint was seen as the real measure of a sprinter and was adopted as the main race at carnivals. In Australia footracing was popular in the gold-mining communities, with miners racing against each other for the 'gift’, which was often a gold nugget donated by a local businessman such as a publican, while spectators placed bets on competitors.

• The Stawell Gift is run over a distance of 130 yards (120 m). The race has remained largely unchanged since the inaugural Stawell Gift in 1878, and is still run on a grass track with the lanes divided by ropes and the competitors running through narrow wooden gates at the finish. Twenty-four heats are held on Easter Sunday, with the winners of each heat moving through to the semifinals and the winners of those races competing in the final, which is traditionally held on Easter Monday.

• The race has staggered starts; competitors receive handicaps based on their form in races preceding the carnival. This is designed to level out the differences between the competitors and create an even race, and it also gives less-experienced runners a chance against professional and established competitors. Many of the early Gift winners were from the bush and had no formal athletics training. Today, runners can be handicapped by as much as 11 m.

• The first Stawell Gift carnival offered £110 in total prize money, of which the first prize of £20 was awarded to the winner of the Gift, WJ Millard. At the Golden Jubilee Gift shown here, race winner TJ Miles was also presented with a gold medal donated by Mr W Earle from the Albion Hotel in Stawell, and the 'Sporting Globe sash and badge’ supplied by the Herald and Weekly Times. The medal and sash are a permanent part of the ceremony and are still given to the Gift winner every year. Over the years the prize money for the Stawell Gift has steadily increased and in 2006 the winner received $40,000, while for the event as a whole $100,000 in prize money was awarded.

• In the early days of the Stawell Gift and in particular during the Great Depression (1929–32) the Gift provided men with a chance to improve their fortunes. Dr Peter Mewett from the School of History, Heritage and Society at Deakin University points out that professional running was and remains a largely working-class sport 'from which men have sought a supplementary source of income or, ideally, a big win that would set them up for life’ (www.aafla.org).

• The 1927 Gift was broadcast on 3LO, which became Melbourne’s second radio station in 1924 and later became part of the ABC network. Sports broadcasting quickly became an integral part of programming in the early days of radio. Horseracing and cricket were the first sports to be given live coverage but this soon extended to football, boxing, tennis and wrestling. By 1930 radio had assumed a central place as a source of information, sport and entertainment, with about 40 radio stations in Australia broadcasting to more than 300,000 households.

This clip shows silent, black-and-white footage of the semifinal and final of the 130-yard (120m) sprint at the Stawell Gift’s Golden Jubilee carnival in 1927. It shows Stawell’s Central Park where the carnival is still held.

A surtitle reads: 30,000 Spectators watch Semi-finals 3.L.O. Broadcasting.

It shows some of the 30,000 spectators who attend the 1927 event, race officials, and the race itself, two broadcasters from radio station 3LO calling the race, then the race again from a different angle.

Surtitle: Grand Final won by T.J. Miles (Q,land).

We see the race again from the finishing line, then the results board.

Surtitle: The President Mr. G.T. Robertson decorating the winner with the Sporting Globe sash and badge.

Race winner TJ Miles is presented with the 'Sporting Globe sash and badge’.

Surtitle: Mr. W Earle presents gold medal and Mr. Herbert Hill hands over the Cup.

Miles is presented with a gold cup. They pose for the cameras.

Surtitle: THEN and NOW Mr. W.J. Millard the winner of the first gift (1878) congratulates the Jubilee winner.

In the final scene, WJ Millard – winner of the first Stawell Gift, congratulates Miles.