THE HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Commonwealth Games was proposed by Englishman, Astley Cooper in 1891 as a festival ". Reverend J Astley Cooper was largely responsible for the concept of a sporting contest amongst the countries of the British Commonwealth. 

He wrote an article in 1891 for the magazine Greater Britain, in which he suggested that a festival combining sporting, military and literary events that would draw closer the ties and increase the goodwill and understanding of the Empire. His suggestion generated a great deal of interest in Britain and the British Colonies.

The holding of the first recorded Games between Empire athletes coincided with the celebrations in connection with the Coronation of His Majesty King George the Fifth in 1911, and was known as the 'Festival of Empire'.
A large and representative Committee, with the Earl of Plymouth as Chairman, arranged at the Crystal Palace Grounds in London a series of entertainment's and exhibitions pertaining to the progress and development of the British Empire.


When the Olympic Games were in progress in Amsterdam in 1928, the splendid feelings of friendliness between the Empire athletes at that Olympiad strengthened the ideas for the revival of Empire meetings. In view of Canada's victory in 1911, it was appropriate that it should have been through the initiative of a Canadian - M. M Robinson - that the British Empire Games took definite shape, and were revived at Hamilton, Canada in 1930.
Support was forthcoming from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with the result that strong teams were sent to Canada. Teams also came from Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, British Guiana, Newfoundland and South Africa. 

The success of the first British Empire Games at Hamilton in 1930 provided full proof of the existence of the spirit of comradeship and cooperation between members of the British nation and the world over, and will go down in the history of British sport as the achievement of all that is best in the sporting traditions of the British race.
During these Games, at a council of representatives of Great Britain and the Dominions and Colonies, it was decided that similar meetings should be held every four years in between the Olympic Games, and that a British Empire Games Federation should be formed. Accordingly, when teams throughout the Empire were gathered together at the Tenth Olympiad at Los Angeles in 1932, the formation of the British Empire Games Federation was further discussed and the Federation was subsequently constituted.


In 1952 the Federation was retitled "British Empire and Commonwealth Games Federation". In Jamaica 1966 it became the "British Commonwealth Games Federation and in 1974 at Christchurch the title was again changed to the "Commonwealth Games Federation". 

In general construction, the Commonwealth Games are designed on the Olympic model, not in competition, but entirely complementary to the older series of Games, and, organised as they are between the Olympic celebrations, the experience gained should be of a real help to the Commonwealth athletes when facing the sterner trial of the great international meetings. The Commonwealth champions of today may well be the Olympic challengers of tomorrow.