Martin Polley 
The History of Sport in Britain 1880-1914 V1 [PDF ebook] 

First published in 2004. This five-volume major work is a comprehensive collection of primary sources which examine changing attitudes to sport in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. At the beginning of the period few sports were regulated, but by the outbreak of the First World War organized sport had become an integral part of British cultural, social and economic life. Martin Polley has collected articles from a wide range of journals including Blackwood”s Magazine, Nineteenth Century, Fortnightly Review and Contemporary Review, which reveal changing middle-class attitudes to sport. The five volumes cover the varieties of sport being promoted, sport and education, commercial and financial aspects of sport, sport and animals and the globalization of sport through empire. Volume I includes the Varieties of Sport.