CONSPICUOUS BY HIS ABSENCE.

​As anyone kind enough or simply curious and with time on their hands will already be aware if they have read the articles squirrelled away in the archive of this site, I get deeply irritated by the ease in which sponsors are allowed to kidnap races for their own personal use. Today, for instance, the iconic word ‘Melling’, as of the Melling Road, is not to be seen in the race title of the race traditionally known as the Melling Chase. In the past the name ‘Topham’, was removed in favour of whatever beer and lager producer was favouring the sport at the time with its sponsorship money.
Apart from when my ideas for the sport are radical, as with my suggestion for the Lincoln to be restored to a 40-runner race started from a barrier, allowing flat racing a race of jeopardy, as it is with the Grand National, I am a devoted traditionalist. And although I would deplore the return of nudge and jostling races and riding with spurs and many other nasty things that were common in the nineteenth century, I believe we should not forget those people, and indeed horses, responsible for the creation of our sport.
One such person who is conspicuous by his absence at every Aintree meeting is William Lynn, the mine host of Waterloo Hotel back in the 1820’s.
Lynn was also a bit of an entrepreneur, knowing that the more people he could attract to Liverpool the more profit there would be for his business. Though it is frowned upon nowadays, and is long gone from sporting calendar, much to Sir Mark Prescott’s chagrin, Lynn originated hare-coursing’s Waterloo Cup. The success of the event prompted Lynn to stage a similar sporting event and taking inspiration from the Crosby Bell, a popular Ascension Day horse-racing event he leased 800 acres of land from Lord Sefton to stage flat-racing at the course we now know and love as Aintree. He invested £20,000 in the project, building a grandstand, stables, a hotel and, the necessity of the time, cockpits.
Up the road at Maghull, John Formby was also organising flat racing and to make his racing more noteworthy Lynn experimented with hurdle racing. The first such race was won by none other than Captain Martin Becher. At this time the most notable steeplechase in the country was staged at St.Albans, the Great St.Albans Steeplechase. Lynn thought he could do better and got together with Becher and Tom Coleman, the organiser of the St.Albans race, deciding upon the Great Liverpool Steeplechase.
This first venture into what was to become known as The Grand Nation and then The Grand National was not staged at Aintree but Maghull and with £100 donated by the Alderman of Liverpool the prize went to ‘The Duke’, ridden by the outstanding rider of his day, Henry Potts.
The race was soon a roaring success and gained the attention of the Lords Derby, Sefton, Eglinton & Wilton, George Bentinck, Stanley and Lord Robert Grosvenor, and Lynn worked long and hard to promote the event all around the country. Without William Lynn, I would argue, we might not have our beloved Grand National, our sport’s jewel in the crown.
So why is there no race named in Lynn’s memory? No monument to record his sterling work in not only promoting the race but as its creator, also? Captain Becher fell off, rolled into a ditch and his life is honoured by the naming of the most famous steeplechase fence in the world. Hardly fair, is it. The inventor consigned to obscurity, whilst the gallant captain will be remembered forever and a day.
William Lynn was a good and noble man. He was a charitable man and is known to have provided for 160 people saved from the burning emigrant ship the ‘Ocean Monarch’ and made a collection from local dignitaries on their behalf.
A brief summary of the early history of the Grand National suggests that the Lords muscled in on Lynn’s endeavours as he quickly faded from the Grand National picture. Though the truth may have been that his devoted efforts to make the race the success it was to become weakened his health and in his last days he was cared-for by relatives. He died on October 11th, 1870.
We should all be grateful he ever lived. Without him our lives would be so much poorer. Aintree should acknowledge his contribution to both steeplechasing and the city of Liverpool by commemorating his name and life in some way.