Bert Drury

Bert Drury was probably better known as a gymnastics judge and official than as a contestant. In fact, at the 1908 London Olympics, he took part in the team event and was also a judge for the individual competition.

Drury first joined the Linacre Bible Class Gymnastics Club (Bootle, Merseyside) in 1900 as a 17-year-old. In 1906 he represented Lancashire in the first ever inter-county match against Yorkshire at Bradford. Two years later, Drury appeared at the London Olympics, and at Stockholm in 1912 was a member of the British team that won the team bronze medal. Drury won the Liverpool and District team competition for the Bowring Shield with both the Liverpool Gymnasium and the Linacre Club. In 1908 he won the Cookson Challenge Cup as the best individual overall gymnast in Lancashire and Cheshire. It was regarded as the “Blue Riband” event of north-west gymnastics at the time.

A blacksmith by trade, Drury was an excellent all-round sportsman and won trophies at running hurdling, jumping, swimming, wrestling, and weightlifting. He was also the Liverpool and District one-mile roller skating champion on two occasions, and also took part in motor cycle trials.

Drury was a vice-president of the Amateur Gymnastic Association (AGA) and president of the Northern Counties AGA. He judged at the English National Championships on many occasions, and donated the H. J. Drury Challenge Cup to be contested annually between gymnasts from Liverpool and Belfast. Drury was scheduled to be a judge at the 1936 Berlin Olympics but, after a long illness, he died just three weeks before the start of the Games.