This was formerly the date of the Stamford Bull-Running. According to local tradition, the custom dated from the time of King John when William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, saw two bulls fighting in the meadow beneath. Some butchers came to part the combatants and one of the bulls ran into the town, causing a great uproar. Mounting his horse, the earl rode after the animal, and enjoyed the sport so much, that he gave the meadow in which the fight began to the butchers of Stamford, on condition that they should provide a bull to be run in the town every 13 November forever after.
In the 1830s, various unsuccessful attempts were made to abolish the event, on the grounds of cruelty to animals, with an ever-increasing military and police presence in the town around the time of 13 November. The people of the town ultimately decided that the money required for these security measures could be better spent and the Stamford Bull-Running was discontinued after 700 years, in 1837. The famous Pamplona Bull-Running has fared better and still takes place each year as part of the San Fermin Festival.
James Fuller Scholes, pictured right, told a newspaper in 1928, just before he died at the age of 94:
“I am the only Stamford man living who can remember the bull-running in the streets of the town. I can remember my mother showing me the bull and the horses and men and dogs who chased it. She kept the St Peter’s Street – the building that was formerly the Chequers Inn at that time and she showed me the bull-running sport from a bedroom window. I was only four years old then, but I can clearly remember it all. The end of St Peter’s Street (where it was joined by Rutland Terrace) was blocked by two farm wagons, and I saw the bull come to the end of the street and return again.”
In the twentieth century, we have seen many changes in the civil service and today in 1967 saw one of the biggest milestones in US history. Carl Burton Stokes became the first black elected mayor of a major city when he won the mayoral election in Cleveland, Ohio.
