Did a worldwide fitness craze first start in Lancashire?

The man who invented Pilates was held as a prisoner of war in Lancashire and it is believed the fitness regime was first pioneered here as Benjamin Wareing reveals
Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960
Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960

It’s in an old barracks and wagon works in Lancaster that, among temporarily imprisoned Germans during the First World War, some historians believe the very earliest form of Pilates was invented and developed.

Joseph Pilates was born on December 9, 1883 in Germany to a gymnastics enthusiastic father and housewife mother. He suffered sickness throughout his childhood, facing asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever, which pushed him to dedicate the much of his early life to improving his physical health and strength.

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His father, Heinrich Friedrich Pilates, introduced a young Joseph to gymnastics and body-building, in addition to martial arts like boxing and Jiu-jitsu.In 1912, a 30-year-old Pilates moved to England, earning a living as a professional boxer, a circus performer and a self-defence trainer at police schools and Scotland Yard, in London.

Caton Road Internment Camp, Lancaster, during the First World WarCaton Road Internment Camp, Lancaster, during the First World War
Caton Road Internment Camp, Lancaster, during the First World War

When war broke out in 1914 he was living in a small guesthouse at 22 Milbourne Street, Blackpool, where he worked alongside circus duo The Webb Bros., Jojo and Rute –real names Arthur and Joe Webb) – who traveled the world performing acrobatics and music comedy and were infamous for performing backflips while playing concertinas.

As the First World War was unfolding, the Home Office issued an ‘Aliens Restriction Order’ which directed healthy, military-aged men of German origin be detained and held as prisoners of war.

It also gave specific orders for guesthouses to report any ‘aliens’ staying in their premises, with the repercussion of heavy fines or imprisonment for hiding a German national in a property.

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Not long after the beginning of the war, Pilates was officially designated an ‘enemy alien’ by the Home Office and forced to sign a register at his local police station in Blackpool after suspicions arose around his lack of English and his recent arrival to the country, with police investigators believing his travelling circus act was a cover for being a spy.

The Webb Bros.The Webb Bros.
The Webb Bros.

Just days later Pilates was among the first Germans in the country to be arrested under the Aliens Restriction Order which eventually saw tens of thousands interned.

After his arrest, The Webb Bros. advertised vacancies and positions for circus performers to replace the gap left by Pilates, holding auditions in the same guesthouse and other lodgings along Milbourne Street.

Joseph Pilates was registered as index number 14001 and attached the incorrect name of ‘Pilatus Joseph’. As the British Government internment policy developed after being rushed in, Pilates and the other early prisoners of war were held at multiple camps and internment prisons across the UK, being shuttled around in specialised trains heavily guarded by police and soldiers.

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He was tracked being questioned at Sandhurst, then a brief internment in Jersey, before settling alongside other German citizens in Lancaster at an old barracks and wagon works on Caton Road used for a temporary internment.

Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960
Joseph Pilates exercising at his studio in New York City, circa 1960

Joseph Pilates, as an ‘enemy alien’, was fed a diet of bread or biscuits, fresh meat, coffee, fresh vegetables and cheese, butter, pears, beans and rice. Armed soldiers kept watch on the temporary internment camp, while healthy prisoners were made to carry out various manual labour roles.In return, civilians from Britain were interned in Germany.

The Civilian Prisoners Relief Fund would go on to send an average of 474 parcels of food a week to feed the interned Lancashire and Cheshire men at Ruhleben Camp to the west of Berlin, with reports from the time saying the men were “absolutely dependent on the parcels from this country to keep them from starvation.”

Though its understood Pilates refined and fine-tuned his namesake exercise on his internment at Knockaloe Camp on the Isle of Man, inventing his own unique exercise equipment produced from the springs of his dormitory bed, it’s believed he first imagined the exercises and trialled them in their earliest form on fellow temporarily interned inmates in Lancaster, where he was held for several weeks.

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Inside the walls of the old wagon works in Lancaster Pilates set about training fellow prisoners of war wrestling and self-defence, often arguing that his students would emerge from internment stronger than they were beforehand, then refining and teaching an unorthodox minimal equipment form of mat-based exercises that he later called ‘Contrology’.

Contrology became Pilates not long after his Lancaster Castle and Knockaloe internment.

The early form of Contrology that Pilates taught to temporary internees in the Caton Road site was rudimental and significantly less directed or formatted in comparison to modern Pilates, though the foundation was already developing.

With just a few weeks before the prisoners were due to be interned at more permanent internment camps, Pilates began experimenting with different combinations of stretches – old stretches, practiced and established stretching and newer forms, mixed with the movements learned through traditional sports such as boxing, Jiu-jitsu and wrestling.

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It’s believed that in Lancaster his focus for his early form of Pilates and its methodology began to shape a very early foundation on the importance of exercise in maintaining physical and mental well-being, especially in the context of providing it towards his fellow interned inmate students who were desperately seeking relief from the issues brought on by internment to their body and mind.

He quickly assumed the knowledge that he could further expand, explore and develop Contrology on his permanent internment at the next place he was assigned to – Knockaloe Camp on the Isle of Man.

After being repatriated after the end of the war in 1919 Pilates returned to Germany, being reunited with his 14-year-old daughter. By 1925, the rise of Hitler was gripping Germany and he decided to fly to America, patenting his ‘Universal Reformer’ exercise equipment in the States and in Europe. He eventually held 26 patents for inventions.Joseph Pilates died in 1967 aged 83 in New York.