Skates
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a pair of steel runners affixed to the feet to enable the wearer to glide swiftly on ice. Manifestly skates are of northern origin. The first were no doubt a pair of bones bound to the feet. Wooden skates came with the invention of tools, and steel skates last of all. As to antiquity, skates are mentioned in the Scandinavian Edda. Holland has long been noted for skating. In winter market women skim along the frozen canals carrying produce to market in baskets on their heads. Skating became popular in London about the time of the restoration of the Stuarts. Pepys, writing in his diary December 1, 1662, says: "To my Lord Sandwich's, to Mr. Moore; and then over the Parke, where I first in my life, it being a great frost, did see people sliding with their skeates, which is a very pretty art." The American Indians were unfamiliar with skates. The modern club-skate, a favorite with American boys, is little longer than the shoe. The frame is of metal and is clamped to the foot by a single turn of a lever. The fastest records are American. Some of these made from a standing start, no rear wind, are 100 yards, 9 3/5 seconds; 600 yards, 55 1/4 seconds; 1 mile, 2 minutes 36 seconds; 10 miles, 31 minutes 11 1/5 seconds; 100 miles, 7 hours 11 minutes 38 1/5 seconds. A running high jump of 3 feet 1 3/4 inches and a running long jump of 15 feet 2 inches are on record. It may be of interest to skaters to know the army rule for strength of ice: Two inches of clear, dark ice will support marching infantry; four inches, cavalry; six inches, field guns; and eight inches, 1,000 pounds to the square inch.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's guess in 1910 that the first skates were "a pair of bones bound to the feet" has been borne out: bone skates from the Viking age and earlier have been excavated across Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Britain, including from the Thames near London. The clamp-on "club-skate" that the entry calls a favourite with American boys has vanished, replaced by blades permanently riveted to a fitted boot, and since the introduction of the hinged "clap skate" in the mid-1990s racing blades detach at the heel with each stride. Aiton's mile record of 2 minutes 36 seconds now looks slow: modern speed skaters cover 1,500 metres in well under 1 minute 45 seconds on refrigerated indoor ovals, a technology that also freed the sport from the frozen canals and ponds the entry assumes. The rule of thumb on ice thickness, however, is still roughly what safety guidance says today.
Written for this edition, 2026.