pedestrianism

Pedestrianism was a 19th-century form of competitive walking, often professional and funded by wagering, from which the modern sport of racewalking developed.

==18th- and early 19th-century Britain== thumb|upright|Foster Powell During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pedestrianism, like running or horse racing (equestrianism) was a popular spectator sport in Britain and Ireland. Pedestrianism became a fixture at fairs – much like horse racing – developing from wagers on footraces, rambling, and 17th-century footman wagering. Sources from the late 17th and early 18th century in England describe aristocrats pitting their carriage footmen, constrained to walk by the speed of their masters' carriages, against one another. One of the earliest examples was of Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth, who walked from London to Berwick in twelve days for a £2000 wager in the summer of 1589.