There is no record of when The Country Archery and Rifle Club was founded but it was probably about 1825 and it also held sports competitions at its meetings. Their competitions became the Strathallan Highland Games and were organised by JA Henderson of Westerton, from at least 1848 until 1858, when he died. Major General Sir James Alexander, K.C.B. became Laird of Westerton in 1863 and reorganised the games, which have been held annually ever since then with the exception of the duration of the two World Wars.
Bridge of Allan’s committee has a unique claim to fame, being intimately connected with the birth of the modern cult of body-building. In 1888 it was responsible for organising the Highland Gathering at the Glasgow International Exhibition and at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition. When the Strathallan Committee and the highland games stars they had brought to Paris for the exhibition arrived, they found to their surprise that the world’s first body-building competition was about to be held. This was to be a team competition and had already attracted an entry of 300 strongmen. Nothing daunted the Scots, and led by the famous wrestler Jimmy Esson, of Aberdeen, they entered and won. Sadly Jimmy Esson died of wounds in a German prisoner of war camp in 1916
Until 1956 Bridge of Allan was a traditional games with money prizes, then from 1957 till 1998 it affiliated to the amateur sports organisations. A new era demanded a new start and in 1999, the year of the first Scottish Parliament for almost 300 years, we once again affiliated to the Scottish Highland Games Association to continue to promote, for the benefit of the coming generations, traditional Scottish sports, dances and music.
