Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. That mention of Milton Bradley's tabletop croquet set
Speaker 1: from our episode on Him reminded me. We've done a
Speaker 1: whole episode on croquet. I'm glad it reminded Tracy because
Speaker 1: I didn't remember. This episode originally came out February seventeenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and it is Today's Saturday Classic. So enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, we recently had
Speaker 1: a listener mail that requested long games as a topic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we read that on the air. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I couldn't get it out of my head. Also,
Speaker 1: Atlanta is having a freakishly warm winter so far. We
Speaker 1: had snowed this past weekend, but today it's in the sixties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just very week for a quick visit and
Speaker 1: was like, wow, it is sticky springtime right now, even
Speaker 1: though it is at that point January. It was January. Now,
Speaker 1: see it's all blurred together. It is. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of confused plants trying to bloom at my house
Speaker 1: and my lawn is having a pretty significant identity crisis
Speaker 1: where it is also trying to grow, and then the
Speaker 1: weeds are coming in up. So it actually kind of
Speaker 1: does seem like a weird spring here, even though I
Speaker 1: know a cold snap is coming anytime. But it does
Speaker 1: put me in the mind of long games. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: invent a new sport called like winter croquet, which is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today, because as I started looking
Speaker 1: at long games, croquet kind of took the lead in
Speaker 1: terms of available information. I still would love to do
Speaker 1: a survey of other ones, but there was so much
Speaker 1: interesting stuff about croquet that I wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Because while the origins of it are really really cloudy,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that, there have been
Speaker 1: plenty of books written on a subject in the last
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years, many of which are very
Speaker 1: charming and sort of funny from the modern perspective. So
Speaker 1: to start, let's cover just the basic rules of croquet
Speaker 1: as it's played today. The regulation size for a court
Speaker 1: is one hundred by fifty feet that's roughly thirty by
Speaker 1: fifteen meters, although for casual play the dimensions can be
Speaker 1: altered to suit the available space. I hang out with
Speaker 1: a lot of casual but very dedicated croquet players, and boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, do we have some non standard play sizes
Speaker 1: in my social circle. The space is usually marked out
Speaker 1: with steaks or string, and wickets are placed in the
Speaker 1: space to create a pointed figure eight shape with a
Speaker 1: wicket at each point, and at the top and the
Speaker 1: bottom of this figure eight there are two croquet wickets
Speaker 1: placed close to one another with a steak at the
Speaker 1: very top and bottom of the arrangement. This arrangement uses
Speaker 1: a total of nine wickets. The play starts at the
Speaker 1: bottom of this figure eight, and every ball needs to
Speaker 1: move through each wicket, first along the right side of
Speaker 1: the diamond, up through the double wicket at the top,
Speaker 1: up hitting the stake that's there, and then turning and
Speaker 1: moving back down the figure eight on the opposite side.
Speaker 1: Two teams compete, taking turns to move all their croquet
Speaker 1: balls through this configuration by tapping the balls with the
Speaker 1: ends of the mallets, not the sides. The first team
Speaker 1: to successfully get all the croque balls through the course wins.
Speaker 1: And there are of course more rules than that, and
Speaker 1: a lot of house rules. If you know a lot
Speaker 1: of casual croquet players, but the basic layout is that's
Speaker 1: how the game works today. However, there is another variation.
Speaker 1: In the US. A version of croquet exists using only
Speaker 1: six wickets. These are arranged so that they form two
Speaker 1: triangles that point toward the center of the established court,
Speaker 1: and that court can be just fifty by forty feet
Speaker 1: that's roughly fifteen by twelve meters, so much smaller. Gameplay
Speaker 1: in the six wicket arrangement has the balls played in
Speaker 1: kind of a spiral that starts at the outside edge
Speaker 1: to work inward for the first six points of play,
Speaker 1: and then it restarts from another point on the exterior
Speaker 1: of the wickets and moves inward for the last seven points.
Speaker 1: In an eighteen ninety seven book on crow K's history,
Speaker 1: author Arthur Lilly opens with a story about a friend
Speaker 1: whose doctor told him that the crazy work, work, work
Speaker 1: lifestyle of the eighteen sixties was making people ill. We
Speaker 1: can have a moment of a side to just laugh
Speaker 1: at how they would be terrified at the workload of
Speaker 1: most people in twenty twenty. In this particular case, though,
Speaker 1: the explanation was that quote work keeps the mucous membrane
Speaker 1: of the brain in perpetual irritation. I'm going to use
Speaker 1: that excuse all the time. Fresh air was the recommended treatment,
Speaker 1: and after unsuccessfully trying out things like long walks, what
Speaker 1: really helped the patient, who was a clergyman named dunbar
Speaker 1: isidor Heath, was croquet. Lily went on in his writing
Speaker 1: to proclaim quote Croque, according to many medical men, is
Speaker 1: the healthiest game in the world, seeing that it furnishes
Speaker 1: the great does bottom of the overworked nineteenth century the
Speaker 1: maximum of daily fresh air and amusement with the minimum fatigue.
Speaker 1: He also points out that the beauty of the game
Speaker 1: is its accessibility to almost anyone to play. It can
Speaker 1: be intellectually simulating, as the player has to strategize, but
Speaker 1: it's not actually taxing. Thirty years prior to Arthur Lilly,
Speaker 1: a man named Walter Jones Whitmore similarly extolled the virtues
Speaker 1: and noted the appeal of croquet in his eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight book Croquet Tactics, writing quote considered simply as an
Speaker 1: outdoor amusement affording healthy exercise and excitement to a number
Speaker 1: of people who only got their exercise formerly in the
Speaker 1: dull round of a constitutional walk. We are bound to
Speaker 1: confess that it has conferred an immense boon to society,
Speaker 1: which boon society gratefully acknowledges by its attachment. Then it
Speaker 1: is a game suited to every age and both sexes.
Speaker 1: This was, of course, a great element of success from
Speaker 1: the first. This same writing also mentions that croquet has
Speaker 1: an edge over both billiards and cricket because the financial
Speaker 1: barrier to entry is pretty low by comparison. It's not
Speaker 1: a luxury sport, but it's one that during nice weather,
Speaker 1: can be found almost anywhere. I mean, as long as
Speaker 1: there's a spot of greenery that's large enough. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: just need a little open, fairly flat piece of lawn.
Speaker 1: Anybody can play. Arthur Lilly's book also quotes the Reverend J. G.
Speaker 1: Woods explanation of the name of this game in his
Speaker 1: work quote. The word croquet is derived from a French
Speaker 1: word croquet to crunch with the teeth. This word is
Speaker 1: used to describe the sound caused by eating anything very
Speaker 1: hard and brittle. The word is used to distinguish the
Speaker 1: game in consequence of the crackling sound of the mallets
Speaker 1: against the ball. However, though that quote is very Charming
Speaker 1: Lily then dismisses this entire explanation as complete nonsense and
Speaker 1: explains that the proto mallets in the games pre date
Speaker 1: croquet were themselves called croquets, and that that derived from
Speaker 1: the Old French word croche, which translated to crooks. So
Speaker 1: the origins of games are almost always a little bit
Speaker 1: murky because a lot of these diversions start out pretty organically.
Speaker 1: They evolve over time as people make up things to do. Historically,
Speaker 1: people haven't just documented the moment when they came up
Speaker 1: with a game for the most part. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: like Cones of Duncher or any of the sort of
Speaker 1: gaming trend of today where people are like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to come up with a game and it is well documented.
Speaker 1: This is definitely more of a casual we could hit
Speaker 1: that thing with that thing to make some rules. While
Speaker 1: there are variations in how the game spread and how
Speaker 1: its rules were refined, it is generally believed to have
Speaker 1: originated in Western France Brittany, specifically as early as the
Speaker 1: thirteenth century. Players in this proto croquet entertainment, according to
Speaker 1: the Croquet Foundation of America quote, used crudely fashioned mallets
Speaker 1: to whack wooden balls through hoops made of willow branches.
Speaker 1: In the mid sixteen hundreds, the English lexiconographer Thomas Blunt
Speaker 1: described the game this way quote a game wherein a
Speaker 1: round bowl is with a mallet struck through a high
Speaker 1: arch of iron standing at either end of an alley,
Speaker 1: which he can do at the fewest blows or at
Speaker 1: the number agreed on wins. The game is heretofore used
Speaker 1: in the long Alley near Saint James's and vulgarly called
Speaker 1: pell Mell. On April second, sixteen sixty one, during the
Speaker 1: restoration reign of Charles the Second, Samuel, Peeps recorded an
Speaker 1: instance of watching the Duke of York play a game
Speaker 1: that he calls pell mell. He spells it p e
Speaker 1: l E d m e l E. The King himself
Speaker 1: was said to love the game, and two years later
Speaker 1: Peeps interviewed the man who looked after what Peeps is
Speaker 1: by that time calling the pell mell. That's the yard
Speaker 1: used to play the game, and it's spelled the way
Speaker 1: it sounds e l And the area that's used for
Speaker 1: playing was made up of a mix of earth covered
Speaker 1: with powdered cockle shells and then the name Paul Mall
Speaker 1: is another variation of the two that are already noted
Speaker 1: in Peeps's writing, and there are others. It is possible
Speaker 1: that the mall in this case is an anglicization of Maya,
Speaker 1: which is a French word for mallet. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about how pall Mall, pell
Speaker 1: Mell or pie my was played, but first we're going
Speaker 1: to pause for a quick sponsor break. So this game
Speaker 1: with many names, but we'll go with Paul Mall or
Speaker 1: pell Mell was played in essentially a long alley. It
Speaker 1: is sometimes described as being something between golf and modern croquet,
Speaker 1: and like croquet, it included a ball, mallets with curved heads,
Speaker 1: and an arch that players tried to get the ball
Speaker 1: through the arches. In seventeen seventeen, a book titled Jeu Demy,
Speaker 1: written by Monsieur Lothier, offered instructive advice on playing technique. Quote,
Speaker 1: the body ought not to be either too straight or
Speaker 1: too much curved, but moderately incline, so that in striking
Speaker 1: it may be supported by the strength of the loins
Speaker 1: while we turn it gently back from the waist upwards,
Speaker 1: raising the head without ever losing sight of the ball.
Speaker 1: So use your course strength with this and not just
Speaker 1: your arms. Yeah. Latier also shared a story of a
Speaker 1: unique ball that was used for this game. So at
Speaker 1: this point pell Mell balls were normally about six inches
Speaker 1: in diameter. They are made from a substance called dudgeon,
Speaker 1: and that is the root of the box tree, And
Speaker 1: that dungeon was then beaten carefully into this ball shape. Quote.
Speaker 1: There was a ball of great renown, the history of
Speaker 1: which will perhaps not be useless or disagreeable, and will
Speaker 1: show what importance in the game of mal is a
Speaker 1: good ball. A ball merchant of Provence brought a large
Speaker 1: back of them to Ikes. The players, who were in
Speaker 1: great number in this town, bought them all at thirty
Speaker 1: sous apiece, except one only, which, not being so pretty
Speaker 1: as the others, was rejected. A good player named Bernard
Speaker 1: came the last and bought this waste ball, for which
Speaker 1: he would not give but fifteen suit. It weighed seven
Speaker 1: ounces and two DRAMs, and was of ugly wood, and
Speaker 1: half of it reddish. He played it a long time,
Speaker 1: finished it, and it became so excellent that when he
Speaker 1: had a long stroke to make it never failed. Him
Speaker 1: at his need, and led infallibly to his winning the match.
Speaker 1: This ball, which became famous, became known as the Bernard,
Speaker 1: and it was so coveted and renowned that its next
Speaker 1: owner refused numerous offers to purchase it, including a proposed
Speaker 1: trade in which the would be buyer offered thirty pistols. Clearly,
Speaker 1: it's a very valuable ball. It was, however, occasionally loaned
Speaker 1: out to famous players for matches, though so. In addition
Speaker 1: to this primary version of pall Mall, the Lothier text
Speaker 1: also described two other variations. The first of these was
Speaker 1: something called chakam paull Mall, which was a lot like golf.
Speaker 1: It was played in an open field with specified targets,
Speaker 1: usually naturally occurring obstacles like trees and rocks, and instead
Speaker 1: of mallets they used crooks. And then the third version
Speaker 1: was played a lot like billiards. Other accounts of these
Speaker 1: games suggest that they were completely different sports. In his
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven History of Croquet, Arthur Lilly made the
Speaker 1: point that many sports, in addition to paul Mall, including
Speaker 1: hockey and polo, had some version in their history which
Speaker 1: was called chican or you'll see it sometimes called chicane,
Speaker 1: so they may have all had some sort of commonality
Speaker 1: from which they branched, evolved, and then in some cases
Speaker 1: combined with other games. It makes the case that this
Speaker 1: may be in part due to the changing seasons. In Brittany,
Speaker 1: where the rudimentary game started, they would have played a
Speaker 1: version of the game that evolved into hockey in the
Speaker 1: winter and one more like golf in the spring, and
Speaker 1: as the summer got hot and movement was a lot
Speaker 1: more arduous, the limited range version that was played within
Speaker 1: an alley or a court would have become the standard.
Speaker 1: He also suggests that on the most uncomfortable days, the
Speaker 1: players might have just simply practiced their putting so hot
Speaker 1: I only want to put pal mall fell out of
Speaker 1: favor in England over time, but as it declined there
Speaker 1: it seems that some version of it was introduced to Ireland.
Speaker 1: It's unclear exactly how this sport migrated from France, but
Speaker 1: by the eighteen thirties it was popular in the areas
Speaker 1: around Dublin and the rules had started to become more uniform.
Speaker 1: In the early eighteen fifties, the game as it had
Speaker 1: evolved in Ireland included the basic rules that were developed there.
Speaker 1: They were exported to England, where the modern version of
Speaker 1: the game was first played with the name Crookie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I am unclear on whether that is just an Englishman
Speaker 1: writing a snooty phonetic of how he thinks Irish people speak,
Speaker 1: because it's literally a crooky I don't know. The first
Speaker 1: retail croquet sets were also introduced during this time, in
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties by Jean Jacques of London, which still
Speaker 1: exists after some name shifting as Jacques of London. Their
Speaker 1: croquet set offerings on their website, which they still offer,
Speaker 1: include copy that states that the company invented the sport,
Speaker 1: which is a matter of some debate. Sure. Even early
Speaker 1: on in Croquet's modern era popularity, the origin of the
Speaker 1: game was still debated, and a letter penned by a
Speaker 1: doctor Pryor in the late eighteen hundreds on this matter,
Speaker 1: he wrote, quote who invented croquet? Or who improved a
Speaker 1: rustic game into one fit for polite society is a
Speaker 1: question that has often been asked and has never been answered.
Speaker 1: One thing only is certain. It is from Ireland that
Speaker 1: it came to England, and it was on the lawn
Speaker 1: of the late Lord Lonsdale, that was first played in
Speaker 1: this country. How long it had been practiced in Ireland,
Speaker 1: or in what year his lordship introduced it, nobody knows.
Speaker 1: It may be presumed that it did not occur to
Speaker 1: anyone in its perfect form as we have it now,
Speaker 1: but was built up, so to say, bit by bit,
Speaker 1: with hints and contributions from many different people, which is
Speaker 1: exactly how most things evolve in history. Uh. Pryor's position, though,
Speaker 1: was that croquet did not evolve from Paul Mall as
Speaker 1: that game hadn't been played in so long that no
Speaker 1: one probably even remembered it enough to revive it in
Speaker 1: any sort of revised version. But one thing about croque
Speaker 1: was entirely clear to Pryor. He wrote, quote, nothing but
Speaker 1: tobacco smoking has ever spread as quickly. Croquet eventually made
Speaker 1: its way to the US from Europe, and it quickly
Speaker 1: became very popular here too. From the mid eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: up until the eighteen nineties, its state side appeal grew,
Speaker 1: but in the last decade of the nineteenth century it
Speaker 1: was lumped in with drinking and gamimbling due to its
Speaker 1: popularity on Boston Common, where Tho's other entertainments were also popular.
Speaker 1: After that, it's popularity declined for several decades. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a little little smear on its identity. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think if I've ever seen people playing croquet on
Speaker 1: Boston Common, And I'm like, I don't think i've seen
Speaker 1: anyone do? Is it allowed? Right? It's because in the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties they knew it's too much trouble with the
Speaker 1: croquet on Boston, right, they associated it with vices that
Speaker 1: were not healthy. But beginning in the nineteen twenties, croque
Speaker 1: in the US once again became popular as it was
Speaker 1: embraced by various celebrities at their gatherings and it gained
Speaker 1: a fresh wave of cachet. The United States Croquet Association
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen seventy seven, so it took a
Speaker 1: little while by Jack Osborne, and he established the rules
Speaker 1: for that six wicket kind of abbreviated style of play
Speaker 1: that we mentioned at the top of the show. Show.
Speaker 1: That association still exists today. In nineteen eighty seven, the
Speaker 1: American Croque Association was born to support gameplay with the
Speaker 1: international rules, so with more wickets. Though the USCA now
Speaker 1: oversees most events that feature international rules gameplay, and there's
Speaker 1: a pretty significant overlap in membership. That ven diagram has
Speaker 1: a big middle section. Next, we're going to discuss two
Speaker 1: interesting figures in Crok's history and one significant organization that
Speaker 1: has shifted away from the sport of croque in favor
Speaker 1: of another game. We'll get to that after a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors. One of the most prominent figures in
Speaker 1: Croque's history is Walter Jones Whitmore, who we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Whitmore was born in eighteen thirty one and became acquainted
Speaker 1: with crok in eighteen sixty when he was just a
Speaker 1: young man of twenty nine. He was working at the
Speaker 1: time as a government clerk and he picked up the
Speaker 1: game casually playing with the people in his neighborhood of
Speaker 1: Morton in Marsh in Gloucestershire, England. At this point, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a standardized set of rules for the game beyond
Speaker 1: a very friendly version. Different companies were producing croquet sets
Speaker 1: for recreational use, and every company had its own version
Speaker 1: of the rules that was included with the set. Whitmore
Speaker 1: recognized that if the sport was going to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1: There needed to be a clear, standardized rule set for
Speaker 1: competitive play. So he wrote some Yeah, there were rules
Speaker 1: that have been developed, but there's a lot of them.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of house rules for everybody that played.
Speaker 1: And as we said, different different companies that made sets
Speaker 1: made their own shifts to the rules, and he thought, like,
Speaker 1: this is a sport that could be like a pro sport,
Speaker 1: but it's going to need some more structure. These rules
Speaker 1: that he came up with were published by a periodical
Speaker 1: called The Field and they came to be known as
Speaker 1: the Field Rules, or you'll sometimes see them listed as
Speaker 1: the Field Laws, and they did shift public thinking on
Speaker 1: the sport to consider it as more than just a
Speaker 1: backyard pastime. The same year that the Field Rules came out,
Speaker 1: which was eighteen sixty six, Walter Jones Whitmore also published
Speaker 1: a book which used a lot of the articles that
Speaker 1: he had written to establish these rules, and that was
Speaker 1: called The Science of Croque. In eighteen sixty seven, Whitmore
Speaker 1: established England's first croque tournament, which he also won. That
Speaker 1: championship status led to his book croqu Tactics. He explained
Speaker 1: to the introduction quote, the present volume is a compilation
Speaker 1: of my articles which appeared in that journal. The field,
Speaker 1: although considerably enlarged and with the addition of several points
Speaker 1: which have since occurred to me. He next established the
Speaker 1: All England Croquet Club, and after failing to secure a
Speaker 1: permanent home for the AECC, he next founded a second
Speaker 1: All England Croque Club, which became the National Croque Club.
Speaker 1: Both of these clubs worked together with Whitmore's leadership to
Speaker 1: refine the sport rules further and sub years, and then
Speaker 1: he died in eighteen seventy two at the age of
Speaker 1: forty one. Women's involvement in the game of croquet has
Speaker 1: been touted almost as long as the sport has existed
Speaker 1: under that name. One of the selling points of croquet,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned at the top of the episode, is
Speaker 1: that it is something that many people can do because
Speaker 1: it is not especially physically demanding. Caricaturist John Leech made
Speaker 1: engravings in the eighteen sixties featuring ladies playing croquet alongside gentlemen.
Speaker 1: In his eighteen sixty two etching a croquet match, a
Speaker 1: large group of people is playing, including several women. As
Speaker 1: the women are leaning forward playing the game, their large
Speaker 1: cage crenlines lift their dresses so they slightly expose the
Speaker 1: petticoats that are underneath. Leech's eighteen sixty five piece titled
Speaker 1: A Nice Game for Two or More, shows a garden
Speaker 1: party with a woman preparing a shot as she looks
Speaker 1: at one of her male opponents. The caption for this
Speaker 1: image reads, fixing her eyes on his and placing her
Speaker 1: pretty little foot on the ball. She said, now then
Speaker 1: I am going to croquet you and croquete. He was
Speaker 1: completely Arthur Lily history. We've referenced several times, even mentions
Speaker 1: and interpreting a poem about croquet that lists a number
Speaker 1: of other sports. Quote, all these games are inferior to
Speaker 1: croquet where they exclude ladies. And there was incidentally a
Speaker 1: nickname for an adaptation of the game, which was called
Speaker 1: crinoline croquet, But that didn't really have anything to do
Speaker 1: with women, So I just want to clarify on that
Speaker 1: in case you come across it. This was just the
Speaker 1: game played on a smaller scale with smaller implements. This
Speaker 1: version was apparently considered far less serious by more devoted
Speaker 1: players of the game, but it was also the reason
Speaker 1: that its popularity spread so quickly as it could be
Speaker 1: played even on tiny backyard lawns. It was also where,
Speaker 1: according to Lily's estimate, ninety percent of enthusiasts were playing.
Speaker 1: This is again not the professional tournament version, but the
Speaker 1: more casual version, and it's really that version that came
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic and became popular in the US. There's
Speaker 1: one woman in particular who had a surprising rise to
Speaker 1: fame as a croquet player. Her name was Lily Gower
Speaker 1: and she was Welsh. In eighteen ninety eight, at the
Speaker 1: age of twenty one, the relatively inexperienced Gower entered a
Speaker 1: tournament in Budley, which is a coastal town in East Devon, England.
Speaker 1: Yeah she had never played in public before, and after
Speaker 1: a fairly boring run of the beginning of the tournament,
Speaker 1: it ended up that the newcomer Gower was up against
Speaker 1: mister C. E. Willis, a champion player, for the finals.
Speaker 1: The finals were a best of three situation. Lily had
Speaker 1: been categorized as having beginner's luck by most people in attendance,
Speaker 1: but in the first round of play against the veteran Willis,
Speaker 1: she beat him and in the second game, which was
Speaker 1: heavily attended, After Gower's success in the first game, Willis
Speaker 1: came back and played incredibly well, beating the young woman easily.
Speaker 1: So it appeared that Lily's luck had run out. But
Speaker 1: in the third game she trounced Willis, winning in just
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes with a twenty six point lead. So
Speaker 1: while they were still detractors that chocked all this up
Speaker 1: to just good luck on her part, that was really
Speaker 1: the beginning of a successful career in the sport for her.
Speaker 1: Lily Gower went on to win a lot of championships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she also ended up married to another croquet player, which
Speaker 1: I love. There is also another name in croquet history
Speaker 1: that I would bet is very familiar to most of
Speaker 1: our listeners, which is Wimbledon. The sport that you probably
Speaker 1: think of when you hear that name is tennis with
Speaker 1: good reason, but Wimbledon was actually associated with croquet. First,
Speaker 1: we're gonna jump back first to the Walter Jones Whitmore story.
Speaker 1: He had, as we just mentioned, founded the All England
Speaker 1: Croquet Club in eighteen sixty eight, four years before his death.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that he had some difficulty finding a permanent
Speaker 1: home for the club and once that was finally secured
Speaker 1: it was near the Wimbledon train station. The station name
Speaker 1: and the club became totally intertwined. In eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: the club, in an effort to stay relevant and to
Speaker 1: capitalize on another sport that was gaining in popularity, changed
Speaker 1: its name to the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club.
Speaker 1: By eighteen eighty, croquet had vanished from the name, as tennis,
Speaker 1: which held a wider appeal because it was a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a spectator sport, made use of the
Speaker 1: club's lawns. It is no accident that two Wimbledon tennis
Speaker 1: courts fit just about perfectly into one croquet court because
Speaker 1: the space was converted from one to the other. But
Speaker 1: croquet and Wimbledon's divorce did not stick. Croquet once again
Speaker 1: became part of the All England Club in eighteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: although the order was reversed so that it became the
Speaker 1: All England Lawn Tennis and Croquete Club, although All England
Speaker 1: Club is commonly used. When the club moved in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, Croquete did not move with it, although it
Speaker 1: stayed in the official name. In the nineteen fifties, the
Speaker 1: club once again picked up croquet, but it has remained
Speaker 1: a secondary aspect of Wimbledon. The club had only one
Speaker 1: croquet court until two thousand and seven. That one was
Speaker 1: removed and then three new ones were installed in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. During high tennis season, the croquet players
Speaker 1: have to play elsewhere they usually. I heard it described
Speaker 1: they do like four kind of open tournaments in the
Speaker 1: club each year and four away and the away wins
Speaker 1: are scheduled when tennis is in its season because those
Speaker 1: lawns that would be used for croquet are used as
Speaker 1: practice areas for the more prevalent sports. It's a very
Speaker 1: brief glimpse at croquet in our history. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: the fact. Here's the thing. I know that if you
Speaker 1: are in England, they do the accent differently, so it's
Speaker 1: croquet rather than croquet. This is like whether it's Marriott
Speaker 1: or Marriott right precisely. But yeah, it's a fun little
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of spring already, so it was a fun
Speaker 1: adventure to consider going outside and playing on the lawn. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I as as I was reading through this outline, I
Speaker 1: read a really interesting article about the spread of England
Speaker 1: or the spread of croquet through like places that England
Speaker 1: or Britain had colonized, and like its introduction into Egypt
Speaker 1: and then Egypt becoming like the dominant home of croquet players.
Speaker 1: So like it's a game that has had a whole
Speaker 1: trajectory beyond its origins. Oh yes, yeah, I stuck to
Speaker 1: the very European kind of developmental rules because once it
Speaker 1: passed out of there, it exploded and became like a
Speaker 1: worldwide sport. I definitely did not get into the more
Speaker 1: competitive There are not very many, but there are professional
Speaker 1: croquet players today that that is their full time thing,
Speaker 1: which is just one of the many evolutions of any
Speaker 1: sport that becomes popular, I think. Yeah, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is
Speaker 1: out of the archive, if you heard an email address
Speaker 1: or a Facebook RL or something similar over the course
Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current
Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You
Speaker 1: can find us all over social media at missed Dhistory,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: Google podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.