About Croquet – A Brief and General History
Croquet Catches on Like Wildfire
Early Times
The Middle Ages and before
During the Middle Ages (around the early 1300's) peasants were known to play a game where they hit a single ball with shepherd's crooks through bent willow branches.
During the mid-1300's, records show that nobles played an indoor version of lawn bowls (played indoors during winter). Hoops and mallets were added to make th game more challenging in the smaller indoor field. In France, it became known as as paille-maille ("ball-mallet").
After the Middle Ages
Much later, during the 16th century, the game seems to have been used by golfers in Scotland as a form of golf. When King James VI of Scotland moved south to become King James I of England in 1604, he introduced both golf and paille-maille to the English Court.
Later
After the Middle Ages
During the 17th century, King Charles II had his own paille-maille court at St. James' Palace. At around the same time, the games name came to be anglicised into "pall mall". A near-by street aquired this name and to this day still bears the name Pall Mall. You may recognise the street name from another equally famouse game: the board game of Monopoly.
During the 1830's the name "croquet" first came into use by a French doctor, who created a variation of the game of paille-maille. He created the sport as a way of getting his patients to participate in outdoor exercise in order to improve their health. He called it "croquet", which is a French term for "crooked stick".
Croquet Catches on Like Wildfire
In the 1860's, croquet took England by storm, quickly spreading to other Anglicised countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and South Africa. One of the attractions of the game was that it could be played by both sexes, which was also a reason why in the spread of its popularity.
Unfortunately in the late 1870's, croquet became overtaken by another fashionable game (also able to be played by both sexes): Tennis. Many of the newly created croquet clubs converted some, if not all of their lawns into tennis courts.
A Resurgence of popularity
With the introduction of lawn tennis and the beginning of World War I, croquet's popularity began to slow down. However, during the 1930's and 1940's, the sport enjoyed a resurgence in popularity which began in America, where it was mad popular by toy-makers who miniaturised the sets and equipment, made the rules far more simple and marketed the game as a backyard children's and family game.
During the 1970's, croquet began to be taken more seriously as a competitive and challenging sport continuing to grow in popularity world-wide. Croquet is often being described as "chess played on a lawn".
Today
Croquet has evolved
Croquet has continued to grow and evolve into many different fun and challenging games, such as:
- the standard Association Croquet
- Golf Croquet
- Ricochet
- Gateball
- Backyard Croquet
- Garden Croquet
- Aussie Croquet (for kids)
- Unusual variations: