AN ANCIENT GAME.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 785, 17 November 1922, Page 5

AN ANCIENT GAME.

EARLY ..HISTORY OF BOWLS. (The following interesting- resume of the ancient game of bowls ap. peared in an.' Australian paper : Bowls is perhaps the most ancient of British games, the earliest records extending so far back at the thirteenth century.- The Royal Liprary at Windsor contains MSS dating back from that period, in which is a drawing of three men engaged in bowls and! represented in’ attitudes which may be seen any day on ouf bowling greens,, There is no “jack” or “kitty” as now required. There is also a record, of the Southampton Town Club of 1295 although the game at th.at time was pJayect mainly by a,rtisans and peasants. Xi't grew so rapidly in popularity however, that it incurred the ban of King and Parliament, as curtailing- the practice of archery skill, which was an essential art -of the army of that day, and Acts were passed by Edward 1111. and Richard 11. prohibiting the game,: In 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. it was restrict, ed to and then only at the house or in the presence of the master. A penalty of 6s 8d! -was in-.t dieted for playing outside one’s garden or orchard; but, as in modern days, exemptions were allowed from the severity of the Laws. The owner of land -of the yearly value of £IOO. was granted a hcense to play on his own grounds, * .. Bowling alleys became common, usually in the grounds of taverns. Henry VIII. prohibited (these bowling alleys,, yet had one constructed for his own amusement in the prescints of his paliace at Whitehall. In Queen Mary’s reign the licenses were withdrawn, as the games were considered to be used as a cloak “for seditious and unlawful sssemblies. conventicles and conspiracies.” Drink and gambling in connection with the pastime led in Elizabeth’s time to such gross scandals that Stepher Gesson, a writer of that day, says : -—-“Common bow King alleys are 'privy moths that qat up -the, credit of the whose gains a,t home "re not able to weigh down their losses abroad, whose shops are so far from maintaining their play that tneii wives and children cry out for 1 bread and go supperless to bed.” Biased bowls were introduced in the sixteenth century, “A little altering of the one side,” says Robert Recorde in his “Castle of Knowledge,” “n ak. >eth the bowl to run biasse waiej.” Shakespeare, in “Richard II.” act lII*, scene 4„ causes the queen to remonstrate in reply her body’s suggestion that she relieve the tedium of suspense by a game of bowls. “’Twill make me think the w<~>rid is full of rubs* and that my fortune runs against the bias.” This passage is interesting, as showing that ladies we*c in the habit of indulging in the pastime, There seems to be a solid foundation for the story of the famous game of bowls played by Francis Drake at Plymouth Hoe. Bowls was even considered a lawful game, to be played on Sundays',’ and when John Knox visited Calvin at Geneva, he found him engaged in a game, Ayimen, D.shop of London, when engaged in the pastime, used language “which justly exposed his character to reproach.” The game was greatly favoured by the Stuarts James I. in the “Book of Sports,” recommended the game to Prince Henry. Charles I. was infatuated with the sport, and set the evil example of wagering and high stakes. On the beautiful green of Richard Shute, a turkey merchant at Bucking HilL, the King lost as much as £IOOO in a single game A sign at Goring Heath, Q.xford, records that Charles “(frank from the bowl and bowled for what he drank/’ He was engaged in the game when summoned by Cornet Joyce to new quarters. The sisters of Sir John Suckling, the courtier poet, once went to the bowling green at Piccadilly, crying “for- fear he should lose all their portions.” (The Puritans looked on the game with no friendly eye, but could not stop betting, Even respectable John Evelyn gleefully relates how lie won a game for £lO, and Samuel _ Pepys records that he repeatedly saw great people .at “bowles.”’ The excesses in drink and wagering ,at length rendered the game unfashionable, and it- became a “pot house game;,” the greens and alleys being in the grounds of some taverns. It was redeemed from this disgrace in Scotland, where it became the national game,, although in 1595, the Glasgow Kirk Session fulminated an edict against bowls, PROGRESS IN SCOTLAND. Clubs were established- at Haddington in 1709, Kilmarnock in 1“40, Lanark in 1750, Henriot Hospital Edinburgh, in 1765, and at Peebles in 1775 ; but there was no central organisation, and each club has its own rules. In 1848 J the many clubs ini the west .- nd south of Scotland held a meetii g for the purpose of forming a no' ional association, and Mr W, Mitchell (secretary) drew up a code of lavs which were subsequently -adopted. Special care, too, was given to the preparation ot the lawns, and seaside turf was used to make exceptionally smooth, elastic greens. In 1854 the Earl of Egl'ington presented the association with a silver bowl, and in 1851 a gold bowl for competition, and this ggve a mighty stimulus to the sport. England soon caught the fever. The Scottish immigrants introduced the (rnniG to Canada, Australia, India, Japan and South Africa, In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Australia took the ltead in organising a world-wide system -of p} a y in Bowling Associations in Victori a and New South Wales in 1880. Scotland followed suit -in 1892. In England associations were also formed 'l'd* land Counties in 1895, London and South in 1896,. Imperial in 1899, England in 1901, and Wales and Ireland in 1904-. and the Imperial) /amalgamated with England. Organised teams from Australia and New Zealand visited the Urtited Kingdom in 1901, and from Canada in 1904, and accredited teams from Great I> itain returned the compliment to Canada in 1906). The popularity of the game increased so rapidly fh,at local authorities in Edinburgh and Glas row, London and/' Newcastle havq estab lished municipal bowling greens, In the Scottish municipal greens bowls also are supplied, and the pjayers payid per hour., In England the players supply their own bowls. A similar project has been lately mooted in Adelaide.