EARLY CROQUET AND THE RAILWAYS
the nineteenth century – and of the creation of national associations and governing bodies, many of which still exist. In croquet, the process of standardisation had begun in 1866 with the drafting of the Field code. It was continued with the Conference Code of 1870, which was then revised annually until 1873. But if serious croquet players accepted the need for codification, they did not take so readily to centralisation: the newly‐ formed AECC’s attempts to impose itself on older clubs and on what had begun as a consensual process among equals ended in failure and it turned its attention elsewhere. The Conference Code, however, survived. It was revived, largely unchanged, by the United All England Croquet Association when it published its first unifying code in the spring of 1897.
Ryde), Chichester, Bognor, West Worthing, Shoreham (Sussex County 2 at Southwick), Lewes (Southdown), Eastbourne (Devonshire Park and Compton), Bexhill and St Leonards (South Saxons) on the south coast. Together, these accounted for a fifth of tournament venues at the time. This accessibility must also have contributed to the success of the Sussex Union in the inter‐war years. Today we give little thought to travelling to tournaments, but accessibility of venues would have been an important consideration in the early days of tournament croquet. The reliability, safety, cheapness and comfort of railway travel must have helped attract players to tournaments away from home. These in turn were key drivers of standardisation and codification of the rules of play for many sports in the third quarter of
by Ian Bond Three of the earliest recorded croquet tournaments are those which were held at Evesham in 1867, at Moreton‐ in‐Marsh in 1868 and at Oxford (on the Merton College cricket ground) in 1869. All are associated with Walter Jones Whitmore of Chastleton House, three miles south east of Moreton‐in‐ Marsh: he won the first (commonly but mistakenly referred to as the first Open Championship) and organised the other two, both won by Walter Peel. The Oxford tournament was held under the auspices of the recently‐ formed National Croquet Club, in which Whitmore was the driving force. Peel also won the NCC tournament at Highgate later that season. A less obvious, but perhaps equally important, connection between these tournaments is that all three venues were served by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway – as was Chipping Norton Junction at Kingham, later to become the home of the Fourshire Club, which held official tournaments there between 1908 and 1914. The line offered six trains each day in both directions, with connections from Oxford to Reading, Southampton and London (Paddington and Victoria). Evesham was also directly accessible from the line’s Stratford‐upon‐Avon branch, and Cheltenham by changing at Abbots Wood Junction. A line offering even more extensive croquet connections was the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. In the early years of tournament croquet, it linked Wimbledon and Sydenham (Crystal Palace – the venue for the All England Croquet Club’s first Open Championship in 1869) in London to Portsmouth, Chichester, Worthing, Brighton (Sussex County 1 at Brighton Pavilion) and Eastbourne on the south coast. In the years immediately before the Great War, it linked no fewer than 17 tournament venues: Epsom, Redhill, Purley and Croydon in south London; Horsham and East Grinstead in mid‐Sussex; and Portsmouth (with ferry access to
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