The History of Croquet: How a British Garden Game Conquered the World

Croquet is one of the very few games in the world whose precise origin can be traced to a specific manufacturer, a specific date, and a specific person. Most sports and games evolved over centuries through folk traditions and regional variations. Croquet did not. It was invented commercially, standardised deliberately, and brought to the world by a single family business that still exists today. That business is Jaques of London, founded in 1795. The year was 1851. The person was John Jaques II.

This is the definitive history of how croquet was invented, how it conquered Victorian England in a matter of years, how it spread across the British Empire and then the world, and why, more than 170 years later, it is still being played on lawns from Surrey to Sydney to San Francisco.

Before Croquet: The Origins of the Game

The precise origin of croquet before its commercialisation by Jaques of London in 1851 is contested, and historians have argued about it for well over a century. There are at least three credible antecedent traditions: a French game called paille-maille (from which Pall Mall in London takes its name), played with a mallet and ball through iron arches as early as the 13th century; a Scottish game called golf-crosse; and most persuasively, an Irish game called crooky, played on country estates in the 1830s and 1840s.

The Irish connection is the most historically supported. A game resembling modern croquet was being played on Irish country house lawns in the 1830s, using mallets, balls, and hoops pushed into the ground. The game arrived in England in the late 1840s, carried by Anglo-Irish families and their connections to English society. By 1850, a version of it was being played in English gardens. What it lacked was standardisation: there were no agreed rules, no agreed equipment specifications, and no agreed court dimensions. Every house played its own version.

That is what Jaques of London changed.

John Jaques II and the Commercialisation of Croquet

John Jaques II was the third generation of the Jaques family to run the business founded by his grandfather in 1795. The company had already made its name by this point, most notably through the publication of Hoyle's Games and the manufacture of high-quality card games and indoor games. John Jaques II had a specific talent for identifying games with popular potential and producing them to a commercial standard.

In 1851, Jaques of London began manufacturing and selling croquet sets, the first commercially produced, standardised sets available to the public. This was not simply a manufacturing decision. It was a codification decision. By producing sets with specific mallets, specific balls, and specific hoops, Jaques established de facto specifications for the game. When you bought a Jaques croquet set, you knew what the equipment would be. When two people who had each bought a Jaques set played each other, they were playing the same game.

In 1857, John Jaques II went further, publishing Croquet: The Laws and Regulations of the Game, the first published rulebook for croquet in the English language. This single document standardised not just the equipment but the play: the sequence of hoops, the roquet rules, the scoring, and the court layout. The croquet that is played in back gardens across the UK today follows rules that are directly traceable to this 1857 publication.

The Victorian Croquet Craze: 1860s to 1880s

The speed with which croquet became fashionable in Victorian England was extraordinary. From its commercial introduction in 1851, it took less than a decade to become one of the most widely played outdoor games in the country. By the mid-1860s it was being played on the lawns of country houses, vicarages, and middle-class suburban gardens across England. Croquet sets were selling in their thousands. Croquet manuals were being published by multiple authors. Croquet clubs were forming in every county.

The sociological reasons for this remarkable adoption are almost as interesting as the game itself. Victorian England had a very limited repertoire of outdoor activities that men and women could participate in together in mixed social company. Croquet was one of the first. Unlike hunting, shooting, and most other outdoor pursuits of the period, croquet placed men and women on exactly equal terms, the same equipment, the same rules, the same competitive framework. This made it not just a game but a social institution. The croquet lawn became one of the primary arenas of Victorian courtship and mixed-company social interaction.

The cultural significance of this should not be underestimated. Jane Austen's characters walk in gardens and take the air. Trollope's characters play croquet. This is not incidental. Croquet had genuinely changed what a garden was for and who could be in it together.

The All England Croquet Club and Wimbledon

In 1868, the All England Croquet Club was founded at Wimbledon, with Jaques of London as its official equipment supplier. The Club provided a formal institutional home for competitive croquet and, working with Jaques, moved to standardise the rules and equipment specifications that the various regional variations had blurred since 1857. The relationship between Jaques and the All England Club was collaborative: Jaques provided equipment knowledge and manufacturing expertise; the Club provided the competitive framework and the authority to enforce standards.

This standardisation produced the equipment specifications that persist today: the ball weight of approximately sixteen ounces, the hoop width allowing approximately six millimetres of clearance on each side of the ball, the mallet dimensions. These numbers were arrived at through practical competitive experience in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and they have not been meaningfully changed since. When Jaques of London manufactures a competition croquet set today, it is built to specifications established at Wimbledon in collaboration with the All England Club more than 150 years ago.

Nine years after the All England Croquet Club was founded, lawn tennis arrived. In 1877, the Club hosted the first lawn tennis tournament, the event that would become Wimbledon. By 1882, tennis had so dominated the Club's activities that the word "Croquet" was dropped from its name. The Club became the All England Lawn Tennis Club. In 1899, however, croquet was readmitted and the Club's full name became, and remains, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Croquet had outlasted the fashion for its own removal.

Croquet Beyond Britain: The Imperial Export

Croquet followed the British Empire. Wherever British administrators, military officers, and settlers established themselves in the second half of the nineteenth century, croquet lawns followed. India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, the West Indies, all developed active croquet traditions in the colonial period, most of them using Jaques of London equipment. The game was particularly well suited to colonial social life for exactly the same reasons it had worked in Victorian England: it was a formal outdoor game that could be played by men and women together in mixed company, that required a maintained lawn (a status symbol in any climate), and that provided a structured social activity for communities with limited leisure options.

Australia and New Zealand in particular developed competitive croquet traditions that persist to this day. Both countries have national croquet associations, active club networks, and international competitive programmes. New Zealand has been particularly competitive at world championship level, with New Zealand players winning multiple World Croquet Federation titles. The game that John Jaques II standardised in London in 1857 is now a genuinely global sport.

The Croquet Association and the Competitive Game

The Croquet Association, originally the United All England Croquet Association, was founded in 1896, providing the national governing body that the sport had lacked during its first four decades of organised competition. The Association adopted the equipment standards established through the Jaques and All England Club collaboration, and these remain the basis of the Association's equipment specifications today.

The Association oversees both Association Croquet (the full competitive form with roquet rules and the complete strategic game) and Golf Croquet (a simpler, faster version developed in the twentieth century that has become the more widely played form internationally). Jaques of London is the recommended equipment supplier for both forms, supplying clubs, national associations, and international competitions.

The World Croquet Federation, established in 1989, now coordinates international competition across more than twenty member nations. The World Championship, held annually, draws competitors from every continent. The equipment used at international level meets the specifications established at Wimbledon in the 1860s, manufactured today to the same standards by Jaques of London.

Croquet in the Modern Era: Garden Game and Competitive Sport

Croquet occupies an unusual position in the modern sporting landscape. It is simultaneously one of the most traditional British garden games, played at fetes, country houses, and suburban garden parties, and a genuinely competitive international sport with a formal world championship. Most sports exist at one end of this spectrum. Very few manage to occupy both ends simultaneously.

The garden party version and the competitive version share their equipment specifications and their fundamental rules, which is part of what makes croquet so unusual. A family playing in a back garden with a Jaques set is playing a game whose basic structure, equipment, and objectives are identical to those used at world championship level. The skill gap between garden players and competitive players is enormous; the game itself is the same.

This continuity is something Jaques of London has actively maintained for 170 years. The company has not simplified the game for a mass market or produced budget versions with compromised tolerances. The garden sets and the competition sets differ in the grade of materials and the precision of manufacture, not in the specifications they are built to. When a family buys a Jaques croquet set today, they are buying the same game that won the All England Club championship in 1874.

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  1851: First commercial saleJohn Jaques II of Jaques of London begins manufacturing and selling the first commercially standardised croquet sets, establishing the equipment that would define the game.
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  1857: First rulebookJaques publishes Croquet: The Laws and Regulations of the Game, the first standardised rules for croquet in the English language, directly ancestral to the rules played today.
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  1868: The All England ClubThe All England Croquet Club is founded at Wimbledon with Jaques as official supplier. Working with the Club, Jaques establishes the equipment specifications that become the competitive standard and remain in use today.
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  1989: World Croquet FederationThe World Croquet Federation is established, coordinating international competition across more than twenty member nations. Competition equipment meets the specifications established by Jaques and the All England Club over a century earlier.

Frequently Asked Questions About the History of Croquet

Who invented croquet?

Croquet was first manufactured commercially and standardised as a formal game by John Jaques II of Jaques of London in 1851. He published the first rulebook, Croquet: The Laws and Regulations of the Game, in 1857. While informal antecedent games existed in Ireland and possibly France before this date, the modern standardised game of croquet is directly traceable to Jaques of London. The company remains the official recommended equipment supplier of the Croquet Association today.

When was croquet invented?

The first commercially manufactured, standardised croquet sets were produced by Jaques of London in 1851. The first published rules appeared in 1857. The All England Croquet Club, which established the competitive standards that persist today, was founded in 1868 with Jaques as its official supplier.

Where was croquet invented?

Croquet was first commercialised and standardised in London by Jaques of London. Informal antecedent games were played in Ireland in the 1830s and 1840s, and the game arrived in England through Anglo-Irish social connections in the late 1840s. The standardised, commercially manufactured game that spread around the world originated with Jaques of London in London in 1851.

Why was croquet so popular in Victorian England?

Croquet became fashionable in Victorian England with extraordinary speed because it was one of the first outdoor games that men and women could play together in mixed social company, on equal terms, with the same rules and equipment. This made it a social institution as much as a sport, and the croquet lawn became one of the primary arenas of Victorian mixed-company social life.

Is croquet still played competitively?

Yes. The Croquet Association governs competitive play in the UK, and the World Croquet Federation coordinates international competition across more than twenty member nations. The World Championship is held annually. Competition equipment meets the specifications established by Jaques of London and the All England Club in the 1860s.

What is the connection between croquet and Wimbledon?

The All England Croquet Club was founded at Wimbledon in 1868 with Jaques of London as official equipment supplier. In 1877, the Club hosted the first lawn tennis tournament. By 1882, tennis had so dominated the Club's activities that "Croquet" was dropped from its name. In 1899, croquet was readmitted and the Club's full name became, and remains, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.