How Jaques of London Invented the Games That Built British Childhood

If you have ever played croquet on a British lawn, moved a chess piece with a horse's head on it, or watched a family push pieces around a Ludo board, you have interacted with the work of one company: Jaques of London. Founded in 1795, Jaques is the oldest games and toys manufacturer in the world, and the company responsible for three of the most significant introductions to British game culture in the nineteenth century. This is the story of how a single London family business invented, standardised, and introduced the games that have been at the centre of British childhood and family life for over a century.

The Company Behind the Games

Jaques of London was founded in 1795 by John Jaques I, a manufacturer of ivory, bone, and wood products in Hatton Garden, London. The company was already well established before any of its most famous contributions to British game culture. By the time John Jaques I handed the business to his son John Jaques II in the 1840s, the company was one of the most respected manufacturers of games equipment in England, known for the quality of its materials and the precision of its workmanship.

It was under John Jaques II that the three contributions that define the company's legacy were made in rapid succession: the Staunton chess piece in 1849, the commercial introduction of croquet in 1851, and eventually the introduction of Ludo to the British market in 1896. Each of these represented not just a manufacturing decision but an act of standardisation, the creation of a definitive version of a game that became the version that British families played, clubs competed with, and international bodies eventually formalised.

Chess: The Staunton Piece That Changed the Game Forever

In 1849, Jaques of London brought to market a new chess piece design that would transform competitive chess. The set was designed by Nathaniel Cook, manufactured by Jaques, and endorsed by Howard Staunton, the leading English chess player of the era and widely regarded as the world's strongest player in the 1840s. The design was named the Staunton set in Staunton's honour.

Before the Staunton piece, chess was played with a bewildering variety of piece designs. Every country, region, and manufacturer had their own version. When players from different backgrounds met to compete, identifying which piece was which required negotiation. Teaching the game required learning multiple symbolic systems. The lack of a universal standard was a genuine barrier to the development of chess as an international sport.

The Staunton design solved this with a specific visual logic. Each piece communicates its identity and relative power through its profile. The king is the tallest, with a distinctive crown. The queen bears a globe. The bishop has its notched mitre. The rook reads as a castle tower. The knight remains a horse head. The pawn is the smallest, uniformly subordinate. This hierarchy is legible to a new player at a glance, the design teaches the game's power structure without a word being spoken.

The adoption was rapid. Within two decades of its introduction by Jaques, the Staunton design was the accepted standard for serious competitive chess across Europe. The World Chess Federation, FIDE, eventually codified it as the official tournament standard. Every World Chess Championship in the modern era, Fischer vs Spassky, Kasparov vs Karpov, every title match to the present day, has been played with the Staunton design. The pieces on a Jaques chess set today are in direct lineage from the design created in 1849. Shop Chess Sets

Croquet: The Game Jaques Invented in 1851

While informal precursor games had been played on Irish country house lawns in the 1830s and 1840s, the standardised, commercially available game of croquet was the creation of Jaques of London. In 1851, two years after the Staunton chess piece, and notably the same year as the Great Exhibition, Jaques began manufacturing and selling the first commercially produced, standardised croquet sets.

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

The game swept Victorian England with extraordinary speed. Within a decade of its commercial introduction, it was being played on the lawns of country houses, vicarages, and suburban gardens across the country. Croquet clubs were forming in every county. The All England Croquet Club was founded at Wimbledon in 1868, with Jaques of London as its official equipment supplier, a relationship that continues today, 160 years later. Jaques remains the recommended supplier of the Croquet Association.

The sociological significance of croquet in Victorian Britain is worth noting. It was one of the first outdoor activities that men and women could play together in mixed social company, on entirely equal terms. The croquet lawn became one of the primary arenas of Victorian social life and courtship. A game invented by a London manufacturer in 1851 became a social institution within a decade. Shop Croquet Sets

Ludo: Britain's Best-Loved Family Game

The third of Jaques's great introductions came in 1896, when the company adapted the ancient Indian game of Pachisi for the British market and registered it as Ludo, from the Latin "I play." Pachisi had been played in India since at least the sixth century AD, and had reached Britain through colonial connections in the nineteenth century. But the informal versions being played in British homes were complex, inconsistent, and inaccessible to players without prior knowledge of the Indian game.

The Jaques adaptation stripped out the complexity that limited Pachisi's accessibility. A standard dice replaced the cowrie shells. A compact square board replaced the cloth cross. The rules were simplified to produce a game that could be learned in minutes and played competitively by children from around five years old alongside adults. The name Ludo, chosen to signal both the game's playful character and its Latin cultural roots, became the name by which it has been known in Britain ever since.

Within years of its introduction, Ludo was one of the most widely played family board games in Britain. It has remained so continuously for over 130 years, through two world wars, multiple recessions, the advent of television, video games, and the internet. The specific game design qualities that made it work in 1896, accessible rules, unpredictable results, genuine multi-age appeal, a clear endpoint, are unchanged. The game Jaques introduced in 1896 is the game British families play today. Shop Traditional Games

Why This Heritage Matters in 2026

The heritage of Jaques of London is not primarily a marketing story. It is a quality argument. A company that invented or standardised the games that have been played in British family homes for over a century has demonstrated, at a scale and over a duration that no research study can replicate, that these games genuinely work. They work for adults and children together. They work across generations. They work in gardens, in living rooms, and on kitchen tables. They produce the shared competitive engagement, the face-to-face presence, and the screen-free social experience that families are increasingly seeking in 2026.

The screen-free movement of 2026 has arrived at the conclusion that the things Jaques has always made are the things families most need. That conclusion did not require any innovation on Jaques's part. The company simply kept making the same things it has always made, because they have always been the right things to make.

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  Chess: the Staunton design since 1849The international competition standard for 175 years. Every World Chess Championship has been played with Staunton-design pieces. The set you buy from Jaques today is in direct lineage from the pieces that changed chess forever. Shop Chess Sets
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  Croquet: invented by Jaques in 1851The game that brought Victorian families outside together. Official supplier to the Croquet Association since 1868. Equipment specifications unchanged in 160 years. Still the best outdoor family game ever made. Shop Croquet Sets
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  Ludo: introduced to Britain by Jaques in 1896130 years on British kitchen tables. Still the most accessible multigenerational family game available. The specific design decisions Jaques made in 1896 are exactly why it still works today. Shop Traditional Games

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented croquet?

Croquet was first manufactured commercially and standardised as a formal game by Jaques of London in 1851. John Jaques II published the first rulebook, Croquet: The Laws and Regulations of the Game, in 1857. Jaques of London is the official recommended equipment supplier of the Croquet Association and has been since the All England Croquet Club was founded at Wimbledon in 1868.

Who designed the Staunton chess piece?

The Staunton chess piece was designed by Nathaniel Cook, manufactured by Jaques of London, and endorsed by Howard Staunton. It was first brought to market in 1849 and has been the international competition standard ever since. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, specifies the Staunton design as the required standard for all officially sanctioned competitions.

Who introduced Ludo to Britain?

Jaques of London adapted the ancient Indian game of Pachisi for the British market and patented it as Ludo in 1896. The adaptation simplified the game significantly to make it accessible to all ages, and the result became one of the most widely played family board games in Britain, a position it has held continuously for over 130 years.

How old is Jaques of London?

Jaques of London was founded in 1795, making it 230 years old and the oldest surviving sports and games manufacturer in the world. The company has been making wooden toys, outdoor games, and traditional strategy games continuously throughout, outlasting every competitor that existed when it was founded by more than a century.