Here are the games that we at Masters Traditional Games regard as 'Victorian' in the sense that they were either popular during the late 1800s or were invented during the Victorian era.
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Some board and table games that children played during the Victorian era were already centuries old. Examples of some of these old favourites included Draughts / Checkers, Chess, Dominoes and Backgammon. But hundreds of new board games were invented in the 1800s, and they taught children about geography, science, or history. Others taught children values such as good behaviour and hard work. Some classic games that were part of this golden era for parlour games invention were Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Happy Families, Halma, Squails and magnetic fishing.
First game that we are going to talk about is Lawn Tennis. Lawn Tennis was first invented in 1874. Tennis was one of the most enjoyed sports in the Victorian Era, although tennis can be traced to fourteenth century France. The game was played in nineteenth century United States, but it was invented in England. Victorian for Kids (bbc) The Victorians - Games. Mind your manners - the Victorian Period. Travel back to the Victorian era 1900. A Victorian Room (flash) Design a Room - Victorian. Children in Victorian Britain. Dressing Up Victorians. Design a Garden - Victorian. A Victorian Street - what doesn't belong? Toss it in the time tunnel.
Spillikins
We know this game today as 'Pick-up Sticks'. It was a very popular Table Game during the Victorian era. Players used a pile of wood splinters or straws, while today's versions of the game use wooden or plastic sticks. There were also very fancy sets that used 'straws' made of ivory. The sticks were dropped in the middle of a table and each player took a turn removing a stick from the pile, while not moving any other stick. Jackstraws is a modern version of this game.
Marbles
Games In The Victorian Era Full
The most common marble game played was called 'Ring Taw'. It's the same game that children play today. A circle is made from string, or drawn on the ground with chalk, or in the dirt. The marbles that were placed inside the circle were called, nibs'. The players crouched outside the ring, and each took a turn flicking a large marble, called 'the shooter', into the circle. The goal was to knock other marbles out of the circle, and each player got to keep the marbles that he/she knocked out. The winner was naturally the player with the most marbles.
Tiddleywinks (invented in these times)
While most everyone has certainly heard of 'Tiddly Winks', few people really know how this game was actually played. Players used a disk called a 'shooter' to flip smaller disks, called 'winks', into a cup that sat in the middle of the playing area or table. The aim of the game was to be the first player to sink all of his/her 'winks' into the cup. During the Victorian era, the game was taken quite seriously, and players practiced intensely during their spare time.
Toys And Games In The Victorian Era
For completeness Billiards, Snooker, Rounders, Football (soccer), Croquet, Tennis were all codified in England in the late 19th century although some of these games had been played for centuries in a less formalised form prior to that.
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The Compendium
During the Victorian era a variety of games both old and new were manufactured to satisfy the needs of a society experiencing a new culture of leisure. Of particular popularity at this time were game compendiums - collections of games suitable to play with a wide variety of company housed in a container made of fine wood. Freeman 's is pleased to be offering a late Victorian games compendium in its upcoming auction English & Continental Furniture and Decorative Arts, to be held October 6, 2015. The games contained in its finely grained oak case speak to both popular activities of the time as well as changes in social mores. Included within the box are a wide variety of game pieces, three decks of playing cards, and a painted metal set of jockey mounted horses used for a horse racing game played on one side of a threefold leather board also tooled with playing surfaces for checkers, chess and backgammon. Of particular charm are a set of leather Whist and Bezique markers used to play two of the most popular card games in the Victorian era. A predecessor of Bridge, Whist first became popular in the 18th century when it was played as a form of gambling in gaming clubs and coffee houses. In the 19th century however attitudes toward gambling became more conservative and Whist became fashionable as a casual after dinner game played by the middle and upper classes. Bezique also enjoyed great popularity enduring into the early 20th century. By this time it had unfortunately become regarded somewhat symbolically as another form of leisure enjoyed by the increasingly out of touch members of the aristocracy; tellingly, it was recorded in the Tsarita 's diary as the last game played by Nicholas II and Alexandra on the night before the Romanovs were executed.Another intriguing feature of the box is the lower front compartment; when the right portion of the front is pushed, the mirror backed cover swivels into the box to reveal a semi-circular tray on which stands ebonized and died boxwood chess pieces. Despite its long history as a social and intellectual pastime, the first chess club was not formed in England until 1810. The Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 brought further advances to the game; at the time chess was played by different rules throughout Europe, and the great conference of minds stimulated by the exhibition also gave cause to the standardization of the game 's rules, a charge led by Howard Staunton, chess columnist for the Illustrated London News, in collaboration with a host of top players from around the world. Of final note is the horse racing game included in the compendium. An innocent and simple game not typically associated with betting, it ironically speaks to a dichotomy in socially prescribed beliefs and practical reality at the time. Despite the Victorians largely derogatory view towards gambling as a social ill, the popularity of horse racing led to the establishment of the first major commercialized gambling industry in England in the 19th century. Correspondingly a large number of professional bookmakers, newspaper analysts of the sport and for profit tipsters developed, the latter of which sold calculations on the horses ' odds, an important aspect of betting that lent an intellectual credence to an otherwise distasteful pastime.This Victorian games compendium, manufactured by the Chad Valley Company circa 1885, will be offered in our October 6 auction English & Continental Furniture & Decorative Arts.View the October 6 English & Continental Furniture & Decorative Artsauction catalogue