History of the Game Croquet

Croquet is both a serious, competitive game and a family-friendly game, played using mallets and balls. Using the mallets, players hit balls through hoops pressed into a lawn into an intricate pattern. The game may well be several centuries old, although there are conflicting stories as to the origin of the game.

  1. Origins

    • Toy Crossing dates croquet back to the 1300s in France. It's been linked with a French game call Pall Mall, which means ball-mallet. In the 1600s, Scotland picked up the game from France, one of their strongest allies. Toy Crossing says that when Scotland and England were united under the crown in 1604, it became a popular English game as well. Houston Croquet says that early on it was a very popular game for women.

    1800s

    • Houston Croquet says that Ireland actually brought the game to England in 1851 through a woman named Miss MacNaughten, who spotted peasants playing the game in France. She then passed it on to Ireland, and it eventually trickled into England. The 1860s saw a boom in croquet popularity due to garden parties and croquet clubs sprouting up throughout England. By the late 1800s, the game had spread to the United States.

    1900s

    • In 1900, croquet was introduced as an Olympic sport. By the mid-1950s it was a popular suburban lawn game in the U.S. A few years later, America saw a croquet boom similar to that of England's a century earlier, with croquet clubs opening throughout the country.