Darts in England, 1900–39: A social history 9781526129765

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STUDIES IN

POPULAR CULTURE

Darts in England, 1900–39

A social history PAT R I C K C H A P L I N

Darts in England, 1900–39

STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE General editor: Professor Jeffrey Richards

Darts in England, 1900–39 A social history

PATRICK CHAPLIN

Manchester University Press Manchester

Copyright © Patrick Chaplin 2009 The right of Patrick Chaplin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press

Altrincham Street, Manchester m1 7ja, Uk www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available ISBN 978 0 7190 8904 6 paperback First published by Manchester University Press in hardback 2009 This paperback edition first published 2012 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE There has in recent years been an explosion of interest in culture and cultural studies. The impetus has come from two directions and out of two different traditions. On the one hand, cultural history has grown out of social history to become a distinct and identifiable school of historical investigation. On the other hand, cultural studies has grown out of English literature and has concerned itself to a large extent with contemporary issues. Neverthe less, there is a shared project, its aim, to elucidate the meanings and values implicit and explicit in the art, literature, learning, institutions and everyday behaviour within a given society. Both the cultural historian and the cultural studies scholar seek to explore the ways in which a culture is imagined, represented and received, how it interacts with social processes, how it contributes to individual and collective identities and world views, to stability and change, to social, political and economic activities and programmes. This series aims to provide an arena for the cross-fertilisation of the discipline, so that the work of the cultural historian can take advantage of the most useful and illuminating of the theoretical developments and the cultural studies scholars can extend the purely historical underpinnings of their investigations. The ultimate objective of the series is to provide a range of books which will explain in a readable and accessible way where we are now socially and culturally and how we got to where we are. This should enable people to be better informed, promote an interdisciplinary approach to cultural issues and encourage deeper thought about the issues, attitudes and institutions of popular culture. Jeffrey Richards

To the memory of my mother, Joyce Chaplin, and to my father, Albert, and my wife, Maureen

Contents

List of illustrations General editor’s foreword Acknowledgements 1 Introduction

page ix xi xii 1

2 The origins of darts

37

3 The game of darts in England, 1900–18

51

4 Darts, brewery leagues and the improved public house, 1900–39

75

5 The organisation and standardisation of darts in the inter-war years

103

6 The darts industry from the late nineteenth century to 1939

137

7 The darts craze of the 1930s

169

8 Conclusion

217

Appendix A: The declared aims of the National Darts Association 227 Appendix B: Official National Darts Association rules

228

Bibliography

230

Index

255

List of illustrations

1 Darts, by Rupert Croft-Cooke (1936), the first book to be published focusing solely on the game page 18 2 Victorian boys playing puff-and-dart (Rev. J. G. Wood, ed., The Boys’ Modern Playmate, London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1895, p. 165. Copyright holder not traceable) 43 3 ‘The little more, and how much it is!’ (reproduced by permission of Punch Ltd) 64 4 Announcement of the first Barclay’s Darts League, The Anchor Magazine, December 1924 (reproduced by permission of Scottish & Newcastle PLC) 87 5 The ‘clock dartboard, selected as standard by the National Darts Association in 1925 (reproduced by permission of Nodor International Ltd) 111 6 Members of the National Darts Association at a promotional event, 1927 (reproduced by permission of Scottish & Newcastle Ltd) 118 7 Thomas Buckle, wireworker, of Dewsbury and Leeds, c. 1915 (donated to author’s collection by Thomas Buckle, Jnr. Copyright holder not traceable) 144 8 Advertisement for the Nodor Patent Dart Board, 1925 (reproduced by permission of Nodor International Ltd) 151 9 Examples of darts available from Kent & Cleal’s Wholesale and Shipping Catalogue of Indoor Games, List No. 6, 1929/30 (copyright holder not traceable) 152 10 Jack Hood supervising dartboard production at his Devons Road factory, London E 3, c. 1935 (reproduced by kind permission of Sally Garner, granddaughter of Jack Hood) 155 11 Sheet music of ‘The Dart Song’, 1937 (George Cooper, London. Copyright holder not traceable) 172

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List of illustrations

12 Charlie Bowley of the Shakespeare’s Head, Finsbury, London, winner of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, 1929/30 (image donated to author’s private collection by the Bowley family) 13 The Duke of Kent is made the hundred thousandth member of the £oyal Society of Dartsmen (£ s. d.) in November 1938 (reproduced by permission of the Royal Free Archive Centre) 14 ‘Darts’ cigarettes, introduced by Gallaher Ltd, in May 1939 (reproduced by kind permission of Gallaher Ltd, a JTI company) 15 ‘A tyro who insists on playing with the yokels must expect to be regarded as fair game’ (Ralph Wotherspoon and L. N. Jackson, Some Sports and Pastimes of the English, London: Herbert Jenkins, n.d. but c. 1937. Copyright holder Alison Fuller not traceable)

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General editor’s foreword

It has long been recognised that the public house was and is one of the principal centres of working-class leisure. But until now the study of pub games and pub sports has been comparatively neglected. Patrick Chaplin’s book is the first serious study of the sport of darts and the first systematic assessment of its social and cultural role in English society in the first half of the twentieth century. The history of darts is a subject that has been mired in myth and misconception and reported on in largely anecdotal terms. With his extensive primary research in the national, local, sports and trade press and in the archives of the brewery companies, and with the judicious use of oral interviews, Chaplin establishes an accurate and authoritative account of the origins, growth and development of the sport. He convincingly argues that darts was deliberately encouraged by the brewers and publicans as a way of increasing the attraction of the pub as it came under threat from the competition of music halls, cinemas and dance halls. The development of darts was encouraged by sponsorship from newspapers with a large working-class readership, particularly the News of the World. The sport was also organised, codified and standardised, as Chaplin demonstrates, by the National Darts Association, established in 1925. Chaplin rightly stresses, however, that darts was not something imposed on pubs from above; it was enthusiastically embraced by pub patrons, who valued it for the skill it entailed, the competition it engendered, the gambling it facilitated and the camaraderie it promoted. By the 1930s it had even become a ‘craze’, with the trade journal The Brewer and Wine Merchant reporting in 1939 that darts had become ‘the most popular game in Great Britain’. This book has undoubtedly been a labour of love, assiduously researched and evocatively written. It fills a major gap in the scholarly literature and will remain definitive for the foreseeable future. Jeffrey Richards

Acknowledgements

This book represents the end of a very, very long journey, and no journey of any great length can possibly be completed without the help and guidance of friends, family and others along the way. Of those who have supported and encouraged me I particularly thank Val Hoines, Claire Thrower, Lynda and Colin Barrell, Dave Bevan, Sue Chalmers and John Everard, Glen Huff, Chris Lewis and Stephen P. Nunn, who uttered all the right words of advice, comfort and/or encouragement at the right times (or proffered the correct alcoholic beverage) that regularly pulled me out of my vat of despair and sent me back to my research and moving on, albeit very slowly, towards completion of my Ph.D., from which this book has emerged. Regular bouts of tea and sympathy with my father, Albert Chaplin, also helped me remain focused throughout. To my Ph.D. supervisory team at the Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cambridge, Dr Rohan McWilliam (Director of Studies) and Professor John Shepherd (Second Supervisor), I offer my sincere thanks for the way they led me through the Ph.D. process, for their enthusiastic support, their invaluable encouragement and advice, their expertise, their friendship and for being – probably – the very best and most tolerant supervisors any parttime postgraduate student in full-time employment with more personal dilemmas than one can imagine could have ever have possibly hoped for. I also thank them for their continued support, guidance and advice as the book took shape. To my Ph.D. external examiners, Professor Keith Laybourn (University of Huddersfield) and Professor Chris Wrigley (University of Nottingham), I offer my sincere thanks for, among other things, actively encouraging me to have the results of my research published. To the staff of libraries and numerous record offices across the country I proffer my deepest thanks for their forbearance and diligence in

Acknowledgements

responding to my hundreds of enquiries by letter, e-mail and phone or in person. In particular my thanks go to all the staff at the Cambridge University Library, the British Library (Newspaper Library) at Colindale, the London Metropolitan Archive, the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, and the Royal Free Hospital Archive, Hampstead. My thanks too to Dr Kelly Boyd and Dr Janet Shepherd and to colleagues in the British Society of Sports History (BSSH), especially Dr Simon Phillips, Dr Tony Collins, Dr Martin Johnes and Professor Richard W. Cox, for encouragement and advice and to the BSSH for allowing me to present some of my research findings at the Associations 2005 conference at the University of Glamorgan. Also in 2005 Professor Nicholas Goddard of the ARU offered me the opportunity to share my knowledge of darts in the context of sports geography to a class of unsuspecting undergraduates, something which gave me more satisfaction than I ever imagined. Tanks too to Tony Wood, editor of Darts World magazine, and to Steve Williams, editor of the Pub History Society Newsletter and Pub History – The Journal of the Pub History Society, for publishing my occasional revelations on darts and pub culture. Much of the information in this book would not have been recovered had it not been for the oral testimony of, among others, John Ross (President of the National Darts Association of Great Britain and organiser and promoter of darts), Ernest Deverell (a 1920s salesman for Thomas Salter & Co.), Frank Wolfe (editor of the 1940s darts newspaper The Dart), Amelia Leggatt (daughter of the founder of the Nodor darts manufacturing company) and Sally Hood (daughter of Jack Hood, darts and dartboard manufacturer). It was the late John Ross, a man who devoted his life to darts, who during an interview in 1988 told me simply that ‘Darts needs someone like you.’ Unbeknown to John those words set me off on my journey. (He died a few months later.) I also owe debts of gratitude to Ray Farleigh of the Brewery History Society and to author and pub games expert Arthur R. Taylor. I thank all those at Manchester University Press for having the foresight and, dare I say it, the courage to publish the first academic work on the social history of darts. My thanks go to the commissioning editor, Anthony Mason, and his colleagues Emma Brennan and Deborah Smith, and particularly to the series editor, Professor Jeffrey Richards. Finally, my wife Maureen has endured my research and its disruption of our lives for over a third of our married life. She has been a tower of strength (and more), especially at those times in the construction of the original thesis when nothing seemed to go right, which was quite often,

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Acknowledgements

and then during the preparation of this book. How Maureen has coped with it and me is beyond my comprehension. How I have coped has been primarily down to her love, support and encouragement. Without her my Ph.D. would not have been completed and this book would never have seen the light of day. P.C.

Introduction

Tonight is Darts Night. All over the country hundreds of thousands of players – 300,000 is the approximate figure – will toe the line and hurl their darts in a wonderful variety of expert styles.1

I

n February 1937 the Daily Herald revealed that there were more than 3,000 darts clubs and over 100 darts leagues in Britain and that the game was played by rich and poor alike, from diplomats and financiers to drivers of brewers’ drays.2 In June 1937 the Radio Times reported that when the National Darts Association (NDA) was formed in 1924 there were only eight leagues in existence but that now there were nearly 200 leagues affiliated to the NDA alone, with more than a quarter of a million players registered with the Association. Those playing darts ‘unofficially’ were estimated to ‘run into millions’.3 This level of enthusiasm for darts, particularly among the working class, was reflected in the response to the 1938/39 News of the World Individual Darts Championship, where between 250,000 and 257,000 darts enthusiasts from pubs and clubs across England and Wales competed for places in the finals of the newspaper’s six regional darts competitions.4 In 1939 over 16,000 spectators witnessed the London and South of England Regional Final of the News of the World competition at the Royal Agricultural Hall, London, between Jim Pike (playing out of the Windmill Club in Southwark) and Marmaduke Breckon (representing the Jolly Sailor, Hanworth, Middlesex).5 But the attraction of darts was not experienced only by the working class, where it was situated in the masculine environment of the public bar, bar parlour or vault of the English public house. By the late 1930s the game had, according to one contemporary, ‘invaded Mayfair’ and neither village inn nor modern roadhouse, ‘nor sports pavilion, nor … the most exclusive of clubs and ships at sea was complete without a dartboard’.6 Elite

2

Darts in England

interest in darts was a recent development. A. P. Herbert, MP, journalist and supporter of pub games (especially skittles), wrote of ‘Dart-boards … hanging on walls in Belgravia,’ with ‘the sons of dukes … not ashamed to throw a pretty dart at the pub.’ Popularity among the upper classes received a boost when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth played a game of darts at a community centre in Slough in December 1937.7 Darts was ‘the pastime of Kings, Cabinet Ministers, novelists, stage, screen and sports stars’ and, according to one (admittedly biased) source, had become ‘the most popular game in Great Britain’.8 Despite such exaggeration, darts had become one of the most popular pastimes in England and it did appear that by the late 1930s the country was enjoying a darts ‘craze’. Yet at the turn of the twentieth century the subculture of darts barely existed. This book is a study of darts as a leisure form, of its rise in popularity as part of the expansion of mass leisure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of its relationship to English society. It is the first academic study of darts (or any other pub game) and to a large extent the first detailed study of any kind devoted to the game. Its purpose is not only to recover and chronicle the emergence of darts in the early twentieth century but also to explore its significance as a key element of the popular culture of the period. Whilst, at first, darts may appear a trivial subject, this work argues for its importance in the history of leisure and hence aims to contribute to the social history of twentieth-century Britain. However, the focus of the book is on England rather than Britain as a whole. This is because, during the greater part of the inter-war period, darts was essentially an English public house game and was rarely found in Wales or Scotland. Modern, organised darts had its roots in London and the southeast and it was not until its popularity spread during the mid-1950s that Wales and Scotland began to engage with the game. It should be said that darts was also an international phenomenon. Various forms of darts were being played in other countries, including France, Belgium, Australia and the United States in the early twentieth century. However, these were often not quite the same as English darts, as they were versions of existing folk games which involved throwing projectiles or employed darts as a toy (relegating it to the level of a children’s game). However, as we shall see, the French target game of flechettes would have a major influence on the early development of the modern game of darts in England. The main, but not exclusive, emphasis of the book is on organised and semi-organised forms of darts rather than casual darts played in the home, the youth club or other sites of recreation.

Introduction

Research issues The purpose of this book is to identify and assess the forces which governed the development of darts and transformed it from a casual pub game at the turn of the twentieth century into a popular, codified and, to some extent, cross-class recreation by the mid-1950s. There is no escaping the fact that darts was primarily a working-class pursuit in the inter-war years (despite the elite interest that will be further discussed in Chapter 7) and any exploration of darts requires considerable discussion of the most important site of working-class leisure, the pub. Although throughout the period 1918 to 1939 the English public house remained the centre of working-class life, the expansion, development and improvement of existing leisure forms and the introduction of new ones, such as the cinema, dance halls and gate-money sports, presented the working class with a greater number of options on which to spend their disposable income and increased leisure time. Darts needs to be viewed in the context of this expansion and commercialisation of mass leisure during the inter-war period. This book will argue that one reason for the development of darts was the concern of the drink interest (in the form of brewers and publicans) about the widening range of leisure choices available to working-class people. Darts therefore needs to be seen in the context of attempts to improve the pub in the inter-war period as a way of competing with other attractions. The improved range of leisure choices led to a necessary change in the form and nature of the English public house and particularly in the strategy of the brewers as the drink interest attempted to defend its businesses from the economic impact of alternative social diversions. At the same time the drink interest was not just having to deal with commercial pressures. Brewers and licensees continued to deal with threats from temperance organisations, allegedly biased licensing benches and the forces of law and order. Darts offered an opportunity to make the pub appear more respectable. A key element of brewers’ inter-war strategy was societal and structural change through the reconstruction of a large number of existing pubs and the construction of new, cleaner, brighter licensed premises, a scheme generally known as the improved public house movement. The improvement movement shifted the focus from the mere business of drinking alcohol to the provision of food and refreshment, including nonalcoholic beverages, and indoor recreations (all in an improved environment). Darts as an organised pastime was introduced originally by

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Darts in England

brewers in London as part of their armoury against these combined threats, and the strategy was later adopted by brewers in other parts of the country. This work therefore raises issues about the patronage of leisure forms in the twentieth century. There is nothing new about the drink interest as a patron of leisure. What we see in the twentieth century is a continuation of its earlier social role. One form of patronage that helped develop darts was the sponsorship of a number of popular newspapers. The continuing growth of the media, especially popular newspapers, eventually led to the involvement of the News of the World, a newspaper that by the 1920s had built up a huge readership among the working class. Out of an agreement wrought by enthusiasts within the NDA and representatives of the News of the World the Sunday newspaper introduced a London-based individual darts test which by the end of the 1930s had gained sufficient momentum that it was able to embrace most regions of England and Wales. This was a competition which gave the working-class man (and woman) the opportunity to be a national, or, more strictly speaking, a regional, champion. We need to explore how the media in the form of the News of the World, national newspapers, radio and television aided the growth of darts. Without the direct involvement of the popular press it is unlikely that darts would have attained such a high profile as it achieved during the midto-late 1930s. Thus it is necessary to examine how darts was reported. The game’s greatest support came from the Sunday rather than daily newspapers (the News of the World, the People and the Sunday Pictorial). Many working-class people could afford to buy only one newspaper a week, and Sunday provided the leisure time to read it. Therefore the social influence of these newspapers will be examined. Of other media, towards the end of the 1930s, darts was featured on both the wireless and television (which enjoyed only limited existence before the Second World War). However, as will be demonstrated, darts was not simply the product of pressure from elite interests. The success of darts was made by forces as much from below as from above. The original demand in the early 1920s for standardisation of the rules of darts did not come from above (the brewers) but from enthusiasts at local, pub level, the licensees and participants who were faced with different rules and different dartboards and sought clarity from their trade representatives. This research therefore resists some of the conventional approaches in the history of leisure which have focused on issues around social control or the commercialisation of leisure leading to middle-class hegemony. The evidence of darts reveals a more complex social interaction in popular culture.

Introduction

Darts and ‘popular culture’ ‘Popular culture’ is a complex term and presents some difficulties of interpretation. It means the culture of the people, but the term ‘the people’ is vague and thus the definition of popular culture is notoriously difficult.9 It includes working-class culture but also cultural forms that are practised and enjoyed rather more widely. Debate comes over the question of who makes popular culture. Does it emerge from below or is it shaped from above? The Communications Studies scholar John Fiske suggests that popular culture is ‘made by the people’ and is ‘the active process of generating and circulating meanings and pleasures within a social system’. Fiske further argues that popular culture is ‘the culture of the subordinated and disempowered and thus always bears with it signs of power relations, traces of the forces of domination and subordination that are central to our social system and therefore our social experience’.10 The Frankfurt school of the inter-war years (in the form of Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse) had argued that the function of the culture industry was ultimately to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation had organised work time: creating popular (or mass) culture by imposition.11 At first the wider introduction of darts and of organised darts in particular may suggest that darts fits into the arguments about social control so prominent in the historiography of nineteenth-century leisure (see below).12 However, whilst the brewers and licensees intentionally introduced darts as part of a strategy to prevent their existing customers from adopting other leisure pursuits, and to attract new customers to their improved public houses, the participants always had a choice. They did not enter leagues under pressure or duress and were able to play on a casual basis. There were plenty of other versions of the darts game that could be played to local rules and without central regulation or interference. Darts might be seen as a form of ‘soft’ social control (as it was a relatively tame and respectable game) but it was not a mechanism for controlling the working class. Despite moments of social conflict during the inter-war period, this book focuses on one of the small pleasures that nevertheless made a difference in helping people deal with the anxieties of life during the Depression.13 Thus these broadly Marxist approaches that have been used to explain popular culture are limited in their usefulness for understanding the emergence of darts. This book argues that darts emerged not from the elite (as a form of appropriate recreation) but by negotiation between the subordinate and dominant groups, a process often involving both resistance and incorporation. The process of negotiation in relation to darts was

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Darts in England

begun not by the capitalist brewers but from ‘below’ (in the form of publicans and players). This original research therefore describes a complex form of cultural interaction. In order to understand fully the development of any form of mass leisure we need to examine its material base, that is, to establish a business and economic history of the game by looking at the people who manufactured darts, dartboards and ancillary items. As we shall see, there was no darts industry, as such, before 1920, but as the popularity of the game grew, particularly in the London area, small businesses were established by entrepreneurs to meet the increasing demand from pubs, brewers and individuals seeking the equipment for darts play. To understand the development of that industry in the 1920s and 1930s we will examine the original supply of darts equipment and the material forces that led to the creation of an identifiable darts industry. An element often omitted from research into other sports, this book will explain the origins and development of the early darts and dartboard industry and identify links between the entrepreneurs, the brewers, the National Darts Association and the media. It will also show that the French played an important role in the early days in the provision of darts equipment. But what kind of activity is darts? It can be viewed as sport, recreation or a form of adult play. By close examination of darts a variety of social processes can be observed. First and foremost, darts will be shown to be about the nature and associational culture of the English public house. It is therefore necessary to examine the spatial nature of the pub – the pub as a social centre, a constituent part of British drinking culture – and view pubs as gendered spaces with internal divisions and different clienteles. Current research tends towards the view that the pub was very much a ‘masculine republic’ and that the ‘patriarchy’ of the pub was all-embracing, discouraging women from entering the pub and thus having less opportunity to engage in pub games.14 This book examines the gendered nature of the public house and reveals that, within the apparent male exclusivity of areas of those establishments, women were to some extent afforded the opportunity to play, and by the end of the 1930s a number of women’s darts leagues existed. But nothing ever happens openly within the public house without the active participation or approval of the man or woman in direct control of the premises: the landlord or landlady. Surprisingly, little academic research has been undertaken into the role of the publican, which was changing both out of changes wrought by the brewers and through their own initiative. The importance of the publican in encouraging, developing

Introduction

and nurturing darts during the inter-war period cannot be overstated, and this work presents an opportunity to study some aspects of the role of the publican in everyday life. Darts as a pub game The specific context in which darts emerged was that of the pub game. Therefore it is important to consider the functions and status of games played inside public houses in order to clarify how and why darts became the most popular and enduring example of this leisure form. The English public house has always been a social centre, the primary purpose of the landlord/publican/manager being not only to sell victuals but also to ensure that his or her hostelry is a place of relaxation and entertainment. Before the Restoration many games were considered as idle pastimes and banned but subsequently the focus shifted to concentrate on drinking and pub games and other entertainments which were allowed to develop relatively unhindered and thus games became an established part of English pub culture.15 Indeed, music hall developed out of pub-based entertainment in the nineteenth century. Pub games were routinely casual yet have contributed to the development of what today are major sports, such as football, cricket and boxing. To some extent childish in nature, these games were suited to the customer base, being easy to learn and requiring minimal outlay for participation. Pub games tended to be unregulated or, if regulated, capable of deregulation, being played for amusement and/or small stakes. This is therefore a study of the English at play. The games played in public houses generate various forms of pleasure, depending on the game that is being played. For example, darts and quoits, which require considerable space, generate both group (teams playing each other), paired (one darts player playing another), individual (one darts player playing alone) and associational pleasures (friends and supporters watching the game) whilst also offering the opportunity of sociability, of making new friends through wider involvement (the process of the ‘open board’, taking chalks and scoring a game in order to play in the next), there being no requirement for an individual to be part of the group before joining in. Darts has endured more than other pub games extant at the beginning of the twentieth century because it is the most sociable and the most adaptable of all. Any opposition from indoor quoits, which was the only real challenger to darts inside the public house in terms of sociability, failed to materialise. Darts was promoted by the NDA as an organised game and

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Darts in England

was attractive to all ages, easy to promote, easy to learn and cheap, as, in most pubs, the equipment was provided free of charge. The game also had the most potential in terms of commercialisation, with its variety of styles of darts and dartboards which could be played anywhere by anyone. In addition, darts was more outwardly competitive than other indoor pub games and was individual, one-against-one or team-oriented (any number) and could be played by anyone regardless of sex, age, colour or creed, be they able-bodied or disabled. Darts, to that extent, has been nondiscriminatory. Surprisingly, there are a number of intellectual aspects of indoor pub games which do not apply to outdoor games previously associated with the public house, such as football and boxing; for example, mental arithmetic. Indeed, there is a sort of irony in the knowledge that a working-class pubgoer could improve his or her education or intellectual capacity whilst playing pub games and, at the same time, imbibing. For example, in order to play cribbage, a player must have knowledge of division in order to calculate the number of points or potential points he or she may be able to score. Darts demands skill (co-ordination of hand and eye to hit the target), concentration (to focus on the game and the board whilst mentally excluding any background sounds or interruptions), mental arithmetic, including subtraction (when chalking to play, or deducting one’s own score whilst playing), addition (when adding up each score whilst chalking or adding up one’s own score whilst playing), multiplication (knowing the values of doubles and trebles of numbers as defined by the double and treble rings on a standard dartboard) and a detailed knowledge of how to end the game on the required double (known colloquially as the ‘finish’) as quickly as possible and in any event quicker than one’s opponent. Thus an extensive number of mental skills are required but it is impossible to say to what extent darts and other more minor public house pastimes helped improve the educational standards of participants. Certainly to be confident in playing darts each player must have basic mathematical ability. If participants want to ‘take chalks’ in order to participate in a game they will be helped by other players and they will gradually learn to score for themselves and pass that knowledge on to others, not only on the dartboard but also elsewhere, for example the home. Darts therefore possessed the intellectual characteristics that, Ross McKibbin has shown, were part of working-class pursuits such as gambling and following the turf.16 Playing darts to a high standard also brings a sense of achievement, and winning, as in other sports, boosts self-confidence, which may then be transferred to other aspects of a player’s life either at work or at home or in

Introduction

other forms of relationship. The camaraderie of darts leads, literally in some cases, to team building, a regular, focused activity where darts can be played at a serious or casual level, depending on whether it is a match night or just a meeting of friends. Pub games aid the cohesiveness of the public house as a social centre, especially for the working class; when a player made it to the finals of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, he – and on all but one occasion during the inter-war years it was ‘he’ – would become an, albeit temporary, celebrity and bring attention and kudos to his local community. But the major difficulty inherent in the study of pub games in general and darts in particular is that so little has been written about such ‘smallscale’ pleasures – those important elements of English popular culture, those everyday activities ‘hobbies and spare-time occupations’ that George Orwell identified in 1941 as being the very essence of Englishness and representative of the ‘privateness of English life’. ‘We are,’ Orwell argued, ‘a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, couponsnippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans.’17 Yet to date such important and universal activities have tended to be overlooked by scholars.18 Furthermore, as Arthur R. Taylor observed in 1992, ‘taproom … conventions have never been properly chronicled’ and therein lies the primary difficulty for anyone setting out to study the place of darts in English social history.19 Whilst it is uncommon for books in this series to include a section on the historiography of leisure, such a section is included here, as this work represents the first academic study of the social history of darts and it is therefore crucial to set the subject clearly in the context of leisure. Readers who do not wish to concern themselves with the historiographical and methodological issues that underpin this unique study may wish to omit the next three sections and move on to Chapter 2. The historiography of leisure In 1979 Alun Howkins and John Lowerson prepared a brief ‘state of the art’ review of the patterns of leisure in Britain between 1919 and 1939 on behalf of the Sports Council and the Social Science Research Council.20 They discovered that relatively little serious work had been undertaken on leisure in the inter-war period, that existing work was ‘quite sparse’ and that ‘the historian of the inter-war period must still rely largely on the intuitive and brilliant, but alas unreferenced, The Long Weekend (1940), which gives so many leads’.21 Howkins and Lowerson declared that the study of leisure and recreation was only then beginning to appear as part of

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Darts in England

the discipline of history and, although most of the research had been concentrated on changes during and immediately after the industrial revolution, ‘the possibilities for research on more recent patterns are considerable, indeed imperative’.22 There are some contemporary works that can be drawn upon. They include the work of sociologists such as C. Delisle Burns, who attempted to analyse ‘certain new tendencies in the actual uses of leisure in what is called the modern world’,23 and Henry Durant, who sought to solve the dilemma ‘Why should the opportunity for the vast majority of people to have time to spend, time to enjoy, time to develop their own private interests, be regarded as a problem, one almost said a danger?’24 Approaching leisure from an anthropologist’s perspective, and based on his exploration of some of ‘the most primitive and uncivilised parts of the world’, Tom Harrisson, in collaboration with the poet Charles Madge, established, organised and led Mass Observation in a detailed study of drinking, focusing primarily on the habits of pubgoers in Bolton between 1937 and 1939.25 This was part of their general attempt, as anthropologists, to evaluate the nature of everyday life. Historical works relating to specific aspects of leisure were few and far between, although John A. R. Pimlott’s seminal study of the seaside, The Englishman’s Holiday, was a notable exception.26 However, at the time of publication the implications of these works were not taken seriously. The reason was primarily the fact that the discipline of social history was only gradually at that time coming into being. In 1957 Richard Hoggart produced a ground-breaking study of working-class culture.27 Based to a large extent on his own personal experience, The Uses of Literacy was a critical appraisal of the changes wrought by publications and entertainments – the major commercial forces of mass culture – upon the working class, including popular songs, novels and magazines.28 Whilst denouncing the imposition of mass culture, and lamenting the loss of an authentic popular culture, Hoggart also warned readers ‘to be cautious of the interpretations given by historians of the working-class movement’, stating, ‘I do sometimes bring away [from reading such books] an impression that their authors overrate the place of political activity in working-class life, that they do not always have an adequate sense of the grass roots of that life.’29 The paucity of sources concerning leisure was clearly revealed in his bibliography. However, more significantly, Hoggart’s work opened up the cultural landscape – The Guardian recently referred to The Uses of Literacy as having a ‘seismic impact’30 – and inspired a new breed of intellectuals to study more closely the recreational and leisure pursuits of the working class. Working-class

Introduction

people, it was understood, should not be patronised, and their lives had to be taken seriously. This was evident not only in the new discipline of labour history but also in the modern discipline of Cultural Studies, which Hoggart inspired and which pointed to ways in which it was possible to think seriously about mass leisure. This book, dealing as it does with the apparently apolitical aspects of popular life, attempts to build on Hoggart’s approach. The expanding historiography of leisure during the 1960s and 1970s was mainly devoted to the nineteenth century. The most inspirational historical text of the 1960s was E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class.31 In this extensive study of the reconstruction and experience of the working class Thompson brought together studies of popular culture, political struggle, religious movements, trade union organisation and community building during the industrial revolution which established ‘history from below’.32 Thereafter, scholars became concerned with working-class leisure. This new area of research made a significant contribution to the developing field of social history.33 A number of themes were employed with reference to the nineteenth century which have structured the ways leisure historians have dealt with the twentieth. These include the role of class, the commercialisation and standardisation of leisure in the form of mass culture, the construction of an allegedly ‘traditional’ working-class culture, social control, the promotion of rational recreation, the sporting revolution and the role of alcohol as a fault line in everyday life. A major theme was that the rowdy and rough world of eighteenthcentury popular culture was heavily controlled and contained by the rise of the Victorian middle class and ideas about respectability. The key text here was Robert Malcolmson’s work on English popular recreations from 1700 to 1850.34 Malcolmson described the decline that pre-industrial recreations underwent during the industrial revolution. For him ‘the foundations of many traditional practices were relentlessly swept away, leaving a vacuum which would be only gradually reoccupied, and then of necessity by novel or radically revamped forms of diversion’, such as football.35 This notion of a leisure vacuum has proved controversial. Recent historians have pointed out that there is as much to be said for continuity as for change. Many erstwhile traditional activities survived longer than Malcolmson had suggested. There were sports which had previously depended on the patronage of the rich but which, when patronage was withdrawn, ‘learned to survive or even grow’.36 Most important, new, commercial leisure pursuits were being created, invented and introduced, more suited to a

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newly emergent capitalist society.37 Adrian Harvey has argued that a sophisticated sporting culture catering for a mass commercial audience can be discerned in the late eighteenth century.38 This fundamentally challenged Malcolmson’s portrait of an essentially non-commercial world of recreation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. One form of continuity is the role of the public house, although the pub lost its former economic functions and became essentially a place of relaxation during the nineteenth century.39 Peter Clark argued that the public house did not undergo a dramatic transformation as a consequence of the industrial revolution but would continue to be ‘stretched and pulled in new directions by a combination of economic, political and other pressures’, including increased commercialisation and specialisation of the public house, and tighter magisterial controls, a trend which would continue into the twentieth century.40 However, a new force entered British society in the form of the Victorian temperance movement, analysed most notably by Brian Harrison.41 Harrison contended that the nineteenth-century temperance debate was really an argument about how leisure time should be spent and that temperance reformers were inadvertent promoters of the idea of state intervention. During the 1970s there was increased focus on the rise of commercialisation and standardised forms of leisure. The inter-war Frankfurt school had described this as ‘mass culture’, the product of ‘culture industries’ where culture is manufactured for the people and not by them.42 A culture of spectatorship replaced one of participation. Historians argued there was a leisure revolution in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries based on more free time, higher wages and an improved standard of living. The function of the culture industry was to ‘organize leisure time in the same way as industrialization has organised work time. Work under capitalism stunts the senses; the culture industry continues the process.’43 Existing and developing forms of mass culture included the music halls, popular Sunday newspapers, seaside holidays and spectator sport. Darts will be seen as part of this expanding leisure world. The historiography of leisure often assumed that leisure was a form of social control (and indeed that leisure was a way in which capitalist society was held together). Peter Bailey took issue with this stress on social control. He examined the changing nature of leisure during the period through the middle-class promotion of rational recreation and ‘improving pursuits’ such as the Working Men’s Club movement, but found that these initiatives often had limited impact. He detected traces of the old less respectable popular culture in the new entertainment industries, especially music halls.44

Introduction

In the 1970s it became clear that popular culture had considerable implications for the development of popular politics. Eric Hobsbawm argued that a distinct and allegedly ‘traditional’ working-class culture emerged in the later nineteenth century, defined by football, cinemagoing, the seaside holiday, fish and chips and the ‘famous little flat peaked cap’ which became ‘the virtual uniform’ of the British worker at leisure.45 Gareth Stedman Jones also argued that, once Chartism had been defeated, working people ‘ceased to believe that they could shape society in their own image’. With capitalism becoming an ‘immovable horizon’ the impetus of working-class activity lay in trade unions, co-operatives and friendly societies – all indicating ‘recognition of the existing social order as the inevitable framework of action’ – and a ‘culture of consolation’ emerged, based on the belief that capitalism could not be beaten and the best option was to pursue the small pleasures of life.46 Stedman Jones’s case study concentrated on London. Even though the late Victorian years saw the beginnings of an organised labour movement, the belief in class-based politics was combined with a spirit of fatalism and conformity. The result was a defensive labour movement. Popular culture was therefore a key to the way in which society was shaped. The 1980s, 1990s and the new millennium witnessed more extensive work on the twentieth century, some building on familiar themes established in earlier work on the nineteenth century such as the growth of commercialised leisure and social control. Stephen Jones’s seminal work on inter-war leisure rejected ‘crude notions of social control whereby leisure is viewed as imposed on the working class by their so-called social “betters”’. He also argued that working-class leisure was, and is, ‘a political thing’, the question of leisure often being raised in Parliament and, ‘in the informal arena of the local community, people struggled over the meanings of rights to particular leisure forms’ whilst working-class leaders campaigned for improved standards of leisure such as sports facilities and public funding of recreation.47 However, darts rarely became a political issue in any real sense. Commercial entertainments have bulked large in twentieth-century leisure historiography. For example, Jeffrey Richards examined the role of cinema-going in everyday lives in the inter-war period.48 John K. Walton continued his in-depth examination of English seaside holidays, explored the role of fish and chips and, with Gary S. Cross, provided a detailed account of the transformation of popular spectacle and pleasure through ‘people’s playgrounds’ – beach and pleasure resorts – both in Britain and in the United States.49 New research into mass leisure also focused on the development of mass communications. Asa Briggs’s earlier extensive

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research into the medium of broadcasting was broadened by such scholars as Dan LeMahieu, whilst the role and development of the twentiethcentury popular press were analysed by Martin Conboy who interpreted the medium in a ‘radical new form of consumer-spectator society’.50 James J. Nott argued that popular music was ‘a powerful and persistent influence in the daily life of millions’ in inter-war Britain.51 Nott points to one of the great themes of the twentieth-century leisure: Americanisation (evident in the music played in dance halls). As we shall see, darts was rather different: it was constructed as an element of traditional Englishness that contrasted with the attractions of American music and dance such as jazz and swing. The English public house, where darts was introduced, remained generally free of American influence.52 From the 1980s more work was undertaken on the way class shaped leisure, even though this was also the period when historians began to focus less on social class and consider other identities such as gender and race.53 Ross McKibbin has enabled scholars to make sense of the patterns of leisure common among British workers. His essay ‘Why was there no Marxism in Britain?’ explained the evolution of working-class politics during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and argued that one of the reasons why the proletariat had not risen in revolution against the capitalist hegemony was the largely non-political character of workers’ associational life. This complemented the approach by Hobsbawm and Stedman Jones (discussed above). McKibbin’s work on gambling revealed that, rather than being a prescriptive activity responsible for plunging thousands of working-class families into abject poverty, betting was far from corrupt; instead it provided an opportunity ‘for both intellectual activity and the acquisition of intellectual status to a class which was excluded by others and excluded itself from an officially defined national culture’. This intellectual status was also attainable by the working-class male through playing darts. McKibbin extended his research into the area of working-class hobbies and demonstrated that, far from being a distraction from the primary process of work, hobbies were a direct response to the reduction of stress and tension experienced in the workplace as new technologies made work less arduous, less competitive and less physically demanding and provided a release from pent-up tension and satisfied the on-going desire to compete whilst also representing distinct forms of intellectual working-class activity.54 Again, darts needs to be viewed in this context. In his major work on classes and cultures McKibbin’s discussion emphasises the undemocratic, hierarchical nature of popular sports during

Introduction

the inter-war years, the government and spirit of most British sports being ‘almost wholly at variance with anything approaching democracy’. Sport, with its notions of fair play and being a ‘good sport’, entered into politics introducing ‘a discourse of restraint’. McKibbin argued that the ideological power of that discourse was to some extent responsible for the comparative absence of political extremism in inter-war England.55 McKibbin’s research never dwelt to any great extent on the role of the public house in terms of recreational benefits to its working-class customer base but, as we shall see, the apolitical, democratised game of darts was as much to do with interwar male working-class leisure patterns as with betting or any hobby. McKibbin’s work, by demonstrating the complexities of cultural forms, of focusing on small-scale rather than large, commercialised leisure forms, supplies a context for this book. Another important approach that has influenced this research is that of Andrew Davies, who showed how poverty shaped working-class leisure in the early twentieth century.56 Davies argued that historians’ focus on mass culture was slightly misleading, as many of the working class could not afford to enjoy it. Poverty and unemployment restricted many workingclass people to the pub and the immediate neighbourhood (home, street corner, etc.). He also demonstrated that gender was central to the division of leisure in working-class districts. This focus on the character of smallscale leisure is important for understanding the development of darts. Claire Langhamer also shows that leisure was shaped by gender and investigates from a feminist perspective how women lived in different leisure worlds from men between 1920 and 1960. She provides an overview of leisure in the context of women’s everyday lives and highlights the relative neglect of women in the history of leisure. The sections of her work relating to women and pubs have helped inform this research.57 Much of her research relating to women’s leisure was undertaken in direct response to Peter Bailey’s earlier article calling for an understanding of the ‘informal, day to day, private content’ of leisure, which, Bailey argued, was absent from leisure history.58 Another important development in leisure studies during the 1980s was a serious study of sport, which followed similar patterns to that of leisure history. Indeed, until the 1980s academic research into sport – any sport – was generally neglected or even ridiculed. Richard Holt has argued that early historical research into sport ‘tended to come via personal inclination and enthusiasm’ and, initially at least, was ‘perceived as marginal or even eccentric’ in the more conventional academic circles.59 This corresponds with James Walvin’s view that the subject’s most formidable task was ‘to overcome

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that deep and abiding intellectual suspicion which is so commonly manifested towards the very concept of sports history and sports sociology’.60 There subsequently emerged a body of scholars who would become leaders in the field of sports history and set the standard for others to follow. For example, Tony Masons Association Football and English Society 1863– 1915, published in 1980, is a seminal work which set a standard of excellence in the social history of sport which remains unchallenged in its field to this day, the book having achieved the status of the standard academic work for anyone interested in the history of football. Richard Holt argues that everything done subsequently in relation to the history of sport ‘benefited from the breach he [Mason] made in the walls of the academy’.61 Mason’s work on football has inspired many excellent works on sports history by authors including Dennis Brailsford (boxing), Tony Collins (rugby), Eric Halladay (rowing), Mike Huggins (flat racing and sport in Victorian society), Dave Russell (football), Keith Sandiford (cricket) and Jack Williams (cricket).62 Mason’s work provided inspiration for this book by examining the ways in which leisure pastimes can be employed to understand social structure and everyday life. On a methodological level, he also dealt with the problem of incomplete sources, where clubs left no trace of their existence or ‘left little behind them for the historian save a few match results and the names of a handful of players in an old newspaper’, many having not even left ‘that modest spoor’.63 A straightforward and practical historian, Mason selected and shaped his material from disparate sources in terms of respectability, urbanisation and class, all dominant issues of Victorian social history, and this demonstrated that sports history was an important way of understanding how modern societies work.64 One of the other themes to emerge in the 1990s relating to late nineteenth and early twentieth-century sport was the notion of the ‘revolution’ in sport characterised by clearly recognisable changes in the scale and nature of Britain’s sporting culture. This ‘revolution’ was signified by a dramatic increase in the range of sports available and by the modernisation of sport through commercialisation, the provision of new or improved spaces for leisure (e.g. stadiums), by codification of often conflicting sets of rules and the growing professional nature of sport, all of which had parallels within the developing game of darts during the interwar years.65 Where darts exactly fits into the study of sports history presents a dilemma. Is darts a sport, a recreation or possibly even a hobby? The difficulty is that darts contains elements of all these things. As we shall see, darts was originally a recreation and a fairground attraction, which was

Introduction

then codified and promoted in a similar way to commercialised sports. It is therefore a hybrid, recognised during the inter-war years more as a recreational activity than as a formal sport. The definition of sport as ‘Pleasant pastime; amusement; diversion’ may best describe the general view of darts during the period.66 That the initial thrust of sports history research would be into the most popular sports, including football, cricket, rugby and boxing, was predictable. The smaller-scale activities, such as darts, have had to wait much longer to receive scholarly attention. Sports historians, in the main, have not dealt with darts. The exceptions are Richard Holt, who included a brief two-page résumé of darts in his seminal work Sport and the British, Dennis Brailsford, who makes a few references to darts and women and latterly Tony Collins’s and Wray Vamplew’s work on sport and alcohol.67 Whilst these works have helped to construct the social history of darts within the context of other aspects of inter-war popular sporting culture, this book will assist in the understanding of popular culture during the period through darts. In particular, this book follows the spirit of John Lowerson’s research into the Sussex recreation of stoolball.68 This often neglected game was analysed by Lowerson in terms of the modernisation of traditional games, codification and bureaucracy and ‘concerns of class, gender and social control, “popular culture” and the annexation or invention of tradition for nationalist and imperial purposes’ – all issues that we shall see can be detected in darts.69 Lowerson’s deployment of the resources of social history provided stoolball with deeper meaning by establishing its links with wider social processes. This book seeks to build on recent developments in leisure historiography to make sense of darts as part of English society and, thereby, fully investigate some of the social forces that determine everyday life (such as the role of patronage in leisure or the different leisure worlds that men and women have sometimes lived in). Twentieth-century leisure is still an under-researched area. This book is an attempt to start filling a major gap in the literature. Historiography of darts Until 1989 the historiography of darts consisted, in the main, of nonacademic research.70 A detailed review of popular works on the subject reveals an astonishing lack of original research into the history of the game. In such works there are claims that ‘Darts has no history’ or that ‘The origin of the game seems to be lost in obscurity.’71 Most writers about darts

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1 Darts, by Rupert Croft-Cooke (1936), the first book to be published focusing solely on the game

have not been concerned with the history of the game. It was irrelevant to the main task of producing books to tight deadlines in response to an upsurge in public interest in darts.72 Even in the first book dedicated to darts (Figure 1), published in 1936, author Rupert Croft-Cooke said, ‘Of its origin I can tell you nothing.'73

Introduction

More books were published during the inter-war period about cricket than any other game.74 During the first four decades of the twentieth century only four books on darts were produced (all during the darts craze between 1937 and 1939).75 Subsequently, except for several rule books, a revised edition of Croft-Cooke’s Darts, a darts annual and a darts tutorial work, no other books were published on the game until 1968.76 Even then the author, Noel E. Williamson, apparently declining to spend much time in detailed consideration of the origins of darts, casually speculated, ‘I reckon, myself, that the prehistoric cave-man must have thrown sharp pieces of stone into a tree at some time or another, and how much farther back than that can we possibly get?’77 Tanks to the immense popularity of darts during the late 1970s and 1980s a plethora of books appeared on the subject. Only two attempted to trace the history of the game of darts with any degree of rigour.78 Two others provided outline histories that include some clues to darts’ heritage.79 It was not until 1992 that Arthur R. Taylor attempted to pull together a full chronological history of darts but he barely dealt with the inter-war period and neither Taylor nor anyone else has attempted to consider the game in terms of social history.80 Thus it is difficult to recover the history of darts through examination of books on the subject, which, for the most part, are generalisations and focused on a popular readership. In some cases the books are fraught with inaccuracies and include perpetuated myths shored up by guesswork. The present research, especially in relation to the origins of the game, has often been hindered by a number of ‘facts’ which have proved to be nothing of the kind.81 Some facts, such as the court case involving William Annakin, appear to have been deliberately distorted by authors in order to make darts history more interesting for the popular reader.82 It was therefore necessary to turn to social commentators for clues. It is from the writings of such authors as T. H. White, Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, Rupert Croft-Cooke and Mass Observation that many of the key building blocks of the social history of darts are found.83 Countless general books on English towns and the countryside and numerous travelogues of the period have been examined for isolated references to pub culture and pub games. Such research has provided fragmentary evidence and hints of direction, these facts making the extensive search worthwhile.84

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Sources Archival records of the licensed trade and brewers and the associated retail magazines and journals, including the Morning Advertiser and the Brewing Review, reveal much about the pressures that the English public house was under during the first four decades of the twentieth century and the increasing need to provide recreation and food as alternatives to mere drinking. These records also provide valuable evidence of the growth of darts leagues – often to the detriment of other established pub games – and help gauge the influence darts had on pub culture as perceived by the brewery and licensed trade as participation levels increased. The non-catalogued but chronological collection of toys and games catalogues, ranging from 1900 to 1940, held in the archive of the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, provided crucial data. Those data enabled an assessment to be made of the importance of the toy business in the formative years of the importation of darts and the emergence of the darts industry. In addition, the annual reports of the London Fever Hospital (1938–1940) held by the archive at the Royal Free Hospital (Hampstead) enabled an assessment to be made of the importance of a darts-related charity. However, the research for this book has been highly dependent on oral testimony, unpublished manuscripts and newspaper reports. It has always been borne in mind that such sources contain pitfalls, including selective memory, prejudice or biased reporting. Although the use of interviews by professional historians is ‘long-standing and perfectly compatible with scholarly standards’, doubts about the reliability of oral testimony have been raised in the past, as the quality and accuracy of the received knowledge depends upon the subjects themselves, their individual comprehension and, more important, upon their interest.85 Thus, whilst oral history may be the ‘raw material of social memory’, it is, as John Tosh argues, naive to suppose that such testimony represents a ‘pure distillation of past experience’.86 Indeed, Eric Hobsbawm himself commented in his autobiography that a certain memory had been ‘corrupted by sixty-odd years of mental redrafting’.87 All memories revealed in an interview, however precise or vivid they may appear to be, have already been ‘filtered through subsequent experience’ and are most likely ‘overlaid with nostalgia’. Any data derived from oral history techniques cannot be taken at face value; they must be subject to critical evaluation. No source, whether oral or written, can be utilised in the process of historical reconstruction until an assessment has been made of its standing as

Introduction

historical evidence.88 Thus personal reminiscences have been critically used alongside other sources. Some things, however, can be discovered only through oral history. Only through oral testimony was Andrew Davies, during his research into leisure and poverty in inter-war Salford and Manchester, able to obtain the fragments of data which allowed him to study drinking, gambling and sport, three of the cornerstones of traditional working-class culture. It also enabled him to note the place of darts in the lives of working-class men and women.89 Only by this process was Davies able to show also how workingclass leisure activities were structured and constrained by poverty and unemployment. Claire Langhamer found that oral testimony proved to be ‘an important means of accessing both perceptions and experiences at a local level, allowing for the examination of interpretation and motivation as well as patterns of behaviour.’90 Through oral history methods, Elizabeth Roberts traced changes in attitudes and standards and styles of living of working-class women in central and north Lancashire relating to the period 1890 to 1940 and revealed that ‘there was little feeling among the majority of women interviewed that they or their mothers had been particularly exploited by men’; the research also revealing some interesting and otherwise unobtainable insights into women and the pub.91 During the research for this book the application of oral history techniques through formal interviews with people who were closely involved in one or more aspects of the development of darts during the first four decades of the twentieth century has produced a significant amount of data that was simply not available from any other source. The interviewees included John Ross (former Life President of the National Darts Association of Great Britain, NDAGB), discussing the early organisation of darts, Ernest Deverell concerning the darts industry and specifically referring to his employment as a darts salesman in the 1920s, John Hill, son of the founder of Abbey Sports, revealing a child’s view of the darts industry in the 1920s and Stanley Lowy, MBE, son of Frank Lowy, the founder of Unicorn Products, one of the world’s foremost providers of darts and darts equipment, established in 1938.92 Interviews with these and other individuals added significantly to the understanding of the place of darts in the social history of the English people during the inter-war period. The interviews also revealed perceptions and experiences of darts as a leisure form and as a part of the leisure industry between 1900 and 1939 by those most closely involved with the processes and brought to light patterns of behaviour that might otherwise have remained hidden. Such

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oral testimony also led to crucial links with hitherto unknown newspaper reports and identified points in the history of darts that might never have otherwise have been recovered. Works of autobiography have been utilised to reflect personal views of the period. Robert Roberts s memories of his early life in Salford demonstrate the important role of publicans in the life of the working class in his ‘classic slum’, although he makes no reference at all to pub games.93 Not surprisingly, it is the few autobiographies published by publicans such as Edie Beed and John G. Showers that provide some evidence of dartsplaying in public houses during the period 1900 to 1939.94 The genre of publican autobiographies was begun in the 1930s by John Fothergill when, in 1931, An Innkeeper’s Diary, compiled from ‘tired notes’ that he had kept ‘to remind us in our old age of the Spreadeagle Inn’ at Tame, was published.95 This met with critical success and was followed seven years later by Confessions of an Innkeeper, which related to Fothergill’s period from the mid-1930s as licensee of the Tree Swans, Market Harborough.96 However, Fothergill’s ‘inns’ were middle and upper-class hotels and thus no reference to indoor pub games of any kind can be found in his memoirs. Author Thomas Burke, who wrote extensively about English public houses, believed that ‘[t]o write about the English inn is almost to write about England itself, so closely is the inn woven with the daily life of men of every degree … ’.97 Burke was the first to recognise the social-historical value of landlords’ memoirs, arguing in 1933 that ‘It ought to be a self-imposed duty upon landlords of inns to write up week by week the happenings in their inns,’ adding that if that had been undertaken in the past ‘we should now have intimate and illuminating sidelights upon people and periods throughout the centuries, instead of the isolated fragments which are only unearthed by painstaking search among old documents’.98 Until Fothergill’s diaries were published, such fragments could otherwise be found in travelogues. However, whilst authors of such works were able to record personal impressions of the public house and the role of the publican, the latter’s views were rarely recorded.99 Burke recognised not only a crucial shortfall in knowledge of the role of the publican but also the value of such records in terms of the importance of the public house and licensee in both popular and pub culture. He pleaded that for ‘the interest of future historians and students of twentieth-century life’ all English innkeepers should begin to maintain diaries as ‘[t]hey have the example before them of Mr John Fothergill’s An Innkeeper’s Diary .100 There is also heavy reliance on national, provincial and local newspapers.101 Indeed, the press has provided the overwhelming number of

Introduction

sources for this research. John Tosh argues that the very fact of publication ‘sets a limit on the value’ of printed sources such as newspapers, and that this represents ‘only what was considered to be fit for public consumption – what governments were prepared to reveal, what journalists could elicit from tight-lipped informants, what editors thought would gratify their readers, or MPs their constituents’.102 Darts, as a subject for reporting, was relatively insignificant in terms of column inches, appearing in the dailies only if connected with a court case or featured as part of a significant social event. In the local and provincial press, irregular darts reportage led to frustration when the outcomes of darts events mentioned one week were not followed up the next, being replaced by additional reports on the more popular pursuits such as cricket and football. Although Tosh further argues that ‘there is no substitute for the painstaking accumulation of evidence from the record sources of the period’, with so little primary data available from such records this study became heavily reliant on the ‘facts’ as published in newspapers.103 Thus it is crucial to understand exactly what contemporary darts reports recorded and represent. Some clarification of reports in national dailies has been possible by reference to the original reports that appeared in provincial newspapers and from oral testimony from those who were there at the time. In this book the newspaper press is treated in a similar way to that adopted by Michael De Nie in his work on Irish identity and the British press, that is, by treating the press ‘more broadly as a cultural product’ rather than investigating how particular editors or owners shaped a specific newspaper’s opinions.104 At one level, close examination of political bias in newspapers is unnecessary in the study of darts between the wars, as the game remained apolitical throughout the period. However, as we shall see, darts fitted exactly with the ideology and the cultural impact of Sunday newspapers and particularly the News of the World. During the late nineteenth century the Sunday newspapers became the first successful mass newspapers, their popularity, argues Martin Conboy being due to ‘their ability to articulate aspects of authentic popular experience of everyday life and to express it in language identifiable as belonging to its audience’, language already familiar to readers as part of the traditions of popular theatre and fiction.105 The popular press was capable of ‘exerting a material even a transforming influence on social relations’ but, whilst it is recognised that the emergence of the cheap news press became an issue of grave concern, the focus of this book will be how and for what reasons the editors of Sunday newspapers in general and the

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News of the World in particular introduced darts to their pages and how their action managed to transform the game during the 1930s.106 During the 1930s Sunday newspapers including the News of the World and The People had higher circulations than any individual issue of the dailies but, as Adrian Bingham discovered in his research, such Sunday publications ‘had their own traditions and idiosyncrasies and thus were not entirely comparable with popular dailies’. Bingham also found that, because they were published only weekly, ‘it was not possible to trace events and unfolding debates in their pages in the same detail as was possible in the daily press’.107 This is a problem encountered everywhere with darts research. The News of the World did provide a degree of consistency, perhaps the only consistency of reporting outside the specific darts press that emerged towards the end of the 1930s, but consistency only as far as its individual competition was concerned, weekly reports and updates being published throughout the season. News of the World darts reportage ceased after the competition finals in May each year and did not resume again until the commencement of the next season’s competition in the autumn.108 In September 1937 the publication Darts Weekly News (later retitled as the Darts and Sports Weekly News and later still as the Darts and Sports Review) was launched and provided some continuity in darts reporting until its failure in February 1939. This newspaper provided a detailed yet naturally biased account of the success of darts and was especially useful in establishing the geographical spread of darts during the latter part of the decade and providing some evidence of the threat posed to the NDA by an alternative darts organisation, the British Darts Council (BDC), detail that was not available from any other source. Darts World magazine, established in 1972, a publication which remains the only one currently published in England dealing exclusively with the game, has also been extensively examined to ascertain facts concerning the perceived origins of darts and locate more up-to-date research into darts. It was also through Darts World and its sister publication, the annual, Darts Player, that early findings of this research were published. This led to a number of useful responses, the most significant of which was the as yet unpublished work undertaken by darts-playing amateur local historian Michael Gilmore, which provided an overview of the development of darts in South Shields during the 1930s.109 Responses from members of the public to letters published in local and provincial newspapers and Darts World magazine have also contributed significantly to this research. Fragmentary evidence from newspaper

Introduction

cuttings, interviews, reports or informal discussions were translated into ‘Letters to the Editor’ and have revealed information and sources that might not otherwise have been uncovered. In addition, letters and e-mails exchanged with representatives of private companies and organisations on specific events have been fruitful.110 However, the same warnings about the value of oral testimony naturally apply. In 1995 Richard Cox, a member of the British Society of Sport History (BSSH), explored the potential of the internet in terms of sports history.111 In a subsequent examination of sports history on the internet, Martin Johnes reinforced Cox’s work and highlighted the primary resources which had been made available through the conduit of the worldwide web, such as government publications, and how various sports web sites, such as the Association of Football Statisticians, had provided ‘a wealth of information and statistics’.112 In addition, on-line access to major academic library catalogues, including the British Library, the Bodleian and the Cambridge University Library, and other major sources, such as the 1901 census and The Times, has not only greatly assisted the research of this book but also saved considerable time. Sources accessed via the internet did not initially provide any new data specifically relating to darts. Web sites merely provided standard interpretations of popular texts and propagated existing information and perpetuated some of the myths surrounding the game. However, a darts history web site was launched by the author in November 2000 with the aim of providing a gateway for the research of darts, enhancing, expanding and raising awareness of this research and with the additional aim of attracting other researchers’ attention and exchanging data.113 Although the majority of input from visitors to the site has been in the form of questions, some useful contacts and essential, otherwise unobtainable, data have been obtained. For example, in 2003 the eighty-seven-year-old daughter of Jack Hood, an inter-war dartboard and dart manufacturer, made contact from New Zealand.114 Other key sources which have been crucial to the reconstruction of the social history of darts and its place within the context of the English public house include ephemera such as programmes, catalogues and advertising matter of the period. This book draws fragments together to enable patterns to be detected and the development of darts to be chronicled – something which has been achieved only with considerable difficulty. As has been shown, there were no obvious caches of sources and there was no systematic coverage of pub games. Sources are both diverse and disparate, and there have been no scholastic footsteps in which to tread.115

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Darts in England

Only a small number of county record office indices include references to darts and, without exception, those which were uncovered were scant. The four darts books, mentioned above, published during the inter-war years were supplemented more recently by further non-academic publications but they reveal a morass of fact, myths, inaccuracies and blatant fabrication, although a small number did provide invaluable leads. Thus it is against this background of detailed examination of disparate sources and through intense library-based research of valuable documentary sources that the reconstruction of darts during the inter-war years is achieved. Thereby this book aims to fill a major gap in our knowledge of working-class leisure during the inter-war years.116 The structure of the book Because of the complexity of the subject it has not been possible to write this book in a straightforward chronological way. Although the origins and the development of darts during the first two decades of the twentieth century can be dealt with in this way, the three key areas of research (the brewers, the organisation of the game and the darts industry) demand separate attention and are treated as discrete chapters. However, continuity is sustained by substantial cross-referencing throughout the work and the incorporation of the combined effects of these key elements in Chapter 7. Chapter 2 is an attempt to reconstruct the origins of darts in England and to eradicate myths and fabrications which have until now distorted the history of the game. Chapter 3 continues this process for the first two decades of the twentieth century. These opening chapters reveal that darts in its modern form was really coming into being only around the turn of the twentieth century. The chapters also place in context the changes which were eventually to transform the game in the inter-war period. Chapter 4 examines the inter-war English public house in the context of the expansion of mass leisure and reveals the threats to the brewing industry from new leisure choices and groups pressing for the improvement or alternatively the total banishment of the public house. The chapter demonstrates the way in which a regional pub game was utilised as a major tool by brewers as part of their improvement movement to contribute to securing their economic position and to preserving the future of the public house. Chapter 5 identifies the organisations, such as the NDA, which developed darts as a new form of mass leisure and assesses their role in

Introduction

codifying and promoting the game. It reveals that although darts became more popular in the south-east very quickly, often ousting other pub games as its popularity increased, the same was not true of the north, where the implementation of rules and indeed of a new form of darts to that traditionally played, severely restricted the success of the NDA.117 The sixth chapter reveals the development of the manufacturing industries that produced the essential goods and services which enabled darts to thrive. From small beginnings as part of the toy and fancy goods industry of the mid-to-late Victorian period the chapter traces the emergence of a vital new, yet relatively small, industry which responded to the increasing demand for darts, dartboards and related products from brewers and publicans as well as from people who wished to play the game at home. The development of specific suppliers of darts equipment, including the Nodor company, founded by industrial chemist Edward Leggatt, and the company owned by Jack Hood, both based in the East End of London, is critically examined, as they strove to create the material base on which darts could expand whilst at the same time forging strong links with the NDA and assisting in both the regularisation and standardisation of the sport. Finally, Chapter 7 pulls all previous contributing elements and influences together and examines darts as a cultural phenomenon of the 1930s. By the end of the 1930s darts had spread across the country and participants came from all classes. Maurice Gorham described darts as a ‘craze’ which in the late 1930s ‘threatened to change the very nature of the pubs’ and actually resulted in the long-established social stratification of the pub being destabilised or, in Gorham’s words, ‘knocked sideways’.118 In addition, the first darts sporting heroes emerge during this period, and the case of Harold Barker is analysed as an example of this developing trend. The transformation of darts meant that anyone, regardless of age, sex, class or location, could access the game, either at home, at work (through company leagues, sports clubs, canteens or darts parlours) at the fairground, at local fêtes and in clubs and pubs. Darts became an invented part of traditional English culture during the inter-war period, being an amalgam of the actions of the brewers, the enthusiastic promotional zeal of the NDA, the entrepreneurial skills of the emergent darts industry, the business acumen and organisational prowess of licensees and the sponsorship, publicity and patronage of the media. This book represents the first academic research not only into darts but also into the English pub game.

27

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Notes 1 2 3

4

5 6 7

8 9

10 11 12

13

14

Daily Herald, 6 February 1937, p. 8. Ibid. Numbers are based on information provided by the National Darts Association (NDA). Radio Times, 18 June 1937, p. 8. As will be seen in Chapter 5, the inaugural meeting to discuss the setting up of an ‘English’ darts association did not take place until 12 February 1925. News of the World Individual Darts Championship of England and Wales – Match Programme of the Championship Games dated Wednesday 9 June 1948, p. 2; John Morris, News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89 (London: Invincible Press, 1988), p. 23. Jim Pike, ‘Darts’ in James Rivers (ed.), The Sports Book (London: Macdonald & Co., 1946), p. 95. A. Wellington, The Various Dart Games and How to Play Tem (London: Universal Publications, 1937), pp. 6 and 9. A. P. Herbert, ‘Darts just as pure and fair’ in Punch or The London Charivari, 29 December 1937, p. 704; Daily Herald, 18 December 1937, p. 1; Daily Sketch, 18 December 1937, p. 1; Daily Express, 18 December 1937, p. 1; Windsor, Slough and Eton Express, 23 December 1937, p. 4. Brewer and Wine Merchant, October 1939, p. 54. Tony Bennett, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott (eds), Popular Culture and Social Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986), p. xi; John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 23; Stuart Hall, ‘Notes on deconstructing “the popular”’ in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 227; Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 88, Marxism and Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 110, and Keywords – A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Glasgow: Fontana/Croom Helm, 1979), p. 199. Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, pp. 4 and 23. John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture – An Introduction, 4th edn (Harlow: Pearson, 2006), p. 53. Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class – Studies in Working Class History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 179–238; E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, work discipline and industrial capitalism’ in his Customs in Common (London: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 352–403. In his work The Road to Wigan Pier George Orwell refers to the importance of small-scale pleasures to the working class, ‘something a little bit “tasty”’, including ‘cut-price chocolate (five two-ounce bars for sixpence)’, ‘a twopenny ice-cream’ and ‘three penn’orth of chips’. (George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 80–1 and 86; originally published London: Victor Gollancz, 1937.) Valerie Hey, Patriarchy and Pub Culture (London: Tavistock Publications, 1986), pp. 10–11.

Introduction

15 16 17

18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25

26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Peter Clark, The English Alehouse – A Social History 1200–1830 (London: Longman, 1983), p. 154. Ross McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class – Social Relations in Britain 1880– 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 119–25. George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn – Socialism and the English Genius (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 39. (Originally published in London by Secker & Warburg in 1941.) The italics are Orwell’s. Although for pigeon racing see Martin Johnes, ‘Pigeon racing and workingclass culture in Britain c. 1870–1950’, Cultural and Social History, 4:3 (2007), pp. 361–83. Arthur R. Taylor, The Guinness Book of Traditional Pub Games (Enfield: Guinness Publishing, 1992), p. 8. Alun Howkins and John Lowerson, Trends in Leisure (Brighton: University of Sussex, 1979). Ibid., Preface (no page number) and p. 61. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge’s The Long Weekend – A Social History of Great Britain 1918–1939 was actually published in 1941 in London by Faber & Faber and has indeed afforded valuable leads to the author. Howkins and Lowerson, Trends in Leisure, Preface. C. Delisle Burns, Leisure in the Modern World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1932), p. 7. Henry Durant, The Problem of Leisure (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1938), p. 1. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People – A Worktown Study (Welwyn Garden City: Seven Dials Press, 1970), p. 5. (Originally published London: Victor Gollancz, 1943.) The group’s earlier findings were revealed in Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson, The First Year’s Work 1937–1938 by Mass Observation (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1938). John A. R Pimlott, The Englishman’s Holiday – A Social History (London: Faber & Faber, 1947). Pimlott’s work has been described by Howkins and Lowerson as ‘a masterpiece’ and by James Walvin as ‘that classic account’. Howkins and Lowerson, Trends in Leisure, p. 76; James Walvin, Beside the Seaside – A Social History of the Popular Seaside Holiday (London: Allen Lane, 1978), p. 11. Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957); The Guardian, 7 February 2004, downloaded 23 August 2006. Ibid. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, p. 17. The Guardian, 7 February 2004, downloaded 23 August 2006. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1963). Peter Bailey, ‘The politics and poetics of modern British leisure’, Rethinking History, 3:2 (1999), p. 139. Emma Griffin, ‘Popular culture in industrializing England’, Historical Journal, 45:3 (2002), p. 619.

29

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34 35 36 37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49

50

Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). Ibid., p. 170. Hugh Cunningham, Leisure in the Industrial Revolution c. 1780–c. 1880 (London: Croom Helm, 1980), p. 22. Griffin, ‘Popular culture in industrializing England’, p. 621. See also Emma Griffin, England’s Revelry – A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes 1660– 1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Adrian Harvey, The Beginnings of a Commercial Sporting Culture in Britain 1793–1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), pp. 2–4. Another historian who argues that there was no leisure vacuum is Richard Holt. See Richard Holt, Sport and the British – A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 349. Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class – Studies in English Working Class History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 198. Clark, The English Alehouse, p. 333. Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians – The Temperance Question in England 1815–1872 (London: Faber & Faber, 1971). Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, p. 49. Ibid., p. 53. Peter Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England – Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control 1830–1885 (London: Methuen & Co., 1978). Eric Hobsbawm, Worlds of Labour – Further Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), pp. 178 and 185–6. Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘Working-class culture and working-class politics in London 1870–1900: notes on the remaking of a working class’ in his Languages of Class – Studies in Working Class History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 237. Stephen Jones, Workers at Play – A Social and Economic History of Leisure 1918–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 4–7. Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace – Cinema and Society in Britain 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984). John K. Walton, The English Seaside Resort – A Social History 1750–1914 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1983), Fish and Chips and the British Working Class 1870–1940 (London: Leicester University Press, 1992), The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) and, with Gary S. Cross, The Playful Crowd – Pleasure Places in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Asa Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), The Golden Age of the Wireless (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965) and The Social History of the Media – From Gutenberg to the Internet (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005); Dan L. LeMahieu, A Culture for Democracy – Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain between the Wars

Introduction

51

52

53 54 55 56

57 58

59 60 61

62

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: Sage, 2002), p. 81, and Tabloid Britain – Constructing a Community through Language (London: Routledge, 2006). James J. Nott, Music for the People – Popular Music and Dance in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). For Richards’s review see Albion, 36:1 (2004), pp. 176–7. George Long’s contemporary work English Inns and Road Houses (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1937), pp. 177–84, provides a general outline of the Americanisation of some suburban public houses into roadhouses. For more recent, and academic, research see David W. Gutzke’s pioneering work Pubs and Progressives -Reinventing the Public House in England1896–1960 (De Kalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006), pp. 164–5. David Cannadine, Class in Britain (London: Penguin Books, 2000). McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class, pp. 1–1 and 138–66. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures – England 1918–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 385. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty – Working Class Culture in Salford and Manchester 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992). Clare Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England 1920–1960 (Manchester: University Press, 2000), pp. 70–3 and 153–5. Peter Bailey, ‘Leisure, culture and the historian: reviewing the first generation of leisure historiography’, Leisure Studies, 8 (1989), p. 118; Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England, p. 188. See also Peter Bailey’s later review of the historiography of leisure, ‘The politics and poetics of modern British leisure – a late twentieth-century review’, Rethinking History, 3:2 (1999), pp. 131–75. Richard Holt, ‘Sport and history: the state of the subject in Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, 7:2 (1996), p. 231. James Walvin, ‘Sport, social history and the historian’, British Journal of Sports History, 1:1 (1984), p. 5. Richard Holt, ‘“No ideas but in things”: Tony Mason’s Association Football and English Society’, Sports Historian, 22:1 (2002), p. 3. (Holt’s article includes a plea for a new edition.) Dennis Brailsford, Bareknuckles – A Social History of Prize-fighting (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1988); Tony Collins, Rugby’s Great Split – Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football (London: Frank Cass, 1998); Eric Halladay, Rowing in England – A Social History: the Amateur Debate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990); Mike Huggins, Flat Racing and British Society 1790–1914 – A Social and Economic History (London: Frank Cass, 2000), Horseracing and the British 1919–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003) and The Victorians and Sport (London: Hambledon & London, 2004); Dave Russell, Football and England – A Social History of Association Football in England 1863–1995 (Preston: Carnegie Publishing, 1997); Keith Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians

31

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63

64 65 66 67

68 69 70

71

72

73 74 75

(Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1994); Jack Williams, Cricket and England – A Cultural and Social History of the Inter-war Years (London: Frank Cass, 1999). Mason, Association Football and English Society, p. 6. James Walvin also recognised these difficulties in researching sports history, stating in 1986 that such source material was ‘scattered in a plethora of often inaccessible forms and publications.’ (Walvin, ‘Sport, Social History and the Historian’, p. 6.) Holt, ‘“No ideas but in things”’, pp. 1–6. Neil Tranter, Sport, Economy and Society in Britain 1750–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 13–17. Onions, C. T. (ed.), The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary of Historical Principles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, 3rd edn, 1978), II, p. 2086. Holt, Sport and the British, pp. 192–3; Dennis Brailsford, Sport, Time and Society – The British at Play (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 150–1, and British Sport – A Social History (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1992), pp. 104 and 117; Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers – A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (Oxford: Berg, 2002), pp. 32–3. The latter’s references to darts were provided with the assistance of the author of this book. (See acknowledgement in Mud, Sweat and Beers, p. 3.) John Lowerson, ‘Stoolball – conflicting values in the revivals of a “traditional Sussex game”’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 133 (1995), pp. 263–74. Ibid., p. 263. Darts was first included in an academic work on sport in 1989. See Holt, Sport and the British, pp. 192–3. The only exception of any significance was the research undertaken by Tom Harrisson and his Mass Observation team during the inter-war period and published in 1943 on the town of Bolton which featured a whole chapter on sport, games and gambling within the pub which included a specific section on darts. (Mass Observation, The Pub and the People – A Worktown Study, London: Cresset Library, 1987, pp. 284–314. For darts see pp. 299–301.) Paddy Whannel and Dana Hodgdon, The Book of Darts (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1978), p. 72; John Young, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dart Board (London: W. Foulsham & Co., 1938), p. 9. When Young’s book was edited and republished in 1981 the reference to origins was not revised but deleted. (John Young, Winning Darts, ed. Geoff Martin, London: W. Foulsham & Co., 1981). For example, in 2004 former World Masters champion Dave Whitcombe revealed that he wrote his book How to Play Darts (London: Hamlyn, 1981) in a very short time to meet a deadline. He told Darts Player magazine, ‘That … book took me about a fortnight to write – three weeks tops … ’ (Darts Player 2005, p. 11.) Rupert Croft-Cooke, Darts (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), p. 8. Williams, Cricket and England, p. 68. Croft-Cooke, Darts; Wellington, The Various Darts Games and How to Play Tem, John Young, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dart Board

Introduction

76

77 78 79

80

81

82

83

(London: W Foulsham & Co., 1938) and Alan and Geoffrey D’Egville, Darts with the Lid Off (London: Cassell & Co., 1938). Keith Turner, whilst describing Croft-Cooke’s book as ‘insubstantial … very lightweight in content … and with an extremely patronising style … ’ did recognise that the importance of this book lies in ‘the valuable picture it gives of the status of the game at that time.’ (Keith Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980), p. 107.) Rupert Croft-Cooke, Darts, with a special chapter by Frank Wolfe, editor of The Dart (London: Findon Publications, n.d. but c. 1947); Frank Wolfe (ed.), 1949 Darts Players Annual (Feltham: Darts Publications & Supplies, 1948); George Caley, How to Improve your Darts (London: Photo Instruction Books, n.d. but c. 1950). Noel E. Williamson, Darts (Kingswood: Elliot Right Way Books, 1968), p. 14. Arthur R. Taylor, Pub Games (Frogmore: Mayflower Books, 1976), pp. 9– 29, and Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, pp. 93–115. Timothy Finn, The Watney Book of Pub Games (London: Queen Anne Press, 1966), pp. 43–8, and Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), pp. 8–18. Arthur R Taylor, The Guinness Book of Traditional Pub Games (Enfield: Guinness Publishing, 1992), pp. 13–30. In the 1992 work the section on darts was produced with substantial input from the author. For example, in the 1960s Williamson, Darts, p. 14, wrote, ‘It has been said that the Pilgrim Fathers amused themselves by playing darts aboard the Mayflower in the year 1620.’ By the late 1970s the myth was appearing in the majority of books about darts; for example, Bob McLeod and Jay Cohen, Darts Unlimited (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1977, p. 13) wrote, ‘there are references, in the Mayflower’s logs, to darts as a pastime of the Pilgrims on board the vessel’, whilst Peter Bills (Sportsviewers Guide – Darts (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1983), p. 4), stated that ‘Crude “darts” are said to have been used by the Pilgrim Fathers on board the Mayflower as they sailed to the New World in 1620.’ The final seal of approval came in 1973 when an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th edn) read, ‘Darts is recorded as a pastime of the Pilgrim Fathers on board the Mayflower in 1620.’ This myth was finally dispelled by research published by the American darts researcher Dan Peek in 20 01. (Dan William Peek, To the Point – The Story of Darts in America, Columbia MO: Totem Pointe, 2001, pp. 7–8.) Compare the court case of William Annakin in 1908 as given by Annakin’s grandson (also William Annakin) in letters to the author dated 20 and 29 June 1988 with the ‘“Game on” in court’ in Sid Waddell, Bedside Darts (London: Stanley Paul, 1985), p. 32. The importance of this case to the history and development of the sport of darts is discussed in detail in Chapter 4. T[erence] H[anbury] White, England Have my Bones (London: Futura, 1981; first published by Collins, 1936); Graves and Hodge, The Long Weekend; Croft-Cooke, Darts; Mass Observation, The Pub and the People.

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84

85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Whilst the work of best-selling popular writers such as H[enry] V[ollam] Morton (In Search of England, London: Methuen & Co., 1927, The Call of England London: Methuen & Co., 1928, and I Saw Two Englands, London: Methuen & Co., 1942) has revealed no useful information about the English public house and nothing about pub games, others, for example C. B. Ford (ed.), The Legacy of England (London: B. T. Batsford, 1935), features a whole chapter (Ivor Brown, ‘The inn’, pp. 190–216) in praise and criticism of the inn and the games played within. T. H. White devotes a significant amount of text to the playing of darts. (England Have my Bones, pp. 181–6.) Paul Thompson The Voice of the Past – Oral History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 1988), pp. 2 and 113. John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (Harlow: Pearson Education, 3rd edn, 2002), pp. 300 and 309. Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times – A Twentieth Century Life (London: Abacus, 2003), p. 341. (Originally published London: Allen Lane, 2002.) Tosh, The Pursuit of History, pp. 91 and 303–4 Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, pp. 30, 34–5 and 58. Langhamer, Women’s Leisure, p. 188. Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman’s Place – An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890–1940 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 2, 3, 6 and 122–3. Interviews conducted by Patrick Chaplin with John Ross, 24 August 1988 and 24 January 1989; Ernest Deverell, 12 December 1991; John F. Hill, 3 June 1994; Stanley R Lowy, MBE, Managing Director of Unicorn Products, 16 August 1996. Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1971), p. 5. Edie Beed, Seventy Years behind Bars (Exeter: published by the author, 1984); John G. Showers, Welcome Inn (Derby: Pilgrim Press, 1952). John Fothergill, An Innkeeper’s Diary (London: Chatto & Windus, 1931), p. ix. John Fothergill, Confessions of an Innkeeper (London: Chatto & Windus, 1938). Thomas Burke, The English Inn (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1931), p. 1. Thomas Burke, The Beauty of England (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1933), p. 153. For example, ‘The sound of our horn brought the landlord to the door; a portly landlord with a jovial look, who with a beaming smile bade us welcome – a welcome as though, out of the whole world, we were the very people he desired most to see’ and ‘Next morning we resumed our wanderings, the good-natured and portly landlord – may his shadow never grow less! – coming to the door in the pleasing old-fashioned manner to bid us good-day and to wish us a prosperous journey – one of the amenities of road travel.’ (James John Hissey, Untravelled England, London: Macmillan & Co., 1906, pp. 68 and 89.)

Introduction

100 Burke, The Beauty of England, pp. 153–4. (The italics are Burkes.) Few of his contemporaries heeded Burke’s words but, fortunately, since the 1950s increasing numbers of publicans (both male and female) have published their memoirs, though only Beed and Showers were of assistance to this study. For examples of other autobiographies see Tom Girtin Come, Landlord! (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1957), Margaret Reynolds, Prisoner in the Bar (London: Phoenix House, 1958), Tim Wilkinson, We Ran a Cornish Pub (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967), Sean Treacy, The Smell of Broken Glass (London: Tom Stacey, 1973), Martin Green, A Year in the Drink (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1982), Kit Chapman, An Innkeeper’s Diary – September 1996–September 1997 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), and George East, A Year behind Bars – The Publican’s Tale (Portsmouth: La Puce Publications, 2001). 101 The problems inherent in utilising newspapers and oral testimony are discussed elsewhere in this chapter. 102 Tosh, The Pursuit of History, p. 65. 103 Ibid. 104 Michael W. De Nie, The Eternal Paddy – Irish Identity and the British Press (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), p. 28. 105 Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 80–1. 106 Aled Jones, Powers of the Press – Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth Century England (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996), pp. xi, 7–8. 107 Adrian Bingham, Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), p. 14. 108 For example, in 1930, following the report of the final in the News of the World on 11 May (p. 16) and a brief mention of the semi-finals of an NDA team championship in the issue dated 18 May (p. 16), no further mention of darts was made in the newspaper for a period of four months until the issue dated 19 October (p. 16), when the commencement of the 1930/31 tournament was announced. 109 Michael Gilmore, ‘The Birth of Darts in South Shields’, unpublished manuscript dated 7 September 2001. 110 Appearances on local and national radio and television by the author have also secured valuable data. 111 Richard W. Cox, The Internet as a Resource for the Sports Historian (Frodsham: Sports History Publishing, 1995). 112 Martin Johnes, ‘Sports history on the internet,’ BSSH Newsletter, 15 (spring 2002), pp. 20–1. 113 The web site address is www.patrickchaplin.com. It should be noted that this is a ‘popular’ rather than an academic web site. Examination of the internet has shown that a great number of darts-related web sites now have this web site as the key site to link to for darts history. (The web site was upgraded and relaunched on 10 December 2006.)

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114 Sally Hood, e-mails to Patrick Chaplin between 2 October 2003 and 13 May 2005. Up to that time, enquiries undertaken in England over a number of years had failed to reveal any trace of the Hood family. 115 Richard Holt does touch on the subject of darts in two pages of his work Sport and the British, pp. 192–3, but it contains some inaccuracies. Most recent references to darts in scholarly reference works have been provided by the author, including the Encyclopedia of British Sport, ed. Richard W. Cox, Grant Jarvie and Wray Vamplew (Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2000), pp. 102–3, the International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports, ed. Karen Christensen, Allen Guttmann and Gertrud Pfister (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2001), I, pp. 311–14, and the Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports, ed. Tony Collins, John Martin and Wray Vamplew (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), pp. 95–8. In addition, assistance has been provided to other scholars concerning darts, including Paul Jennings, The Public House in Bradford 1770–1970 (Keele: Keele University Press, 1995), p. 206 (for acknowledgement see p. 289), and Collins and Vamplew Mud, Sweat and Beers, pp. 32–3 (acknowledgement, p. 3). 116 Some of the findings of this research were presented under the title ‘Game on! Darts in the Interwar Years’ at the British Society of Sport History (BSSH) Conference held at the University of Glamorgan, 3 September 2005. 117 Vivian Ogilvie, Our Times –A Social History 1912–1952 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1953), p. 182. 118 Maurice Gorham, Back to the Local (London: Percival Marshall & Co., 1949), p. 76.

The origins of darts

The true origins of the game [of darts] seem to be lost in the mists of alehouse smoke.1

I

n order to provide a firm foundation on which to build an understanding of the social history and development of modern darts, it is important to explore the origins of the game. No one has written authoritatively about its origins, for the very good reason that our knowledge remains sketchy. This chapter, unlike the rest, takes the form of a rehearsal of possibilities. There are few certainties about the origins of the game of darts. What is clear is that by the mid-to-late nineteenth century darts were being imported from France in great numbers primarily to satisfy a demand from fairgrounds and the toy industry and then, within a relatively short time, into public houses. This made possible the modern game of darts. Before the nineteenth century, darts were extant in various forms, as ‘missive weapons’ and as a mode of amusement, including the form in which small darts were blown through a tube at a concentric miniature archery target or small random-numbered target, known as ‘puff -and-dart’. This chapter will show that modern darts has its roots partly in the French version of the game, known as flechettes, and partly in the English game of ‘puff -anddart’. This reconstruction will also critique the ill formed guesswork of nonacademic writers on the subject and therefore bring to an end the need to employ such valueless statements as Peter Arnold’s ‘If the modern game of darts developed from games where men threw pointed “sticks” at targets, then darts can be said to be hundreds of years old.’2 Despite over thirty years having elapsed since Michael Brander’s comment at the head of this chapter, his statement remains indicative of the general view of the history of darts.3 In the 1990s academic research

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touched upon the game but failed to reveal any details about where and how darts began.4 Only Richard Holt hinted at darts’ heritage by describing it as ‘a kind of domesticated archery’, which, in various guises, has been around for hundreds of years.5 More recently Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew suggested that darts was a successor to quoits as a pub sport in the 1920s and 1930s but that ‘[v] arious forms of darts had been played in pubs for centuries’.6 The problem, as we shall see, is that when commentators referred to ‘darts’ before the late nineteenth century they were often talking about a different form of both dart and game. One of the first scholars to examine games inside the public house was Robert W. Malcolmson in his seminal book on popular recreations between 1780 and 1850.7 However, whilst mentioning the landlord providing ‘decks of cards and other devices for petty gaming’, Malcolmson tends to concentrate on recreations which are either external activities, such as bear or bull-baiting or those which have their own discrete internal space (dancing or a ninepin alley) or external space (skittle ground or quoits pitch).8 Emma Griffin’s more recent work covers a similar period to Malcolmson and includes external sports and pastimes such as cricket, cudgels and bull-baiting but excludes any detail of indoor sports, except cock-fighting, the latter tending be indulged in a building adjoining or separated from the public house.9 Significantly, neither Malcolmson nor Griffin mentions darts. Nor does Peter Clark in his study of the English alehouse, although he did recognise that by the early seventeenth century, owing to the absence of the patronage of the well-to-do and ‘incipient commercialisation’, there was an inevitable fragmentation of traditional communal activities which led to the introduction of new types of indoor games.10 Over and above existing games such as dice and tables (backgammon), cards were encouraged, ‘aided by the spread of cheap printed cards’. Games such as noddy-board (a form of cribbage) and other indoor games flourished, including indoor bowls, shove-halfpenny and alleys (marbles).11 Darts and toxophily The most common theory about the origins of darts is that it is directly derived from toxophily, that is, a descendant of archery.12 A popular account is that, at some stage during the Middle Ages, battle-weary soldiers sought recreation in the field and utilised broken arrows as darts and the ‘log end’ of a felled tree as a dartboard.13 Even today the word ‘arrows’ is a colloquialism for darts.14 However, Keith Turner argues that, although the bored archer remains the single most popular theory, it falters when:

The origins of darts

one realises that if the head is removed from an arrow, the cut-down shaft would not stick in; if the flights were missing not only would the shortened arrow not fly straight but it is doubtful if the large head would be sharp enough to penetrate wood if thrown by hand; if a new head was put on however the arrow would still have to be weighted and balanced to fly true.15

These drawbacks were, in Turner’s view, too numerous to have enabled the modern game to develop in this way. He argued that proponents of the ‘evolution from the arrow’ theory had always overlooked one very important fact: ‘a dart is not a cut-down or even a miniature arrow, it is a miniature fighting dart’.16 This view is sustained by W. E. Tucker, a founder member of the Archery Antiquaries, who suggested that darts (as well as archery) was derived from a ‘short throwing spear’.17 They share a common origin but are different kinds of projectile. This seems a more likely solution to the question of origin, especially when another more detailed examination of archery reveals no link between darts and toxophily prior to 1969. When Frederick Lake’s life’s work, A Bibliography of Archery, was published in 1974 it had been the result of twenty years’ research (1952–72), consisted of 5,000 entries, and had involved Lake examining British and American archery literature from 1545 (Roger Ascham’s Toxophilus – The Schole of Shootinge) to the end of September 1972.18 Throughout the entire period of his research Lake found only one reference linking archery and darts. Dated 1969, the article refers to ‘Dartchery’ – a combination or darts and archery – one of the competitions included in the Paralympic Games at the time.19 In Lake’s view ‘there does not seem to be any connection between archery and darts’ until the advent of ‘dartchery’.20 Darts as a hunting or missile weapon The ‘dart’ as a hunting weapon was in use from the late Palaeolithic period as a ‘light missile weapon similar to the javelin … its wooden shaft was equipped with a head, or tip, made of stone or bone’.21 Claude Blair, an authority on prehistoric weaponry, stated that the word ‘dart’ ‘originally meant a light throwing-spear which did not necessarily have stabilising vanes … ‘and he was reasonably certain that this type of dart is illustrated in some Upper Palaeolithic cave-paintings’.22 Leonid Tarassuk confirmed that ‘darts, or light javelins, are documented for the Palaeolithic Soutrean period, i.e. approximately 18,000– 15,000 years BC, and still better, for the much later La Tène period of the Iron Age’.23 These ‘darts’ would

39

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Darts in England

evolve into two categories of spear, light and heavy, the light becoming the javelin, to throw and to hunt at a distance, whilst the heavy spear was used in close combat, being a stabbing weapon, examples of which are the Roman pilum or, later, the pike and lance. The Oxford English Dictionary reinforces Blair’s view, referring to a ‘dart’ as ‘A pointed missile weapon thrown by the hand; a light spear or javelin; also applied to pointed missiles in general, including arrows, etc.’, and cites as its earliest reference words spoken by Guy of Warwick, the eponymous hero of a number of Middle English romances, ‘Launces, swerdes, and dartes’ as c. 1314.24 A weapon known as a ‘dart’ or ‘darte’ existed in the sixteenth century, and references to King Henry VIII playing darts have led to misinterpretation and the assumption that the pub game was thriving in the Tudor period. In his 1973 autobiography, dart player Tom Barrett wrote, ‘Darts – or dartes as it was known in the days when Anne Boleyn gave a set to her beloved King Henry VIII – is one of our oldest and most popular sports.’25 Although Derek Brown referred to Anne Boleyn presenting Henry VIII with ‘darts worked in the Biscayan fashion, richly ornamented’ at the annual exchange of New Year gifts in 1532, Brown argued that these were ‘doubtless hunting weapons, presumably used by the Basques’, adding that ‘Henry did not play darts’ in the sense of the modern game.26 Clarification was sought from the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv in Vienna. The Austrian State Archives hold a document dated 4 January 1532, written by the Austrian emperor’s ambassador, Ernest Chapuys, which verifies the presentation of Anne’s gift to the King and his to her. It reads: de laquelle il a accepté certains dards fais à la Biscayne, richement accoustrez. Et, pour recompence, il luy a donné une chamber tapissée …27 [from her he received special darts, richly ornamented in Biscayan fashion. And, in return, he presented her with a room hung with tapestries … ]

Alison Weir, writing about the King’s penchant for wild boar hunting, refers to the New Year’s gift and states that the ‘dards’ were ‘probably hunting spears’.28 Other forms of darts were used in Tudor England. Darts – or more accurately ‘darts for wildfire’ – which were utilised to set fire to enemy sails and were normally thrown by hand – appear in the inventory of the Sovereign, part of King Henry VIII’s fleet.29 ‘Dartes … lvij dossen’ are listed immediately after the entry for ‘Javelyns’ in an inventory of the Henry Grace a Dieu compiled in 1514.30 The Mary Rose inventory dated 1546 lists forty dozen ‘dartes for tops’, ‘tops’ being the fighting tops on the masts.31

The origins of darts

These ‘dartes for tops’ were missile weapons, small spears or javelins, thrown from the fighting tops situated on the masts and were not dissimilar to ‘darts for wildfire’.32 Most warships of the period were armed with darts, the Mary Rose by no means being unique in this respect. ‘Dartes for tops’ were thrown by hand, and so there appears no reason why they could not be thrown for amusement too. Darts as an adult/child recreation In the sixteenth century a religious tract written by the minister John N. Northbrooke features Age, ‘a very learned, patient, and pious man, who had innumerable texts at his fingers’ ends’, warning Youth, ‘an extremely docile and easily convinced pupil’, against the dangers inherent in ‘ydle playes and vaine pastimes’, which include ‘throwing the darte’.33 Subsequently Northbrook appears to contradict this warning. When asked by Youth to name ‘playes … which are tollerable’ the minister provides a list which includes ‘lifting and throwing the stone’, shooting in long bowes, crossbows, hand-gunnes’ and ‘casting of the darte’, a clear reference to the dart as the hand-held missile weapon.34 In his account of the English Civil War, Maurice Ashley referred to movements of the Parliamentarian advance guard before the battle of Naseby and stated that Colonel Henry Ireton and the guard captured a group of soldiers belonging to the Royalist rearguard as they were playing ‘quoits or darts and drinking’ in the village of Naseby.35 In a subsequent work Ashley once again recorded the incident, Colonel Ireton being ‘successful in surprising part of his enemy’s rearguard in Naseby village, seven miles south of Market Harborough, while the Royalist troopers were supping and playing darts or quoits in the local inn, taking most of them prisoner’.36 On both occasions Ashley failed to record the source of this information or note any uncertainty about the phrase ‘darts or quoits’. A more accurate account can be found in the work of Glenn Foard, a member of the Northamptonshire Archaeology Unit.37 Foard records the same incident but cites his source as a ‘Parliamentarian newspaper’, the True Informer, the account reading, ‘we tooke divers of Prince Ruperts Life Guard playing at Quoits for handfulls of money at Naseby, there were about twentie men’.38 Foard makes no reference to darts. It is possible that, owing to the condition of the copy of the source scrutinised by Ashley, it presented two possible interpretations: ‘darts’ or ‘quoits’. This is an example of how the history of darts can become distorted. Joseph Strutt in the early nineteenth century presents us with another lead about the origins of darts. Strutt was one of the scholars whom Emma

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Darts in England

Griffin described as being keen to study recreations ‘to reveal progress made in recent times’ or to preserve for posterity previously unnoticed recreations.39 Strutt’s major work on recreations (first published in 1801) focused on the ‘rural and domestic recreations … from the earliest period to the present time’.40 But, as Emma Griffin states, although Strutt’s work was one of scholarly research, it was a ‘synthesis of references to popular recreations contained in old and rare texts’, the book not being based on any personal observation of contemporary sports and pastimes.41 Thus Joseph Strutt was more antiquarian than historian but he provides possible leads. In Strutt’s pages we find the possibility that darts was derived from the children’s pursuit of ‘casting’ or ‘throwing the dart’.42 In addition to Northbrook, quoted above, in 1801 Strutt, quoting as his source Fitzstephen’s Description of London, records that ‘In the twelfth century … among the amusements practised by the young Londoners on holidays, was casting of stones, darts, and other missive weapons.’ 43 A weapon of warfare had been reduced to the condition of a toy, and Strutt viewed darts as a child’s game. He makes no reference to it being associated with the tavern or public house.44 As will be shown in Chapter 6, small darts were sold commercially as a child’s game during the nineteenth century under the name of ‘Indoor Archery’ or ‘Dartelle’. In addition to ‘casting darts’ other darts-related children’s games mentioned by Strutt are the family of dart-puffing games played by children in the sixteenth century known variously as ‘pick-point’, ‘venter-point’, ‘Gregory’ and ‘blow-point’, the latter consisting of ‘probably blowing an arrow through a tube at certain numbers by way of lottery’. 45 More recently Keith Turner made passing reference to ‘puff-darts’ more as ‘a curious game’ than as a major link in the evolution of darts.46 But puffand-dart is more important to the history of darts than such a narrow view. Puff-and-dart Richard Holt stated that darts had been around in ‘various guises’ for centuries.47 One of the guises Holt fails to mention is ‘puff-and-dart’. Blowpipes with darts were used in England as a weapon as far back as the fifteenth century, used to hunt small birds, and it is this adult pursuit rather than children’s mimicry of it which was taken inside to become ‘puff-darts’, ‘puff-the-dart’ or ‘puff-and-dart’, the earliest recorded indoor darts game.48 In the borough ordinances of Leicester 1467, when reinforcing the law concerning ‘carding and unlawful games’, Mayor Richard Gillot commanded that:

The origins of darts

no man of this town nor of the countryside play within the franchises of the town for silver at any unlawful games that are forbidden by statute or law … that is for to say, at dice, cards, hazards, tennis, bowls, blowing with arrows through a trunk at certain numbers by way of lottery … And the owner of the house, gardens, or places where these games are used, as often as it is found and used, shall pay to the chamberlain 4d and every player 6d to the same chamberlain to the use of the commons.49

Edward III, and subsequently Henry VIII, banned games, including skittles, tables (backgammon) and quoits, but made no mention of darts or puff-and-dart. Similarly when those laws were repealed in 1845 the new Gaming Act did not list either version of darts as an unlawful game.50 By the nineteenth century, despite no specific reference to the adult game in Strutt’s work, the main dart game played in inns was puff-and-dart. The rules of puff-and-dart were basic. Each player stood an agreed distance away from the wall on which the target hung and puffed a set number of darts at it. The highest score attained won the game, the prize for the winner normally being a quart of ale. The editor of Boys’ Own Book (1870) described the child’s version of puff-and-dart (Figure 2) to its

2 Victorian boys playing puff-and-dart (Rev. J. G. Wood, ed., The Boys’ Modern Playmate, London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1895, p. 165)

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Darts in England

youthful readers and referred to the game as an ‘old-fashioned tavern game’ which ‘has lately found its way into private homes, where it enjoys a certain kind of popularity under the name of “Drawing Room Archery”’.51 However, puff-and-dart continued to thrive as a pub game during the nineteenth century in a number of major cities and provincial towns but was not actively encouraged, it being seen as an encouragement to gamble. During the same year as the Boys’ Own Book was proclaiming puff-anddart to be ‘old-fashioned’ Abraham Buckley, landlord of the Beaver inn, Crompton, near Oldham, Lancashire, was charged with ‘allowing puffand-darts to be played on the premises at 9.30 on a Saturday night’.52 The game was three darts each, the highest score winning for the player a quart of beer. Here the licensee was transgressing the 1845 Gaming Act, which stipulated that it was illegal for players of any public house game not only to play for money, even small stakes, but also to play for money’s worth.53 Abraham Buckley was not fined on that occasion but the following year he offended again, was fined 20s (£1) and his licence was suspended.54 Subsequently the Licensing Act 1872 included clarification of the laws on gaming on licensed premises, placing the burden of responsibility firmly on the licensee, and qualified the level of fine to be imposed. If any licensed person ‘suffers any gaming … or any unlawful game … to be carried out on his premises’ and was found guilty then a penalty not exceeding £10 would be imposed for the first offence and for the second and subsequent offences an amount not exceeding £20.55 In the case of Bew v. Harston (1878) the appellant, a licensee, ‘suffered to be played on the licensed premises a game called puff-and-dart’ in breach of the Licensing Act 1872 (c. 94), s. 17(1). Each player had contributed 2d as entrance money, the total fees going towards the purchase of a rabbit as the prize for the winner. On appeal the charge was upheld on the grounds that ‘Here money was not in one sense staked on the game but each man paid his 2d for the chance of winning the rabbit. It comes to the same thing in principle.’56 But as the century progressed the popularity and thus the incidence of puff-and-dart reduced and the dangers inherent in the game were highlighted in The Lancet. The timely arrival of French darts built on the existing popularity of puff-and-dart, which it gradually replaced.57 Darts – a French connection The origins of the modern game of darts lie principally in the importation of wooden ‘French darts’ for use, originally, in fairgrounds. Since the mid-

The origins of darts

nineteenth century, dart-throwing had been established as part of the fairground tradition. According to Kenneth Grahame, showman ‘Lord’ George Sanger had his own ‘dart-throwing department’ during the late Victorian and early Edwardian period and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that Sanger, and hundreds of other showmen like him, were responsible in part for the gradual growth of interest in darts in Britain.58 The belief that modern darts was traditionally English was first challenged in 1985 by the research of Françoise Ollivier. Beginning with the fact that all early wooden darts in England were – and are still today – known commonly as ‘French darts’, Ollivier found that, commencing in the nineteenth century, darts were imported from the French Jura region and the border with Belgium, where the darts were made on a cottage industry basis.59 As will be shown in Chapter 6, the French dart-making industry swelled as the game became more and more popular in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth, so that by 1937 the French factories, concentrated in the Nord Pas-de-Calais, and particularly in the area of Hasnon, north-west of Valenciennes, were producing 10 million darts per year for the English market.60 No similar industry was developed in England until the 1920s and then it produced primarily dartboards in the first instance. In 1994 Arthur Taylor, a pub games researcher, turned his attention to the French connection relating to darts and revealed that early forms of darts play was ‘alive and well and being played … in the regions of Nord Pas-de-Calais and Picardy’.61 In the summer of 1993, whilst researching a book on the Great War, Taylor had been introduced to the game of javelot tir sur cible in the back yard of a café in the village of Saint-Fuscien, south of Amiens. Taylor states that javelot: is a game where you throw darts at a target – but the darts are foot-long steel-tipped monsters, flighted with enormous bunches of turkey feathers, and you throw them underarm, across 20 ft or so, at a target whose scoring areas are a tiny bull, which scores two points, and an outer, which scores just one.62

Taylor also confirmed that a scaled-down version of javelot was introduced in France in the nineteenth century and called flechettes and this game too was still being played in cafés in the north of France in the early 1990s.63 Literally translated, flechette means ‘small arrow’. The target was a miniature concentric archery target. So here for the first time there is a direct link with darts’ possible origins in archery – but French archery, not English.64

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Darts in England

Thus it appears from the evidence that the modern game of darts has its origins in flechettes, although the English targets would eventually become more complex. It is not outside the bounds of probability that English soldiers were exposed to both javelot and flechettes during the years of the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15) but there are no certainties about this. Examination of the major theatres of battle focuses the attention on the very parts of northern France and Belgium identified by both Luc Delporte and Arthur Taylor as the centres of both games. Waterloo itself is less than 75 km from Valenciennes and the Nord Pas-de-Calais. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the games, or elements of them, were taken back home to England by soldiers and introduced into the English tavern, to garden parties and fêtes, and attracted the attention of fairgrounds. There were, of course, many cultural links between France and Britain throughout the nineteenth century. Nor is it unreasonable to suggest that elements of the modern game of darts may have reached England before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars through previously established trade links with France. Certainly, as we shall see later, at least one family migrated to England – a firm of carpenters and cabinetmakers – who sold dartboards and darts as a sideline – as a toy – and the dartboard was later to become known as the Manchester or ‘log end’ dartboard when the game was popularised in the 1920s.65 But there were clearly other forms of darts extant before and during the nineteenth century and thus, as with any examination of the social history of everyday life, the position with regard to the development of darts is more complex. Darts at the end of the nineteenth century was little more than an occasionally played child’s game, fairground attraction and pub game. However, small signs of development became apparent in the first two decades of the twentieth century which ultimately led to the popularisation of darts during the inter-war years. Notes 1 2 3 4 5

Michael Brander, The Life and Sport of the Inn (London: Gentry Books, 1973), p. 107. Peter Arnold, Darts (London: Deans International Publishing, 1984), p. 6. Brander, The Life and Sport of the Inn, p. 107. Dennis Brailsford, British Sport – A Social History (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1992), pp. 104, 117 and 137. Richard Holt, Sport and the British – A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 192.

The origins of darts

6 7 8 9

10 11

12

13

14

15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24

Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers – A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (Oxford: Berg, 2002), p. 32. Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 72–3. Ibid., p. 72. Emma Griffin, England’s Revelry – A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes 1660–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 47–52, 53–4, 58– 69, 150–4 and 153–66. Peter Clark, The English Alehouse – A Social History 1200–1830 (London: Longman, 1983), p. 154. Ibid., p. 154. For further details of games, both indoor and outdoor, extant during the seventeenth century see Charles Cotton, The Complete Gamester (Cambridge: Cornmarket Reprints in association with Magdalene College, 1972). (Originally printed in London ‘by A.M. for R Cutler’, 1674.) In addition to Holt, this theory is also supported by, among others, Tom Barrett (Darts, London: Pan Books, 1973, p. 3) and I. L. Brackin and W. Fitzgerald (All about Darts, Chicago: Double Top Publishing, 1975, p. 1). For example, see Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), p. 8 (Brown calls the theory ‘mere supposition’), Keith Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980), p. 100 (Turner describes the theory as ‘an unlikely story’), and Dave Lanning (ed.), Leighton Rees on Darts (London: Cassell & Co., 1979), p. 9. For example, Alan Warriner last night begged the mystery darts thief who stole one of his prized arrows to hand it back before his world title hopes are ruined.’ (Daily Mirror, 2 January 2004, p. 71.) Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, p. 100. Ibid. W. E. Tucker, a founder member of the Archery Antiquaries, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 6 October 1988. Frederick H. Lake and Hal Wright (compilers), A Bibliography of Archery (Manchester: Simon Archery Foundation, 1974), and letter from Fred Lake to Patrick Chaplin dated 20 June 1998. The British Archer, 20:5 (March 1969), pp. 194–5 and 226. Frederick H. Lake, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 7 July 1998. Leonid Tarassuk and Claude Blair, The Complete Encyclopaedia of Arms and Weapons (London: B. T. Batsford, 1982), p. 158. Claude Blair, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 20 April 1985. Leonid Tarassuk, Research Associate (Arms and Armor), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 7 May 1985. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1989), p. 255, and letter from Mrs L. S. Burnett, Senior Editor (General), Oxford University Press, to Patrick Chaplin dated 8 August 1983. The first edition of the OED was published in parts between 1884 and 1928. The fascicle containing the word ‘dart’ was published in 1894 and contained no reference to the game of

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25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38

39

40

darts. After the editors had finished their work in 1928 they returned to material which had accumulated since publication began, particularly in the earlier letters of the alphabet, and produced a supplement in 1933. In this supplement the additional entry for ‘dart’ states, A light pointed missile thrown at a target in the indoor game called darts’. The illustrative quotations cover the period 1901 to 1929. (Oxford English Dictionary –1933 Supplement, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933, p. 270.) Also see letter from Margot Charlton, of the Academic Division of the OED, to Patrick Chaplin dated 6 April 2006. (During the period 7 June 1983 to 15 February 1985 the author assisted the OED in producing revised and new darts-related entries for the words ‘oche’, ‘shanghai’, ‘ton’ and ‘treble’.) Tom Barrett, Darts (London: Pan Books, 1973), p. 1. Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts, p. 8. Dr Christiane Thomas, Direktor, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchivs, Vienna, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 3 May 1985, archive ref. Z1.3390/O-H/85. Alison Weir, Henry VIII and his Court (London: Pimlico, 2002), pp. 318–19. Michael Oppenheim, A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy and of Merchant Shipping in relation to the Navy, I, 1509–1660 (London: John Lane, 1896), p. 57. Ibid., pp. 300–1. Dr Margaret Rule, CBE, FSA, Research Director, Mary Rose Trust, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 23 June 1986. Alexandra Hildred, Research Archaeologist, Mary Rose Trust, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 29 March 1989. John Northbrooke, A Treatise against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes: with other Idle Pastimes (London: Shakespeare Society, 1843), p. 83. (Originally published London: H. Bynneman, c. 1577.) Ibid., p. 107. Maurice Ashley, The English Civil War (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), p. 127. (Originally published London: Tames & Hudson, 1974, p. 120.) Maurice Ashley, The Battle of Naseby and the Fall of King Charles I (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), p. 64. Glenn Foard, Naseby – The Decisive Campaign (Whitstable: Pryor Publications, 1995), p. 190. Ibid., p. 190. The footnote to page 190 cites The True Informer dated 21 June 1645. Upon examination of the original document it is clear that Prince Rupert’s Life Guards were playing quoits and not darts. See The True Informer, No. 9, 21 June 1645, p. 66. Emma Alice Griffin, ‘Popular Sports and Celebrations in England 1660– 1850’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 13 February 2001 (Cambridge University Library ref PhD 24349), pp. 3–4. Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (London: Thomas Tegg, 1831, new edn, ed. William Hone), p. vii. (Originally published London: T. Beasley for White & Co., 1801.)

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41 42

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45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

Griffin, ‘Popular Sports and Celebrations in England’, p. 2. Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, p. 75. For a wider discussion on darts possibly being derived from children’s games see the author’s article ‘Child’s play?’ in Darts Player, 89, pp. 6–7. Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, p. 75. The reference utilised by Strutt is William Fitzstephen’s Description of the City of London translated from the original twelfth-century document by Samuel Pegge and printed for B. White in 1772. However, upon examination of the text it is revealed that Fitzstephen (d. 1190) makes no specific mention of ‘darts’. In John Stow’s later work A Svrvay of London, conteyning the Original, Antiquity, Increase, Moderne Estate, and Description of that City, Stow utilises Fitzstephen’s work as an appendix and refers to it in detail within his original text and, in addition to ‘casting the stone’ as referred to by Fitzstephen, merely adds ‘or ball, etc.’, making no reference to darts at all. (London: John Windet, 1603, p. 70.) Thus it appears that Strutt added the reference to ‘darts and other missive weapons’ from a source or sources he did not actually cite in his work. Francis Willughby’s seventeenth-century manuscript Book of Games, which lists details of a wide variety of sports, games and pastimes and includes rules and a glossary of terms, was published in book form for the first time in 2003 but regrettably includes no mention of darts or puff-and-dart. (D. Cram, J. L. Forgeng and D. Johnston, eds, Francis Willughby’s Book of Games, Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2003.) Strutt, Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, p. 403. Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, p. 105. Holt, Sport and the British, p. 192. For details of the history of the blowpipe as a missile weapon see Charles Chevenix Trench, A History of Marksmanship (London: Longman, 1973), p. 21. Alec Reginald Myers (ed.), English Historical Documents, IV, 1327–1485 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 577. 33 Hen. VIII, chapter IX; 1845 Gaming Act, 8 & 9 Vict., c. 109, CA.P CIX, para. I. Boys’ Own Book (London: Boys’ Own, 1870), p. 54. Rob Magee, A History of Crompton and Shaw Pubs (Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1988), p. 7. 1845 Gaming Act, 8 & 9 Vict., s. VIII. Rob Magee, A History of Crompton and Shaw Pubs, p. 7. Licensing Act 1872, s. 17; George B. Kennett (ed.), Stones Justices’ Manual, being the Justices’ Yearly Practice 1897 (London: Shaw & Sons, 1897), pp. 447–8. Cases, XXV, Gaming, chapter 1, case 4014, p. 448. For a discussion of the ‘perils’ of puff-and-dart see The Lancet, 24 February 1883, pp. 331–2, and for a literary reference to the dangers of the game see Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Angel of the Odd – An Extravaganza’ in Arthur H.

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58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65

Quinn and Edward H. O’Neill (eds), The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992), p. 559. The tale was originally published in October 1844 in The Columbian, p. 50. (J. R. Hammond, An Edgar Allan Poe Chronology, Basing-stoke: Macmillan Press, 1998.) Later, in 1907, ‘The Patent Safety Puff-and-dart’ was sold in Army and Navy Stores, ‘The tube used in this game being made so as to prevent the Dart being drawn into the mouth of the blower.’ (Army and Navy Co-operative Society, Yesterday’s Shopping – The Army and Navy Stores Catalogue 1907, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, facsimile reprint of 1907 edition, London: Army and Navy Co-operative Society, with introduction by Alison Adburgham, 1969, p. 1033.) ‘Lord’ George Sanger, Seventy Years a Showman, with introduction by Kenneth Grahame (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1935), pp. 8–9. Françoise Ollivier, ‘The History of Darts’, unpublished MA. thesis, University of Rennes II, 1985, p. 9. Luc Delporte, Jeux d’hier et d’avant hier dans le Nord Pas-de-Calais (no place of publication cited: GEP, 1981), p. 90. Arthur R. Taylor, ‘The awful truth: darts is French!’ What’s Brewing, June 1994, p. 14. Ibid. Ibid. Keith Turner alludes to the seventh-century historian Paul Pelisson, who ‘whilst imprisoned in the Bastille, fashioned some darts from wood and pins and threw them at the panelled ceiling of his cell’. However, Turner confirms the view that there is nothing to suggest that this was darts played in ‘any proper form’. (Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, p. 104.) For the development of the darts industry from the late nineteenth century to 1939 see Chapter 6.

The game of darts in England, 1900–18 In a survey of the conditions appertaining to-day [1925] in licensed premises throughout the country no factor stands out with more prominence than the facilities existing for the pursuit of indoor recreations … the provision of indoor games was distinctly an exception prior to 1914.1

A

fter 1900, darts played a more clearly identifiable and distinct role in the social lives of the English people than it had done before. This chapter reveals why this was the case, assesses the nature of darts and establishes the social significance of the game during the period 1900 until the end of the Great War. Consideration is also given to who was participating in the game, what their motives were for doing so, the locations in which they were playing and whether or not this social activity was confined to a specific class or particular area of the country and whether or not the geographical spread of darts changed between 1900 and the cessation of hostilities. As the Brewers’ Journal (quoted above) indicates, indoor pub recreations were little played before the outbreak of war in 1914 but had grown in prominence in the seven years between 1918 and 1925. This growth was noted by W. Bentley Capper, the author of the first major publication on the management of licensed houses, who stated in 1923 that ‘The most popular games on licensed premises appear to be darts, rings [indoor quoits] and “shove-ha’penny”; draughts, dominoes, cribbage, skittles and “ping-pong” also ran’ and that ‘In most towns there were leagues for the playing of such games …’ His advice to his colleagues in the licensed trade was that, if there was no such league in their district, ‘it will certainly be to your advantage to take the initiative in forming one’.2 Examining the popularity and development of darts up to the end of the Great War allows the historian to examine the formative period in the

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game’s history. This was the moment when the modern game really became evident. However, although darts was becoming a more popular form of leisure, especially but not exclusively for the working-class pubgoer, the game remained, at that time, a relatively insignificant part of English social life compared with other existing and developing sports and leisure options. However, fragments of evidence do provide important indications of the nature of darts undergoing very gradual change, for example the local organisation of pub against pub in ‘friendly matches’. A review of major reports by sociologists of the period and contemporary tracts by the various temperance movements on the condition of the working class highlighted the problems of the public house in terms of how drink and drunkenness affected families and relationships and tended to attack the drink trade in general.3 Absent from these reports was any reference to indoor pub games which suggests that, where they were played, games such as darts were not considered as either an existing or a potentially serious social threat to working-class pubgoers and their families. The main evil was the demon drink. However, contemporary legal cases and other sources provide sufficient evidence to enable an assessment to be made of the presence of darts in pubs and its effect on working-class life during the period up to 1918. There were a number of indicators of the growth of interest in darts by the brewers and licensees, including the first organised brewery darts leagues and the publication of a book on lawful games by the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office, but these were outnumbered by elements working against the development of the game, which included alternative leisure forms, especially the cinema. Despite clear legal judgements dating back to late Victorian times, the legality of darts continued to be raised in court cases – particularly with regard to gaming – and by unsympathetic, temperance-influenced licensing benches during the period. Because of its influence on the general interpretation – and misinterpretation – of the history of darts during and after this period, a 1908 court case which decided whether or not darts was a game of skill (legal) or chance (illegal) is examined in detail and an assessment made as to the true value of the case in terms of darts’ historical record. Through additional data, including personal memories and cases from licensing and magistrates’ courts, the extent of participation and the geographical spread of the game can clearly be revealed.

The game of darts, 1900–18

Drinking, temperance and the growth of alternative leisure pursuits At the turn of the twentieth century drinking was still ‘the basis of leisure’ among the working class, a function later replaced by cigarettes and television, and an integrated part of the normal day-to-day life of the working class.4 This continued despite the on-going efforts of the licensing benches – commenced in the late nineteenth century – which severely reduced the number of new and renewed licences during the Edwardian period and the work undertaken by temperance campaigners.5 The pub remained the social centre of its immediate area within cities and towns, as it did in rural areas, where, apart from the availability of churches for certain social functions, the local public house provided the focus for the community. Although walking and fishing were popular with some rural inhabitants, in the main the working class, as in the towns and cities, found comfort, warmth and company in the pub.6 One reason for the continued high level of drinking was that there was little else to do in the majority of public houses. There was some provision for reading but in the main – over and above imbibing – the only other recreations were conversation or indulging in whatever pub games were available in the few establishments that provided them. Local clubs utilised rooms at public houses but these tended to be for members only and thus were closed as an alternative option to the ordinary customer. The days of music hall and sports, such as boxing, being closely allied to the pub and often held in a room on the premises had also passed. The music halls and the cinemas were now housed in separate buildings and often balked against any implied connection with the pub as they strove for respectability. Whilst the brewers acknowledged the presence of these threats, little was actually done to combat the changes in the nature of additional recreational provision in public houses during this period.7 What remained in the pubs was the mere business of drinking and smallscale leisure forms, such as sing-songs around the piano and, in some houses, games such as darts. As Andrew Davies argued, working-class drinking was regulated by fluctuations in the individual economic fortunes – both long and shortterm – which meant that the working class took part in pub life only as and when they could afford it.8 Although Davies was writing specifically about Salford, his principle can be applied to any major centre of population during the early twentieth century and equally to rural areas. Despite these fluctuations, shorter working hours afforded the working man more time and opportunity to seek refuge in the pub. But less money was being spent

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on alcohol; £195 million in 1900 compared with £182 million in 1913. However, a more detailed study of the figures shows that the actual consumption of beer had increased from £110 million in 1900 to £115 million in 1913.9 It was the consumption of spirits – especially gin – that was on the decrease as brewers took positive action to close down the former gin palaces and embark on a significant programme of public house improvement. Although beer-drinking increased, convictions for drunkenness in England and Wales fell between 1905 and 1910 by 45,000, from 207,000 to 162,000. This represented a fall of 22 per cent in just five years. This reflected the differing strengths of beer and gin but was still an unacceptable level for those who wished to see alcohol outlawed altogether.10 However, such figures suggest that the Edwardians were witnessing crucial social change. The public house was under threat from new and developing leisure forms, particularly the music hall and the emergent silent cinema, which were seeking out a share of the new wealth of the working class. Sport too was taking an increasing number of customers away from the public house, for example playing and watching Association football was growing, the great majority being working-class people.11 Although there were originally some suspicions about it, the cinema quickly found favour with working-class families. Still in its infancy, the cinema became increasingly prevalent and popular and would become a normal feature of all towns in England by 1920.12 In 1917 the National Council of Public Morals’ inquiry into the cinema stated that ‘the picture house is the cheapest, most accessible, and most widely enjoyed form of public entertainment; it is most popular in the poorest districts … ’13 James Walvin noted that the cinema had one key advantage over the music hall – ‘the absence of drink – and that its popularity would also ‘cut great paths through the popularity of the churches and the pubs’.14 The cinema was cheap and parents were happy for their children to attend. It also created a new type of working-class family audience who filled the seats costing 3d or less, particularly on a Saturday night, which led to the cinema being dubbed ‘the poor man’s theatre’. This innovation was welcomed by many working-class women, as it kept their husbands out of the public house for at least one night of the week, away from alcohol and any recreations – particularly those involving gambling – of which he might have otherwise have partaken.15 It was during this time that members of the brewing and licensed trades began to consider expanding their own leisure forms – primarily games – in their public houses. However, the majority of publicans and brewers had yet to identify pub games as a potentially important element of future pub provision.16

The game of darts, 1900–18

Gambling, gaming and unlawful games in the public house In 1905 Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree declared that ‘in recent years’ gambling and drinking had ‘spread so widely … that those who know the facts name [them] as national evils of almost equal magnitude’.17 Five years previously E. T. Campagnac and C. E. B. Russell had stated that ‘The rapid spread of gambling is one of the most serious evils of the present time … [and now] touches all classes’ and among the ‘aids to gambling’ they included the ‘keepers of little public houses [who] “patronize the turf”’.18 Gambling and drinking in the public house were ubiquitous, and, as McKibbin argues, gambling ‘followed conventional and public routines’ with the ‘elaborate innocence’ of a man in the public bar marking him out immediately as a bookie.19 In terms of pub games, gambling activity tended to take the form of small side wagers, usually a beer paid for by the loser to the winner in games such as dominoes, cribbage or darts. Although played only for small stakes, gaming was illegal and could result in court action and, in the most serious cases, the loss of a publican’s licence and thus his livelihood.20 The Licensing Act of 1872 was clear that if any licensed person suffered gaming or any unlawful game to be carried out on the premises he or she if convicted was liable to a penalty ‘not exceeding for the first offence ten pounds, and not exceeding for the second and subsequent offence twenty pounds’ and, unless the convicting magistrates directed otherwise, it was to be ‘recorded on the licence of the person convicted’.21 Conscious of the outward concern of the legislature, licensing benches and police about gaming, and in order to ‘lay before our readers information upon the lawful games that may be played by persons visiting licensed houses’ the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office published clear guidance to the licensed trade on the matter in 1903.22 The book listed all lawful games, which included ‘dart-and-target’ and ‘puff-and-dart’, and those games that were forbidden by statute, such as certain card games (including ‘Hazzard’ and Ace of Hearts’) and dice. It also showed how questions relating to individual games of skill and chance had been dealt with by justices whilst at the same time confirming the ‘universal law’ that ‘no game involving a stake of money, or value for money, may be played on licensed premises’.23 Despite this advice and the common knowledge that playing any game for money or money’s worth constituted gaming, numerous court cases involving pub games, including darts, provide evidence that publicans were prepared to take the risk in order to make greater profits. In 1905 Benjamin Hey, landlord of the Victoria Hotel, Park Lane, Bradford, was summoned before the Bradford City Police Court for

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‘permitting gaming to be carried on at his licensed premises’, in this instance allowing the playing of darts and dominoes for beer. The presiding magistrate, Mr W. G. Purnell, was unsympathetic and ‘wanted it to be specially known to licence holders in the city that it was illegal to play for money or moneys worth and that this gaming could not be allowed’. Hey was fined 5s, with 7s costs.24 In January 1918 Ernest Hamblett, landlord of the Camden Head beerhouse in Berkeley Street, Clerkenwell, London, was summoned before the Clerkenwell Police Court for ‘suffering gaming’ on his premises. The prosecution deposed that the practice of allowing customers to play games such as darts and dominoes had grown up in public houses in the area, the established practice being that the loser of each game paid for a round of drinks for the other participants. The prosecution argued that such games were ‘too dull not to be livened up with a little gaming’. However, Hamblett was found guilty of gaming – playing for money or money’s worth, in this case beer – and fined 40s (£2) with two guineas (£2.20) costs.25 This case also confirmed the view of that particular court that neither ignorance of the law nor the continuation of past practice was acceptable as a defence.26 Before 1914 the landlord of the King’s Arms, Oldfield Road, Salford, regularly put up prizes on a Saturday night – legs of mutton, beef or rabbits -and for 1d anyone could compete for them, the highest score with three darts being the winner.27 Andrew Davies’s research revealed the case of a skilful darts player named Heaton, a carter by trade, who was captain of the King’s Arms darts team. Davies shows how in Heaton’s case the ‘fragile balance between the management of poverty and the pursuit of leisure’ was occasionally relieved by his skills as a darts player by providing for his family over and above Public Assistance during a spell of unemployment.28 On one occasion Heaton won a china clock set, consisting of ‘a clock and two vases, all carved in lovely patterns’. Although Heaton’s wife would have loved to keep the prize, it had to go ‘the same way as the other things’, that is, it was a luxury the family could ill afford to keep on display on the mantelpiece whilst they went hungry or Father without his beer. It was pawned.29 Davies argues that offering such prizes was evidence that the publican recognised ‘the domestic tensions that drink could arouse’ and, therefore, responded by offering material rewards ‘designed to appeal to women as household managers’ which men could use in turn to justify their ‘right’ to leisure.30 Certainly, in this case at least, the kind of prizes offered – food or decorative, practical utility items and not alcohol or credit – supports Davies’s view and indicates awareness on the part of the publican of the

The game of darts, 1900–18

nature of working-class customers and the sensitive social conditions in which they existed. Such prizes would appeal to the womenfolk as house managers and may even have been presented by the husband to his wife as a reward for allowing him to go out to the pub, a benefit from his skill at darts, thus justifying his continued attendance at the pub. The publican, as entrepreneur and provider of recreational facilities, understood his customer base. However, it is also likely that the prime motive for organising regular darts competitions on a Saturday night was to improve his or her own profits and to keep regular customers in the pub for as long as possible on at least one evening per week. This was not some grand philanthropic design on the part of the publican to improve the lot of the working man or to appease the wives who stayed at home; it was pure capitalism and pure cunning. Occasionally Heaton’s father also took part in a ‘money match. This was a game in which two players played a single game or series of games, perhaps best of three or best of five, for a cash prize. In Heaton’s case, Frank Guildford, landlord of the Trafford Hotel, Trafford Road, put up the sum of £50 against £50 from any other landlord, his nominee to play Heaton one game of 301 on ‘a neutral board’, that is, in a pub or club away from their recognised ‘local’.31 Heaton won the contest and doubtless his proportion of the winnings changed his life, if only for a while.32 Whilst Richard Heaton recalled this single instance of his father participating in a money match it would not have been a one-off and Heaton’s father would not have been the only darts player maintaining the ‘fragile balance between the management of poverty and the pursuit of leisure’ in this manner. However, under the law participating in money matches or competing for prizes against a group of other players on Saturday nights constituted gaming and was therefore an illegal activity. There was no lack of clarity as far as the law was concerned. Between 1860 and 1901 a number of legal cases clearly established that the playing of any game, whether lawful or unlawful, whether of chance or skill, for money or money’s worth staked by the competitors was gaming.33 In 1909 Frederick Hackwood argued that ‘since the more stringent administration of the licensing laws, all those games which tended to encourage gambling have been frowned out of existence’. The labouring man was ‘debarred participation in a cheap and simple game, such as dominoes’ and was thus ‘restricted severely to the only pleasure permitted him … imbibing’.34 But it is clear from the evidence that ‘imbibing’ was not the only pleasure of the pub and that some forms of recreation were being developed, albeit in some cases illegally.

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Darts as a game of skill: the ‘Annakin case’ The major legal issue, as indicated by the cases previously cited, was whether or not gaming could be evidenced. Decisions showed that it mattered not whether a game was one of skill or chance: if players were playing for money or money’s worth it was gaming. Otherwise, if played for simple recreation, games of skill were legal whilst those of chance (including many card games) were illegal. Complications regarding games of skill arose in Leeds, Yorkshire, when darts was introduced into pubs in that city prior to the Great War and a licensee was summoned before the magistrates charged with allowing a game of chance, namely darts, to be played on his premises. It is known as the Annakin case. The significance of the Annakin case lies not in the case itself but what has subsequently been occasioned to the detail in terms of historical record. What would appear to have been a relatively unimportant local issue has been magnified by late twentieth-century writers into an event of national importance to darts. In 1908 the landlord of the Adelphi inn, off Kirkstall Road, named in all previous accounts as William ‘Big-foot’ Annakin, but in actuality James Garside,35 was summoned to appear before Leeds Magistrates’ Court charged with allowing a game of chance, namely darts, to be played in his establishment. After a demonstration of the game in court by William Annakin, the judgement in the case was that darts was a game of skill and not a game of chance. It was therefore legal and the case was dismissed. The significance for darts players in Leeds was that darts could be played in public houses in the city. However, the national significance of this event has latterly been exaggerated, giving the Annakin case an importance in darts legal history that it simply does not merit. First cited by professional darts player Tom Barrett in his autobiography, published in 1973, the court case involving William ‘Bigfoot’ Annakin appeared in subsequent darts books.36 Jack McClintock published a version of the Annakin story in 1977, referring to the outcome of the hearing as ‘a landmark decision’.37 Dave Lanning cited the case in 1979, arguing that, had the verdict of the court gone against Annakin, there would have been ‘a real danger of the game being outlawed’ and that the Annakin case was directly responsible for ensuring that darts ‘did not die virtually stillborn’.38 In 1980 Derek Brown referred to the Annakin court appearance as ‘an interesting test case for darts’, whilst five years later Sid Waddell described 1908 as ‘the most important year in the history of darts’.39 On each occasion the story of Annakin was embellished and distorted and eventually, to all intents and purposes, became a historical fact in non-academic publications.40

The game of darts, 1900–18

In 1992 the case was cited by social historian Richard Holt. He referred to it as ‘a curious legal case’; the magistrate ‘pronounced darts to be a ‘skilful’ and therefore a legal pub activity’. 41 This, in practice, Holt argued, ‘allowed men to back themselves or others for a pint or a few bob during the evening at the pub dartboard’.42 In this Holt is incorrect. The case did not legalise darts. Darts was already designated a lawful game but it was the playing of darts, dominoes and similar games for small stakes that remained unlawful, as such actions constituted gaming. Nearly another five decades would elapse before playing games on licensed premises for small stakes was legalised by the Betting and Gaming Act 1960.43 What little clarity can be brought to the Annakin case is gathered from newspaper articles, genealogical research and a letter to the author of this book from Joseph, William Annakin’s grandson. 44 In essence William Annakin was a keen dominoes player at the Adelphi Inn and that at the time (1890–1910) only dominoes were allowed to be played in public houses in Leeds, although some publicans had begun to install dartboards.45 Once alerted to this new game the magistrates became suspicious of the nature and potential of darts and categorised it as an unlawful game. If darts was new to the Leeds area in 1908, then the police may have been challenging the legality of the new public house recreation and asking magistrates to decide whether darts was a game of chance or a game of skill. Darts was much more participative, lively and noisy than more sedentary games such as cards or dominoes – and throwing sharp, pointed objects in the presence of often large numbers of drinkers in what could be confined and cramped drinking accommodation could have been perceived by the police as a potential source of violence or riotous behaviour. In addition it may have been viewed as affording pubgoers an additional opportunity for gaming. Joseph Annakin’s view was simply that ‘The licensee of the time asked my grandfather to demonstrate the game at Leeds Town Hall … He used a Yorkshire Board (no trebles) and went round the board, the magistrates asking him to throw for a certain number. He did this with such skill that they then agreed that it was indeed a game of skill and dartboards began to appear in most of the pubs’.46 Joseph Annakin restated these facts in 1985, whilst also confirming that Jim Garside, the landlord of the Adelphi, had arranged for William (‘the best [darts] player around’) to go to court to prove that darts was a game of skill, not chance.47 The outcome, that the game was adjudged as one of skill, confirmed the legality of darts and, from that moment, darts could be played legally in

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Leeds pubs. If the game had been deemed unlawful by the Leeds magistrates the progress and development of darts in that city would have been arrested. However, this was far from being, as Waddell suggests, the most important event in the history of darts. It was simply a locally determined legal decision in respect of a specific local difficulty. Over a period of several decades the facts were distorted and the case assumed historical significance – a significance that has been shown to be totally unwarranted. The result has been, until now, a distortion of darts history in general and of the legality of darts in particular.48 However, it is to be regretted that the Leeds Magistrates Court records of 1908 are missing.49 As for the actual future of darts in Leeds, clearly the game was allowed in public houses post-Annakin, and this is reaffirmed by an unusual utilisation of the game in that city in 1913. In the election auditors’ report on the expenditure of £30,000 during the winter of that year in relation to the general municipal strike, not only were 4,054 pints of beer, ‘hundreds of thousands of cigarettes’ and ‘141 lb of tobacco’ ordered for the police but also games and recreations were provided ‘for the men behind the barricades and police guards’ which included ‘footballs, draughts, playing cards, dominoes, a gramophone and darts’.50 The gradual growth of pub-based darts Elsewhere the nature of darts during this period was one of gradual, barely noticeable growth and, in addition to darts being played on a one-to-one basis or in teams within the ‘local’, there is evidence of informal arrangements between teams of players from different public houses in the form of ‘friendly’ matches. For example, in 1908 Hugh Beed became the publican of the Red Lion at Blean, near Canterbury, Kent. His daughter Edie in her autobiography showed that friendly darts matches were played at her father’s public house as early as 1913. She recalled in particular a team of darts players, fishermen from the Prince of Wales, Whitstable – approximately four or five miles distant – who visited the pub. They were ‘travelling by brake’, aiming to arrive at seven o’clock that evening and bringing with them ‘a feed of whelks for everyone’, provided the weather permitted the gathering of them.51 Such matches were clearly casual, social matches rather than serious competitive occasions. However, whilst Beed has demonstrated the social nature of the friendly darts match in Blean, at the Victory public house in East Farleigh,

The game of darts, 1900–18

only twenty-five to thirty miles distant, darts was unknown. Freda Cheeseman, whose grandfather became publican of the Victory in the early 1900s, recalled that the most popular games during Edwardian times in that public house were ‘skittles, shove-ha’penny and cards – mainly whist’.52 This comparison illustrates the parochial nature of darts during the period even within the same county. With the emergence of friendly matches – an arrangement that still remains in local darts today – the increased economic benefits to the publican were clear and reciprocated by the ‘away’ match. Friendly matches may have also led to fewer unlawful games being played – although it has become traditional for the teams to play for a gallon of beer at the end of such matches. Friendly matches were initially only on an occasional, ad hoc basis: informal arrangements often made at short notice between two landlords. In all cases the house rules – that is, the type of dartboard, the height at which it was hung, the length of the throw line and the rules of the game – would be those of the ‘home’ side. Food was often provided, which may have been reason enough to encourage any number of people over and above the actual participants to visit the pub to support their team or to supplement their poor diet with the food on offer and to increase the landlord’s takings. The establishment of a friendly team also strengthened the team players’ loyalty to and identity with his local pub. Friendly matches did not replace the casual, one-to-one or team games played every day but encouraged some players to take the game more seriously, and the more eager exponent to visit his local more often to hone his skills and, hopefully, from the publican’s point of view, to drink more beer. The next step would be to organise these friendly games into some kind of formal structure. Whilst no evidence has yet been found of structured friendly pub darts leagues between 1900 and 1918, there is fragmentary evidence of early interest in the organisation of inter-house darts leagues by brewers. This could only, one presumes, have been instigated as a direct result of the success of local friendly competition or leagues, brewers seeing the potential benefits to their trade of sponsorship of such leagues. However, this was sponsorship not in the modern sense of providing large sums of money for product placement but by way of the provision of equipment – darts and dartboards – and trophies and other prizes for winning individuals and/or teams. The brewers Morland & Co., of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, are one early example of this form of support for the game.53 Everard’s Tiger Brewery, of Burton-on-Trent, began sponsoring leagues between the public houses they owned from around 1910.54 Therefore,

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what little evidence exists supports the provision of friendly matches and the early involvement of a small number of brewers prior to the Great War, yet no evidence has yet come to light to confirm the nature of the organisation behind these kinds of competitions in terms of structure. A formal body of rules would not be established until the National Darts Association (NDA) was founded in 1925.55 Early darts in other locations During the period 1900 to 1918 darts was being played not only within the confines of public houses but also in a number of other locations. Although John Ross remembered darts being played in pubs in Poplar, east London, during the Great War, he was too young to go into public houses, so he played darts in a local amusement arcade and became ‘fascinated by it’.56 At the age of twelve Ross obtained a part-time job at an arcade which included a dart-throwing stall and, when it was closed for the day, practised darts. The dartboards used in arcade darts stalls, as with fairground darts stalls, were not the same design or numbering as the modern standard board. They were larger and had more segments. Ross described the particular arcade dartboard he practised on as being specifically designed for particular fairground versions of the game, having up to 100 scoring segments, ‘coloured red, white and blue’. To win a prize ‘you had to get three [darts] in the same colour’.57 Ross recalled that the kind of dart used by the arcade was wooden, feathered darts known as ‘the French dart’. It is also clear from discussions with Ross that there were ‘very very few darts leagues’ and little serious competitive darts, any matches between public houses being friendlies.58 Darts was also played in the emergent working men’s clubs. The formal establishment of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union took place in 1862 by a small group of social reformers brought together by the Reverend Henry Solly and under the presidency of Lord Henry Brougham with the aim of providing ‘an alternative to the licensed houses and beershops, then so degrading an influence upon the lives of the workers’.59 The clubs provided ‘healthy enjoyment and recreation’ for men – including gymnastics, boxing, cricket, football, billiards, chess and whist, together with other games – who otherwise had no opportunities in that direction save for the public house or the drinking clubs – ‘the greatest source of evil in a working-class district’.60 Whilst originally not selling intoxicating liquor, the working men’s clubs soon found that there was a demand from members for beer. Therefore, from 1868, the sale of beer in

The game of darts, 1900–18

WMCIU establishments was left to the discretion of the managers. The view was taken that working men did like alcoholic refreshment and that, if they were to drink, it was better they should drink in their own club, where they might, rather than in a public house, where they must.61 Even as late as 1903 this decision to allow the sale of alcohol was raising doubts as to whether or not the clubs had ‘fulfilled the high hopes of their founders’.62 However, the clubs did serve as places of recreation for men, providing ‘healthy and recreative amusement’, provision that, the brewers later argued, ‘the average licensee was prevented from affording’ owing to the police authorities, not unnaturally, taking their cue ‘from the prevailing temper of the local Magistrates’ who, before 1914, ‘cast a dubious eye on any attempt on the part of the licensee to provide recreation for his customers’.63 Thus the growth of any games in public houses before 1918 was restricted by the magistrates’ mistrust of licensees.64 The clubs also provided darts as a recreation. For example, in Offley Hertfordshire, in 1914 the local parish club room was utilised on weekday evenings as a working men’s club, where both dominoes and darts were played not only for recreational purposes but also as part of championships between neighbouring villages.65 Evidence of darts-playing from contemporary fiction Further evidence of dart-playing during this period comes from disparate contemporary literary sources which not only confirm the existence of darts but also reinforce the argument that darts was not merely a pub pastime. For example, in 1911 the author and traveller E. Temple Thurston recorded darts being played in a pub in a rural area of Oxfordshire. Whilst travelling the Oxford Canal in a canal boat, The Flower of Gloster, he stopped at the village of Cropredy, the scene of a Civil War battle in 1644. Thurston and a colleague entered the Red Lion public house for refreshment. Inside they were confronted by an activity with which Thurston was totally unfamiliar. He recorded that: Upon the wall opposite the open fireplace there was a board, marked out as a sun-dial, each division bearing the value of some number. A ring in the centre marked the highest number of all. The board was painted black, and all about the face of it were little holes where darts had entered. It was a game they [local farmhands in the pub] played to wile away a lazy hour … … we played with them then – played for four glasses of ale, while the landlord in his apron leaned within the doorway, keeping the score with a piece of chalk, pleasantly content whoever won or lost.66

63

64

Darts in England

Here was a simple pastime in progress, a game played by local farmhands at leisure, one in which passing visitors were willingly allowed to take part. The publican was, quite naturally, content whichever way the game went because they were playing for ale – money over the bar ‘whoever won or lost’. The Red Lion being a rural pub, this pastime was probably crucial to its economy. How the dartboard found its way to Cropredy is unknown, but it most probably arrived there the same way as Thurston had, by canal. Contemporary fiction also provides evidence of darts being utilised as a recreation outside the framework of the pub. Lovat Dickson described H. G. Wells’s book Mr Britling Sees it Through as one of his ‘greatest triumphs, reflecting beautifully the English character and scene at a crisis in history’ and ‘thoroughly English.67 It is in that thoroughly English work that Wells describes a very English scene at the Matchings Easy flower show in Claverings Park on a public holiday, the first Monday in August, in which darts is featured. Wells wrote: there was a gorgeous gold and yellow steam roundabout with motorcars and horses … here were cocoanut [sic] shies and many ingenious prize-giving shooting and dart-throwing stalls, each displaying a marvellous array of crockery, clocks, metal ornaments and suchlike rewards.68

The fictitious village of Matchings Easy was Easton Glebe, near Great Dunmow, Essex, where Wells and his family lived at the time. Easton

3 ‘The little more, and how much it is!’ (Punch, 17 August 1910)

The game of darts, 1900–18

Glebe and its associated villages of Little Easton and Great Easton are rural Essex idylls. The flower show would at first glance indicate a locally organised event, as indeed it was, but the steam roundabouts and the coconut shies and dart-throwing stalls indicate the involvement of a travelling fair. Whilst the fairground played a crucial part in such summer events, the enthusiasm of two young couples for the game is illustrated by their ‘quite disconcerting skill at the dart-throwing’ being ‘bent upon compiling a complete tea-set for the … cottage out of their winnings’.69 However, there is no hint in Wells s work that young people playing darts would be set on the path of gaming; rather it reflects general acceptance of darts as a game unlikely to cause offence. In the case of Wells’s village flower show the fairground catered for all classes and it is not outside the realms of probability that travelling fairs also contributed to the popularising of darts throughout the country as in every town and village they visited which had never witnessed the pastime before they introduced the new game. Being simple to learn and a game that could be constructed from everyday items for little or no financial outlay, darts easily found its way into pubs and the homes of both rich and poor the length and breadth of the country.70 Fairground darts of the early twentieth century are beautifully depicted in the cartoon shown (Figure 3) which appeared in Punch or the London Charivari in 1910. Entitled ‘The little more, and how much it is!’ the cartoon shows the dartboard and prizes, with the showman standing at the front shouting at the punters, ‘Play up! Play up for the prizes! Ten, ten, nine – twenty-nine points. ’Ard lines, sir. If you’d got thirty you’d have won a gold watch. M’ria, give the gentleman a bag o’ nuts.’71 References to darts being played by the upper classes anywhere during this period are rare. Indeed, the only reference found so far during this research is a letter written in 1910 by Katy, Lady Hornby, of Belvedere Place, Ryde, Isle of Wight, to Florence Oglander at the Pulteneys Hotel, Bath. In the letter Lady Hornby writes, ‘Lady Daly has been to tea … and now B[lanch] has rushed off to play darts with Helen Boger!’72 This is scant evidence but sufficient on which to hang the hypothesis that darts was played by the well-to-do and, perhaps more important, by upper-class women. Certainly the remark about Blanch playing darts is not followed by any derogatory remark about the game.

65

66

Darts in England

Darts in the Great War Another aspect of the social history of darts which has not been clarified until now is whether or not the game was popular enough by the outbreak of the Great War to be taken abroad and played in or behind the trenches to help raise morale among the troops. Despite Peter Bills’s claim that the Great War ‘witnessed a rapid expansion’ of the game and that the war ‘quickened the game’s development because of its popularity among servicemen in their off-duty hours’ he provides no supporting evidence.73 Similarly, lacking any contemporary proof, Whannel and Hodgson wrote that ‘The popular phase of the game in England begins with World War I …’ 74 In the case of football there had been a rallying call. After presenting the Football Association Cup and medals in 1915 Lord Derby called for men to volunteer for service, declaring that it was ‘now the duty of everyone to join with each other and play a sterner game for England’.75 There was no such rallying cry in the sport of darts but, as will be shown, darts was evident behind the lines in France. Many sports and recreations were found in the theatres of war. Horse racing, football and cricket matches, concert parties and films were organised by and for the troops, whilst individual servicemen provided their own entertainment, writing skits, poems and songs and performing them in concert behind the lines.76 Pictorial evidence exists of footballplaying at Havre,77 and by British and French prisoners of war in the German detention camp at Doberitz, near Berlin,78 of soldiers playing dominoes in a trench on the Aisne,79 swimming and diving races among the cavalry, a horse show and card-playing on the British western front.80 Even a pack of beagles was sent over to France on loan so that ‘the officers and men at the front would enjoy good sport with them’.81 On the home front artistes and entertainers, through popular song, verse and imagery, reminded people what they were fighting for.82 The showmen did not miss the opportunity to utilise the target game of darts to good effect during the Great War. T P. Tyas & Sons of Turner Street, Manchester, encouraged both the war effort and hatred of the enemy by announcing in the showmen’s trade newspaper World’s Fair that ‘Bending Kaiser Dartboards are it!’, the company having produced hinged targets bearing the Kaiser’s face, which, when struck by a dart, fell backwards.83 Showmen were quick at reacting to changing circumstances and their popular entertainments would reflect the popular culture in which they operated.84 Thus hatred of the Kaiser and the popularity of darts were combined and adapted for commercial gain and as effective propaganda.

The game of darts, 1900–18

As this example shows, darts was an infinitely adaptable game; it could also be played in the most confined spaces and therefore seems to have been ideal for playing behind the lines or even in the trenches. However, although there is photographic evidence of servicemen playing dominoes in the trenches it is likely to have been purely for the camera – a moraleboosting image for home consumption – and it is likely that such games, including darts, would otherwise have been discouraged.85 In any case, in a good, properly constructed trench it would not have been possible to play darts safely and it would have been impossible to stop spectators gathering in hazardous groupings.86 More likely that, if darts was played at all, it would have been found in the more extensive dug-outs or the YMCA recreation huts which were situated behind the lines.87 In May 1916 members of the Auxiliary Committee of the YMCA appealed for games – ‘Quoits, dart-boards, puff-billiards, draughts and dominoes’ – and up-to-date magazines for use by servicemen and women in recreation huts in base camps in France.88 These were all small, portable games and thus ideally suited to use in war conditions. Later, after the war, John Penoyre wrote to The Times from the depot of Sir Edward Ward, DGVO, in Horseferry Road, London SW 1, appealing for donations of games for servicemen, those most in demand being ‘Cards, dominoes, darts, draughts, halma, lotto and ping pong’. The author reminded readers of ‘the sweater letters of the 1914 epoch and ‘the field-glass letters after Neuve Chapelle’, when parcels of such goods were donated and sent to those behind the lines. Penoyre confirmed that conditions had not changed much since then and that games were sorely needed for the many servicemen who ‘hang about, smoke interminable Woodbines, and read old, old newspapers, till one of these splendid consignments comes to help us’.89 Keith Turner argued that the ‘ramifications of World War I stretched far and wide’ and that ‘the sheer mixing of men, and their leisure activities … must have done more to hasten the spread of darts than in any other comparable time’.90 Whilst this fragment from The Times does not entirely support Turner’s view, it does support the argument that darts was played more extensively among the forces than has previously been evidenced and therefore darts appears to have had the potential for expansion.91 In addition, the ‘mixing of men’ and their leisure pursuits would have brought the game of darts to the attention of many non-players, and this would certainly be a factor in explaining the rapid expansion of dartplaying that, as Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 will show, immediately followed the cessation of the war.

67

68

Darts in England

A period of consolidation Thus the period 1900–18 was one of quiet consolidation for darts. On the surface its place in English popular culture from the turn of the twentieth century to the end of the Great War seemed to remain relatively unchanged. However, by 1918 darts pervaded many aspects of popular culture, the public house, the club, the summer fête, the fairground and the home as a pleasurable diversion or recreation, one not restricted only to the working class. In addition, even though there were a few indicators that darts had the potential to grow, such as the introduction of the first organised brewers’ leagues, darts remained unencumbered by national rules and regulations. A number of elements had been working against the development of darts, and it was clear that magistrates and licensing benches were wary of the dangers involved in allowing games in public houses, particularly gaming, whilst seemingly choosing to ignore the good that recreations were achieving in the developing working men’s clubs. However, this tough attitude was to be considerably relaxed in the following decades. The evidence has also revealed the geographical spread of darts during the first decade of the twentieth century, darts being played in rural Oxfordshire, Essex and Kent, on the Isle of Wight and in urban conurbations including London, Leeds, Manchester and Bradford by field workers, pubgoers and by the upper classes. However, this does not mean that the playing of darts was ubiquitous – no evidence being revealed of darts-playing in Wales, Scotland or indeed the West Country – but it does indicate that the popularity of the game was increasing and beginning to establish a significant presence within English society. By 1918 darts had reached no major point in its development and remained a parochial, mainly pub-based pastime rather than a national sport. But there were signs that a more competitive element was developing, including friendly matches and the occasional brewery league. However, like many other sports, such as football and rugby, darts would make the transition from game to national pastime only when the right combination of elements was in place. In the case of darts these elements did not come together until the 1920s, when magistrates relaxed their attitude to indoor games in public houses, licensees actively engaged in the promotion of games, brewers realised the potential in such provision (particularly as part of the improvement of public houses), the first major organisation was established to codify and promote the game on a national basis, and entrepreneurial skills were applied to create a darts manufacturing industry.

The game of darts, 1900–18

Notes 1 2 3

4

5 6 7

8

9 10

11 12 13

14 15 16

Brewers’ Journal, 15 January 1925, p. 4. W. Bentley Capper, Licensed Houses and their Management (London: Cassell & Co., 1923), III, p. 22. William Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London, 17 vols (London: Macmillan & Co., 1902); William Booth, In Darkest England, and the Way Out (London: Salvation Army, n.d.); B. Seebohm Rowntree, Poverty – A Study of Town Life (London: Macmillan & Co., 1901). Temperance tracts tended to concentrate on the maxim that ‘alcohol is a danger to the State’. (The Temperance Compendium 1906, London: United Kingdom Band of Hope Union, 1905, p. 11.) Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers (Oxford: Berg, 2002), p. 31. See also Peter Haydon, The English Public House – A History (London: Robert Hale, 1994), chapter 20, pp. 265–73. Haydon, The English Public House, p. 270. Paul Thompson, The Edwardians – The Remaking of British Society, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 169–73. Some brewers commenced a process of improving their public houses during this time but the majority did not begin in earnest until post-1918. (See Chapter 4.) Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty – Working-class Culture in Salford and Manchester 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992), p. 32. A. R Prest, Consumers’ Expenditure in the United Kingdom 1900–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 75. Donald Read, Edwardian England 1901–1915 – Society and Politics (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1972), p. 51. According to Alexander Cumming, the national drinks bill in 1899 had been £162,163,474, the working class accounting for £108 million (67 per cent) of consumption. (Alexander Neilson Cumming, Public-house Reform – An Explanation, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1901, p. 27.) Tony Mason, Association Football and English Society 1863–1915 (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981), p. 242. Thompson, The Edwardians, p. 272. National Council on Public Morals, The Cinema – Its Present Position and Future Possibilities (London, 1917), p. xxiv, cited by Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace – Cinema and Society in Britain 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 12. James Walvin, Leisure and Society 1830–1950 (London: Longman Group, 1978), pp. 133–4. Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman’s Place – An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890–1940 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 123–4. An informal meeting of senior representatives of London brewers Whitbread & Co., Mann Crossman & Co., Barclay Perkins & Co., Charrington & Co.,

69

70

Darts in England

17 18 19 20 21 22

23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Torne Bros and Truman Hanbury & Buxton was held on 24 February 1909 at the latter’s offices to discuss ‘some suggestions that might bear fruit’ in overcoming a number of threats to their business. Although ‘other attractions’ were featured on the agenda, no minute exists to suggest it was even discussed. Indeed, the notes of the meeting state that No definite conclusions were arrived at, and the talk was, although interesting and informing, vague and inconsequent’. (Monthly Reports of Truman Hanbury & Buxton, February 1909, pp. 29–33, London Metropolitan Archives B/THB/A122.) Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree (ed.), Betting and Gambling – A National Evil (London: Macmillan & Co., 1905), p. vii. E. T. Campagnac and C. E. B. Russell, ‘Gambling and aids to gambling’, Economic Review, 10 (1900), pp. 482 and 489. Ross McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class – Social Relations in Britain 1880– 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 125 and 127. Alexander F. Part, The Art and Practice of Innkeeping (London: Chapman & Hall, 1924), pp. 28–9. The Licensing Act, 1872, 35 & 36 Vict., s. 17. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office, Lawful Games on Licensed Premises and their Grounds and Outhouses (London: Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office, 1903), p. iv. Ibid., pp. iv, 162 and 214. For contemporary instructions to licensees concerning playing and making darts see Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 21 August 1903, p. 558. Yorkshire Daily Observer, 13 April 1905, p. 7. The Justice of the Peace, LXXXII, p. 31. Ibid. Richard Heaton, Salford my Home Town (Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1982), p. 7. Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, p. 34, and Heaton, Salford my Home Town, p. 7. Heaton, Salford my Home Town, p. 7. Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, p. 35. Heaton, Salford my Home Town, p. 7. This is also important as being the earliest reference found to date of ‘money matches’ between individual darts players. For playing dominoes for money as gaming see R. v. Ashton (1852), 1 E. & B. 826; for playing puff-and-darts for a prize, each player paying an entrance fee, see Bew v. Harston (1878), 3 Q.B.D. 454; for playing at ninepins or skittles for beer see Danford v. Taylor (1869), 33 J.P 773; playing cards for money, Patten v. Rhymer (1860), 3 El. & El. 1. In addition the case of Dyson v. Mason (1889), 22 Q.B.D., ruled that it was no defence that a game, in that case skittle-pool, was said to be mostly a game of skill if it was played for money. (George B. Kennett, ed., Stone’s Justices’ Manual, being the Justices’ Yearly Practice 1897, London: Shaw & Sons, 1897, p. 447–8.)

The game of darts, 1900–18

34

35 36 37 38 39

40

41

42 43

44

45

Frederick W. H. Hackwood, Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England, with introduction by Paul Jennings (London: Bracken Books, 1985), p. 200. (Originally published London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909.) Robinson’s Directory, 1906–08. Tom Barrett, Darts (London: Pan Books, 1973), pp. 5–6. Jack McClintock, The Book of Darts (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 30–1. Dave Lanning (ed.), Leighton Rees on Darts (London: Cassell & Co., 1979), p. 10. Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), p. 10; Sid Waddell, Bedside Darts (London: Stanley Paul, 1985), p. 32. In the mid-1980s Bob Croke of Herdon VA opened Annakin’s English Darts Restaurant on Spring Street, having ‘read about Foot Annakin in a book’ and his historical link with darts. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 28 April 1988.) Richard Holt, Sport and the British – A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 192. Richard Holt was subsequently unable to cite his source. (Letter from Richard Holt to Patrick Chaplin, 23 December 1998.) In 2002 Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew wrote more cautiously, ‘Dart folklore traces modern darts back to an alleged 1908 court case in which it [darts] was definitely proved a game of skill …’ (Collins and Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers, p. 32.) Subsequent research has indicated even this interpretation to be erroneous. Holt, Sport and the British, p. 192. The Betting and Gaming Act 1960 (8 & 9 Eliz. II), Part II, Gaming, s. 19(1), exempted dominoes and cribbage from being unlawful provided, as stated under s. 19(2)(a) ‘that the games are not played on that part of the premises in such circumstances as to constitute an inducement to persons to resort thereto primarily for the purposes of taking part in gaming at those games’ and under s. 19(2)(b) ‘that any such gaming on that part of the premises does not take place for high stakes’. Under Part II, s. 6(4), of the Gaming Act 1968 the range of recreations allowed to be played for small stakes was extended to include ‘other games’ as authorised by licensing justices, which included darts. See also Paul Jennings, The Public House in Bradford1770–1970 (Keele: Keele University Press, 1995), p. 256. Knaresborough Census Return 1851, Leeds Census Return 1851 and Leeds Census Return 1891; also copy death certificate of William Annakin dated 6 October 1988 and Yorkshire Evening Post, 27 May 1978, p. 2, and 26 August 1978, p. 10, and Joseph Annakin, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 5 May 1985. Leeds Magistrates’ Court records 1823–1973, Court registers 1849–54 and 1909–73, Quarter Session, including indictment books 1844–1952 and Woodhouse (Leeds) Burial Ground records 1877–1942 and Hunslet Burial Ground records 1858–1902. Yorkshire Evening Post, 26 August 1978, p. 10.

71

72

Darts in England

46 47 48

49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64

Ibid. Letter from Joseph Annakin to Patrick Chaplin dated 5 May 1985. In addition, examination of editions of Stone’s Justices’ Manual for the years 1908 to 1914 inclusive reveals no mention of the Annakin case, further suggesting that this was an entirely local issue. W. J. Connor, MA, District Archivist, West Yorkshire Archive Service, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 18 April 1985. So the Annakin story currently rests on the oral testimony of his grandson. Research into the Annakin case continues, including liaison with other Annakin family members undertaking genealogical research. However, no further significant facts have been discovered at the time of writing. The Times, 31 October 1914, p. 11. Edie Beed, Seventy Years behind Bars (Bradninch: published by the author, 1984), p. 3. Brian P. Martin, Tales from the Country Pub (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1998), pp. 119–22. Letter from the Managing Director of Morland & Co. to Patrick Chaplin dated 27 March 1986, based, it is assumed, on company records. Response from Managing Director to Patrick Chaplin, undated but May 1985. See Chapter 5. John Ross, taped interview with Patrick Chaplin, 24 August 1988; transcript p. 5. John Ross dedicated his entire adult life to the organisation and promotion of darts at both Association and local level. He was a key member of the National Darts Association of Great Britain (NDAGB), which was founded in 1954, and rose to the position of president in the 1970s. John died in 1989. See Darts World, May 1990, p. 32. The Arrow, December 1988, p. 2. Transcript of Patrick Chaplin taped interview with John Ross, 24 August 1988, p. 9. Benjamin T. Hall, Our Sixty Years – The Story of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union (London: Working Men’s Club and Institute Union, 1922), p. 1. H. S. Woollcombe, ‘Social clubs for working men’, Economic Review, \2 (1903), pp. 422–4. Hall, Our Sixty Years, pp. 200 and 207. H. S. Woollcombe, ‘The value of social clubs for working men’, Economic Review, 13 (1903), p. 421. Economic Review, 13 (1903), p. 421; Brewers’ Journal, 15 January 1925, p. 4. The argument for clubs and against pubs in relation to the provision of games was still being used in the 1930s in the case of Liverpool, where, despite the rising popularity of the game, darts continued to be banned by the licensing bench. (Liverpool Daily Post, 8 March 1939, p. 4; Darts World November 1989, p. 47.)

The game of darts, 1900–18

65 66 67 68 69 70

71

72

73 74 75

76 77 78 79

Hertfordshire Record Office, Offley Parish Records, ref. DP 76/29/5/C7 dated 1 July 1914. E. Temple Thurston, The Flower of Gloster (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911), p. 95. Lovat Dickson, H. G. Wells – His Turbulent Life and Times (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 305. H. G. Wells, Mr Britling sees it Through (London: Cassell & Co., 1916), pp. 167–8. Ibid., pp. 168–9. Dartboards for fairgrounds were manufactured by the showmen themselves but throughout the period darts were imported from France, from a number of villages in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region. See Chapter 6. Punch or the London Charivari, 17 August 1910, p. 113. The phrases ‘bag o’ nuts’ and others, including ‘cup and saucer’ and ‘fish and globe’, originated from prizes given on fairground darts stalls. These phrases can be found being utilised in 1930s darting parlance as representing the number 45. (See CroftCooke, Rupert, Darts, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936, p. 34; Alan and Geoffrey D’Egville, Darts with the Lid off, London: Cassell & Co., 1938, p. 90; Darts World, March 1985, p. 14.) Richard Holt referred to darts in this context as ‘a good example of the power of popular culture to create private languages for players’. (Holt, Sport and the British, p. 192.) For further information concerning this ‘private language’ and for the derivations of a number of the more common darts phrases see ‘The Language of Darts’, an unpublished manuscript by the author (July 1999). Letter dated 17 September 1910 from Kate, Lady Hornby, 8 Belvedere Place, Ryde, Isle of Wight, to Florence Oglander, Pulteney’s Hotel, Bath. (Isle of Wight Record Office, Oglander Collection, ref, OG/CC/2317N.) Peter Bills, Sportsviewer’s Guide – Darts (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1983), pp. 5–6. Paddy Whannel and Dana Hodgdon, The Book of Darts (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1976), p. 77. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 26 April 1915, quoted in Mason, Association Football and English Society, p. 255. There was no such rallying call based on darts, although the game would play a major role in the lives of servicemen in the Second World War. See Legion – The Journal of the Royal British Legion, YJ:2 (March/April 1996), pp. 30–1, Patrick Chaplin, ‘Darts below deck, Darts World, October 1995, pp. 338–9, and Patrick Chaplin, ‘Darts in the war’, Darts World April 1996, pp. 22–3. George Robb, British Culture and the First World War (London: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 178–9. The Illustrated War News, I (London: Illustrated War News and Sketch, n.d.), 9 September 1914, p. 40. Ibid, II, 9 December 1914, p. 18. Ibid, I, 14 October 1914, p. 34.

73

74

Darts in England

80 81 82

83

84 85 86

87

88 89 90 91

Ibid, new series (London: Illustrated War News and Sketch, n.d.), 30 May 1917, Part 51, p. 8, and 13 June 1917, Part 53, p. 17. Ibid, II, Part 23, 13 January, 1915, p. 40. Jay Winter, ‘Popular culture in wartime Britain’ in Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites (eds), European Culture in the Great War – The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 331. World’s Fair, 16 January 1915, p. 5. During the Second World War a darts game was introduced with a similar theme. Called ‘Plonk’, the highest score in the game was 100 for the bull’s-eye, which was represented by Hitler’s open mouth. (Susan Briggs, Keep Smiling Through – The Home Front 1939– 1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975), p. 37.) Vanessa Toulmin, Pleasurelands (Sheffield: National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield, 2003), p. 3. The Illustrated War News, I, 14 October 1914, p. 34. Lyn Macdonald, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 20 March 1990. For an example of Lyn Macdonald’s work on the Great War see 1915 – The Death of Innocence (London: Headline, 1993). For an assessment of the value of YMCA recreation huts at the western front see The Times, 28 November 1916, p. 13. The YMCA supplemented the work of the Expeditionary Force Canteens (EFC) and the Navy and Army Canteen Board (NACB), precursors of NAAFI, which was formed on 1 January 1921. Although the YMCA supplied sports goods, NAAFI did not introduce a ‘sports pack’ until June 1944. (Harry Miller, Service to the Services – The Story of the NAAFI, London: Newman Neame, 1971, pp. 13, 16, 19 and 72.) The Times, 3 May 1916, p. 5. Ibid., 29 January 1919, p. 13. Keith Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980), p. 106. Research has also revealed the existence of ‘aeroplane’ or ‘aerial’ darts (also known as flechettes) during the Great War. Any link with the pub game is extremely tenuous: simply that, apart from the similarity of the weapon, they were dart-shaped. These darts were anti-personnel missiles deployed by both the French and British air forces and dropped in great numbers from planes on to enemy ground concentrations. For more information concerning aerial darts see Claude Graham-White and Harry Harper, Heroes of the Flying Corps – A Description of the Work of the Airmen during the early Stages of the War (London: Harry Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, 1916), pp. 199–207, and Scientific American Supplement, No. 2042, 20 February 1915, p. 124. Turner has also argued that this was ‘the last recorded use of darts in warfare in Europe’. (Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, p. 106.)

Darts, brewery leagues and the improved public house, 1900-39 It is a happy fact that in the resuscitation of this skilful and companionable game the licensed trade has been mainly responsible. Few people know to what extent … the brewer is compelled today to be darts-minded.1

A

fter 1918 the brewers began to place more emphasis on the provision of recreations inside their public houses. Their gradual realisation of the benefits of games, barely evident in the first two decades of the twentieth century, became an important element of the brewers’ strategy during the inter-war years.

Brewers under threat As shown in Chapter 3, the provision of indoor games in public houses prior to 1914 was considered by the brewing trade to be ‘an exception’ yet, as will be seen, there was a ‘boom’ in indoor amusements on licensed premises during the inter-war years, such provision being something that ‘no brewer can afford to neglect’.2 The fact was that before the Great War the brewers were in control of the key leisure pursuit of the working class, namely drink, but the trade had built up such a disreputable social status, particularly during the mid to late Victorian period, that something or some things had to be done to make the activity of drinking more respectable, and the brewers recognised this.3 The introduction of indoor games, and especially darts, will be shown to be a major part of the brewers’ strategy – administered at local level by licensees – to improve the respectability of the public house and to retain old and encourage new customers. There were numerous threats to the brewing and licensed trade during the inter-war period and the strategies adopted by the brewers in counteracting those threats are examined here with particular reference to

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those emanating from new and developing leisure forms. The introduction of brewery leagues as part of the brewers’ defensive strategy is considered, as is the provision of recreational facilities in the on-going process of improving public houses. As we shall see, such threats to the popularity of the pub and the associated solutions provided an environment in which darts could develop and evolve. It will also be shown that darts expanded during the inter-war period into a key participatory leisure pursuit of the working class pubgoer and provided an, albeit temporary, attraction (or distraction) for all other classes, especially the emergent and newly mobile middle class. However, as not all licensing authorities were sympathetic to the provision of pub games as an element of improvement, the problems experienced in Liverpool and Glasgow are highlighted. The mergers and take-overs which had been common in the years up to 1914, which the brewers had utilised to consolidate their business, continued in peacetime and formed a major part of the more powerful brewers’ strategy to maintain control of the drink trade. Earlier, in September 1899, the editor of the Country Brewer’s Gazette had written, ‘Still the tale of brewery amalgamations goes on. Scarcely a week passes without the … amalgamation of two or more breweries, or the absorption of one or more smaller ones. How long is this going on?’4 In 1900 there had been 6,390 brewers; by 1910 this had reduced to 4,482 and by 1914 to 3,650. Two years after the declaration of peace the figure had fallen further to 2,889 and this more than halved, to 1,418, by 1930. By 1939 the number of brewers totalled 885, a reduction of 86 per cent since 1900.5 The process of amalgamation of brewery companies created economic giants – paralleling what was happening to British business as a whole – and so by 1905 seventeen of the forty-seven largest industrial companies in the UK were breweries, the London brewery firm of Watney Combe Reid reporting the second highest valuation of any industrial company in the UK at nearly £15 million. Brewers had also managed to secure control of retail outlets through the tied house system. Thus in England and Wales the proportion of licensed premises tied to brewers increased significantly from 70 per cent in 1886 to 95 per cent in 1913.6 Rationalisation of the brewery trade was such that the number of licensed premises fell from approximately 99,000 in 1905 to 77,500 in 1935, a reduction of more than 21 per cent.7 Thus the major brewers dominated the wholesale and retail trade and also the structure of trade defence that had been established in the late Victorian period.8 The Great War had seen an almost continuous decline in beer production, the Defence of the Realm Act reduced opening hours and a

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

reduction in the strength of beer, whilst the government taxed the industry more severely than at any time before 1914.9 Another of the outcomes of the conflict was that drunkenness declined sharply during the inter-war period. In 1903 the total number of convictions for drunkenness in England and Wales was 209,385. By 1913 convictions totalled 188,877, but after 1918 the decrease was rapid. Convictions reduced dramatically, especially during the 1930s, where the lowest total of 30,146 was reached in 1932 and then steadily increased again to 52,929 in 1939. As these figures indicate, the heavy drinking that had coloured so much of pub culture before 1914 never returned after 1918. Comparison of the 1903 figure with that of 1939 reveals a 75 per cent reduction in convictions for drunkenness in the first three decades of the twentieth century.10 Later, during the Depression, there were fears that the unemployed were turning to drink, but this was not borne out by the evidence. As the figures show, both the total and per capita consumption of alcohol declined throughout the inter-war period. John Stevenson and Chris Cook argue that the key reasons for this were increased prices and the rise of other leisure forms.11 As a result of the growth of alternative leisure options, the role of the pub as a major part of community life was threatened, although, as Jones observed, ‘despite the decline in beer consumption, the pub remained the focal point of neighbourhood leisure.’12 The movement of improvement From 1918 onwards the brewers did not have everything their own way. Consumers who had looked to the public house for their refreshment and amusement prior to 1914 were looking beyond the confines of the pub and engaging in new and developing leisure forms.13 The growth of spectator sports such as football emerged, along with the developing passion of the people for dancing and the cinema; all were counterattractions to drinking. Society’s attitude to the public house had significantly changed. The pubs’ position as the most popular leisure pursuit for the working class prior to 1914 was being challenged and, for once, the brewers had little or no control over the leisure alternatives and soon realised that they had to react quickly to compensate for the effect of numerous threats to their business. At the centre of the brewers’ strategy was the process of improving their public houses. Although the main thrust of public-house improvement occurred during the inter-war period, some brewers had already commenced the

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process before 1914. In 1912–13 Greene King of Bury St Edmunds had embarked on their first extensive building programme since the 1880s, but then, after only a few months, had to postpone it owing to the outbreak of war.14 In addition Brakspear’s of Henley-on-Tames were able to refurbish existing and construct new pubs before 1914, whilst Watney Combe Reid had shelved their improvement plans before the war, the process being ‘arrested until conditions of peace encouraged brewers to press forward with the idea.’15 Walter Serocold, who became a director of the brewers Watney Combe Reid & Co. during the late 1920s, stated in his account of the history of the brewery that there were six reasons for the brewers’ embarking on such an immediate and rapid process of improvement. These were the requirements of the licensing magistrates, the requirements of the sanitary authorities, the reaction against ‘the ugliness and tawdriness of so many Victorian “gin palaces”’, the social emancipation of women, the growth of motoring during the 1930s and, most important in Serocold’s opinion, ‘the combination of conscience and of practical business sense shown by the brewers’.16 Later in his record of the development of Watney Combe Reid, Hurford Janes reinforced this ‘conscience’ aspect when he stated that ‘Only by sweeping away many of the inhibitions of the past could the public house take a respected place in the community.’17 In essence the English public house simply could not continue the way it was, and if the brewery trade was to flourish, changes had to be made. However, these were not the only reasons why the brewers took action. Serocold viewed the post-war challenges from the brewers’ perspective and totally ignored the diminishing yet ever-present effect of the temperance movement, which included the provision of Trust Houses and Public Refreshment Houses. These were establishments set up mainly by temperance campaign groups which were similar to new pubs in appearance but whose focus was on the supply of food and soft drinks and non-alcoholic beverages other than beer and spirits. Serocold also failed to mention that beer was expensive and that sales of beer were reducing year on year. He made no mention of the fact that the Great War had taken its toll of young men, robbing the brewing industry of an estimated 700,000 potential customers; of the casualties, 86 per cent were under the age of thirty-five.18 One other element that Serocold omitted from his list which led to the brewers refocusing their attention on the condition of their houses and on the way they ran their business was the direct interference of the government in the brewing trade. In May 1915 the Central Control Board

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

(Liquor Traffic) (CCB) had been established and in January 1916 state ownership of public houses and breweries commenced in the Carlisle district. This undertaking, especially in the area of disinterested management, permitted experiments in many directions, and it was the successful work carried out in Carlisle that served as an incentive to the brewers and helped inform the shape of the improved public house.19 Ernest Selley believed that ‘the great stimulus to the idea of the “improved public house” came from the State Management Schemes’, whilst pub architect and designer Basil Oliver referred later in his review of public house improvements to the ‘good pioneer work’ carried out in Carlisle.20 Selley’s argument has been supported most recently by David Gutzke, who argues that the Great War had ‘an extraordinary impact on brewers’: not in the ways most commonly portrayed by historians (threatening nationalisation or the spread of Prohibition from the United States) but from certain progressive elements of the CCB.21 Gutzke argued that the motivation of brewers to ‘espouse pub reform’ was the innovative philosophy of the CCB, and in particular that of the two brewers who served as members, namely Sydney O. Nevile (Brandon’s Brewery, Putney) and W. Waters Butler (Mitchell & Butler, of Birmingham), at the forefront of which was the improvement of the English public house, the primary aims to bring respectability to the brewers’ trade and achieve a broader customer base, their key fear being that ‘unchecked rivalry’ would ‘imperil the industry’s post-war prosperity’. Thus numerous brewers joined Nevile in embracing what Gutzke describes as ‘Progressivism’.22 In a pre-war interview with the Morning Advertiser in 1913 Nevile had outlined his ideas for improvement, which included higher standards, the provision of more refreshments and possible methods of curbing excess, whilst, in Nevile’s opinion, the financial success of the Carlisle scheme during the Great War was largely attributable to Butler’s enthusiasm.23 However, as Ted Elkins later argued, the State Management Scheme was deemed sufficiently a threat to other brewers that a sub-committee was established in 1918 consisting of members of the Brewers’ Society and the National Trade Defence Association.24 The sub-committee’s fifth principle established that ‘improvements which involve an enlargement of premises and provide opportunities for greater social amenities are more in the interests of temperance than rigid adherence to existing restrictions on licensed premises’. In addition, they agreed that all new houses should contemplate the general service of refreshments and ‘the convenient and efficient service of non-alcoholic beverages’ and, importantly, that facilities should be provided for ‘recreation, including music and the writing of

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letters, reading, games, etc.’.25 It is therefore surprising that Serocold also overlooked the threat to the brewing trade of alternative leisure forms: people seeking more family-oriented experiences such as the cinema which led to the pub rapidly losing custom. The brewers had no control over the improvement in the range of leisure options that were presented to consumers by other agencies and thus it was, quite literally, a matter of getting their houses in order. The growth of alternative leisure opportunities After 1918 workers were increasingly hesitant to spend their wages on drink. This trend was strongest amongst the young, who had available to them the new array of leisure alternatives. These included dancing, listening to the radio and going to the cinema. The estimated number of cinemas in Britain in 1926 was 3,000 but by 1938 this had grown to 4,967. No reliable attendance figures are available until 1934, when 903 million attendances were recorded, rising to 990 million in 1939.26 This wrested thousands, possibly millions, of young people away from the temptation of pubgoing. However, despite the threat it is unlikely that cinema would draw away the main customer base from the bar, the older males who were established in their ways. Even as late as 1936, writer Richard Carr, whilst touring the East End of London, compiling a report on cinemagoing, found that it was the middle-aged and elderly men who continued to find their main relaxation in ‘pigeon clubs, in darts matches and competitions’, whilst women and young people ‘depend almost entirely for their entertainment upon the cinema’.27 Individual publicans appear not to have concerned themselves much with the increasing popularity of the cinema, dance halls and other alternative new and developing leisure forms, which goes some way to explain why the early work of the National Darts Association (NDA), focusing primarily on London and the south-east, was, for the first five years, ‘apathetically received’ until the publicans realised darts’ potential as a counter-attraction to cinemagoing.28 In addition, by 1925 the wireless had been introduced, and this also affected pub attendance; some men preferring to stay at home with their families to enjoy the latest home entertainment.29 By the end of the 1930s, 75 per cent of families in Britain possessed a wireless.30 Shorter working hours increased the opportunity for leisure. It was generally accepted by the brewing industry that, with the exception of the period when registered unemployment was at its peak between 1930 and

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

1933, changing social habits was a more potent force in diminishing the brewers’ output than anything else.31 Of the total insured workers in Britain in 1923, 11.2 per cent were unemployed, but by 1930 this had increased to 19.9 per cent.32 By 1931 the figure had increased further to 21.3 per cent and by 1932 to 22.1 per cent.33 Thus the lack of disposable income combined with other pressures to keep men in particular away from the pub. To combat this, brewers and their licensees not only took action to improve their premises but also began to take seriously the provision of recreations in their houses. The increasing provision of pub recreations Before 1914 few brewers encouraged organised pub games. However, after 1918, they began to realise the potential benefits. In the draft Licensing Bill of 1921 provision was made in clauses 35, 36 and 37 ‘for greater freedom in respect of rational enjoyment on the part of those who went into public-houses for refreshment’, with special reference to music, dancing and games.34 This greater freedom and the effect of the success of the state-controlled public houses and breweries focused the brewers’ attention on the potential benefits of recreation. The majority of brewers had not seen the provision of organised games, such as darts or cribbage leagues, in their public houses as something they were responsible for or could gain any financial benefit from. However, from 1924 they became increasingly aware of the value of games, in particular darts, in terms of income-generating potential and as one of the tools they could employ to retain custom in their public houses. The benefits of the provision of recreations in public houses received further support when the Royal Commission on Licensing reported in 1931 that games had a definite value, as they distracted customers from ‘the mere business of drinking’.35 The Chief Constable of Carlisle, Andrew A. Johnson, giving evidence to the commission in response to the question ‘Is it your experience of Carlisle that games, which managers may allow, lead to less, or more, or about the same amount, of drinking?’ replied, ‘Less drinking.’36 Thus the question – and the dilemma – facing the brewers was ‘What possible benefit could be derived from providing games if such provision reduced the level of drinking?’ The answer would be to sell less beer per head but to an increased number of customers attracted into their houses by popular pub games. As a result of action taken, darts would during the 1930s take the lead in in-house pub entertainment and establish guaranteed, regular income for brewers and licensees alike for decades to come.

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Despite the distinct lack of attention being paid to games by brewers before 1918, by the early 1920s licensees were beginning to offer something more than drinking. In 1924 W. Bentley Capper, editor of the Hotel Review, advised those involved in the management of licensed houses to encourage the provision of ‘pub games leagues’.37 He indicated that leagues for the playing of such games ‘open to teams of customers from various public houses interested’ were already very popular and that those licensees who had not as yet considered such inter-house competitions should do so, as it would ‘certainly be to your advantage to take the initiative in forming one’. Capper also recognised darts as being among the most popular games on licensed premises.38 Alexander F. Part, the then Managing Director of Trust Houses Ltd, suggested to innkeepers that, if their ‘genius’ lay in games, they must ‘develop competition by the formation of Leagues, handicaps, and the like’.39 However, neither Capper nor Part made mention of involvement of the brewers in the process of creation of these leagues, the responsibility falling on the licensee. As Capper observed, by this time many licensees were already involved with the organisation of leagues. They also demonstrated their willingness to allow their premises to be used for other activities, such as accommodating meetings of pigeon or canary clubs. In some cases licensees agreed to act as officials of the clubs. These examples of entrepreneurial flair indicate that licensees were becoming increasingly aware of the need to change with the times, to adopt new roles and attitudes and to redefine the public house as a social space. Their previous function of ‘simply pouring alcohol down thirsty throats’ was in decline.40 Thus the licensees appear to have recognised before the brewers the necessity of increased flexibility of social and leisure provision within the English public house. However, it was clear to major brewers that pubs needed to be modernised to attract and retain trade.41 This was mainly due to the increased and increasing number of leisure attractions with which pubs had to compete, especially in London. However, in the early 1920s, and despite the evidence of falling demand, not all brewers were convinced about the profitability of the improvement movement. In the mid-1920s the Brewers’ Journal, representing the wholesale brewing trade, could see ‘no financial inducement in public house reform’ but by August 1926 the Licensing World and Licensing Trade Review, catering for the retail trade, saw in the improved public house not so much reform as ‘the best defence of the Trade from attack.42 In terms of pub architecture and design, many of the improved public houses made clear provision for recreation, including children’s playgrounds, bowling greens, swimming pools, rooms for dancing and

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

special billiard halls. Thus, as the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier reported in January 1925, ‘from darts and other games to music and dancing, so goes the new licensed house development’, all in an attempt to combat the elements of the new leisure, including popular music, dance halls and the cinema.43 Outside the improvements by design, there is evidence of less organised methods of combating alternative leisure forms. For example, in 1926 Lawrence Treadingham, a Portsmouth beerhouse licensee, was ordered to pay costs following a summons for contravention of s. 11 of the Cinematograph Act for ‘holding a cinema entertainment in a disused clubroom not licensed for the purpose’. Treadingham’s defence had been that he had ‘entertained customers’ children from goodness of heart’. Not surprisingly, this plea was not accepted by the magistrates.44 Pub design and provision for darts As for darts specifically in pub design, architect Francis Yorke, in 1949, in a review of public house improvements over the previous three decades, stated that: The game of darts is exceedingly popular, and some corner of the bar, or a small adjoining room, should be reserved for the game, where it may be played without interference from, or annoyance to, other customers. This form of recreation is in favour with all classes, so it is well to extend the same provision to saloon bar customers.45

Another architect, Basil Oliver, concurred with Yorke’s view about the popularity of darts and the importance of darts in pub design during the period. Oliver commented that ‘where the craze for darts has become too overwhelming to accommodate the players by a mere recess out of the Public Bar … a separate Games Room often becomes necessary’, Oliver adding that even in the saloon bar there was a ‘frequent requirement’ for the ‘inevitable darts-board’.46 In many plans for improved public houses specific, identifiable spaces were set aside for darts, these including the Prior’s Inn, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (a ‘Darts Recess’) and the King’s Head, Halstead, Essex (a ‘Darts Room’).47 Where specific areas were not set aside in the planning, the larger, more airy, improved public houses afforded general space for the developing pastime of darts. In addition, improvements such as the provision of electric light, replacing candlelight or overcoming the problems of the single oil lamp that used to ‘throw out more smoke than light’, improved playing conditions in the evenings.48 In the case of smaller pubs and

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beerhouses not subject to improvement, but the licensees of which needed to provide for darts, some difficulty was experienced, as their premises were not architecturally suited to the game. In his survey of local conditions Rupert Croft-Cooke discovered an inn in Long Compton, Oxfordshire, where ‘you play across a table’, another in Borough Green in Kent where players ‘play across the entrance’ and who were forced to stop their game every time customers came in or out, and in a bar in Bidbury, Gloucestershire, a fixed settle ‘prevents your standing back far enough, whilst at Scole in Suffolk the darts throwing area actually ‘bisects the room, dividing door from bar’, and in Ruislip at The Case is Altered, owing to the low ceiling, players had to ‘stand in a little pit’.49 Space in smaller pubs also defined the length of the throw, those in a bar in Bourton-on-the-Water standing from a point from which they could ‘almost reach the board’, whilst those in Kingham threw from ‘10 ft or more away.’50 Such conditions led to the further development of ‘house rules’ where games were played in accordance with the physical conditions of the premises rather than any hard-and-fast rules imposed by, say, the National Darts Association. Brewers and sport In addition to specific darts provision in pubs, some brewers were beginning to sense a change in attitudes to sport in general and began to consider methods of embracing the change for their own benefit. For as long as there has been a brewing industry the brewers have had strong links with sport. The nature of the industry, being closely connected with agriculture, strengthened connections between rural sporting life. The high social status of the brewery owners enabled them to indulge themselves in field and other sports. By the mid-nineteenth century this had extended beyond rural sports, a number of brewers, such as Walker’s of London, forging links with cricket. The Tetley brewery in Leeds played a key role in establishing Headingley as a major cricket and rugby stadium. Brewery cricket and football teams proliferated but it was not until after the Great War that multi-sports clubs became common and ‘cemented their place in brewery workplace culture.’51 Sensing that there were advantages in terms of improving industrial relations with the staff, the formal organisation of inter-brewery sport began in 1921. In June 1921 representatives of a number of London breweries met at Watney Combe Reid & Co. s brewery at Mortlake to discuss the possibility of forming a football league which would be open to

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

all clubs composed of brewery employees.52 A year later, in June 1922, as a result of the success of the football league, the London Breweries Amateur Sports Association (LBASA) was formed ‘to cover the organisation and direction of inter-brewery sports’, funded by subscriptions from participant brewers.53 The Association consisted of sections for football, tennis, billiards, boxing, golf, athletics, swimming and indoor pastimes, the latter including indoor sports leagues embracing whist, draughts, dominoes, cribbage, shove-ha’penny and darts.54 By January 1924 the LBASA had a membership of twenty-two brewery clubs, eight of which – Meux, Cannon, Toby, Barley Mow, Black Eagle, Whitbread, Mann Crossman and Barclay Perkins – were represented in the Indoor League.55 Each section of the league was open to ‘all classes of brewery employees’ and the brewers were quick to lay emphasis on the high standards exhibited by the players, with ‘utmost keenness’ being demonstrated and ‘good sportsmanship prevailing’.56 Stephen G. Jones has argued that employers used sports clubs ‘to manipulate the work force’ by providing employees with ‘a ready-made vested interest in the running of the firm’. There is no indication that the LBASA had been created for that purpose or, as Jones also suggests, to ‘undermine militancy’.57 However, less out of any sense of paternalistic duty, the brewers were keener to demonstrate that any perceived image of the brewery worker as unfit was erroneous. Being able to engage in and enjoy vigorous, and some less vigorous, sports indicated that brewery workers were as fit as any other men. After 1918 brewers began to produce ‘house magazines’. Hand in Hand was the first to be introduced in England in 1920, by Watney Combe Reid & Co., followed within a year by The Anchor Magazine (Barclay Perkins & Co.) and The House of Whitbread (Whitbread & Co.). These were publications intended ‘to inform the employees of the doings of themselves and their fellow workers’ whilst at the same time raising the awareness of the public of the status and progress of the company concerned. However, the real value of the magazines lay in the capacity to link all employees together ‘so that they may think of their labour as a collective thing, yet their own tasks as individual ones, performed not by an unknown unit in a large commercial organisation, but by known and recognised individual helpers upon whose efforts in part the prosperity or otherwise of the concern depends’.58 These house magazines were also a valuable method of reporting routine activities undertaken by the employees, such as sporting events, including darts matches. In April 1924 the House of Whitbread reported that the Whitbread brewery’s Indoor Games section was becoming increasingly popular and

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that the league arrangements enabled players ‘to spend very pleasant evenings in entertaining opponents’ on their premises. Reciprocal arrangements between brewers were made to spend similar evenings on ‘away’ matches, but ‘the keynote that … characterised the games’ was ‘the fine sense of sportsmanship that … prevailed throughout’.59 The brewery defrayed the cost of transport for ‘away’ matches, which would normally have been outside the pocket of the working man. The early establishment of brewery darts leagues Even given these developments, it still took time for the majority of brewers to see the potential of darts allied to brewery leagues as a profitable, organised pub recreation. Barclay Perkins were amongst the first to have the growth of the game brought to their attention. At the company board meeting held on 20 November 1924 Mr H. L. Grimston reported that ‘the pastime of dart throwing was becoming exceedingly popular’. He proposed that the company should assist in the formation of a darts league, ‘the members of which would meet in licensed houses belonging to the Company’. The estimated cost during the first year was between £40 and £50, to cover ‘necessary propaganda, purchase of cups and medals’.60 The board agreed the proposal, presumably attracted by the notion that all games would be played on their premises and thus any increased profit would accrue to the company. In December 1924 the brewery announced that the formation of a Barclay’s Darts League was being considered and, if there was sufficient interest, the company would agree to the provision of a perpetual trophy ‘in the form of a Cup, with Gold Medals for the winning team and Silver medals for the runners up’.61 This appeal, for teams for inter-house rather than inter-brewery leagues, reflected the growing appeal of the game of darts. It also reflected Barclay Perkins’ enthusiasm for promoting the league, little more than two weeks separating the approval of the board and the announcement appearing in The Anchor Magazine (Figure 4). At the meeting of the brewery’s General Purposes Committee held on 1 December 1924, it was agreed that Mr Fasham, a contributor to the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, who ‘had interested himself in the starting of games in licensed houses’ and who had already been of service to the company with regard to the darts league, should be employed to assist the brewery further in the promotion of games in its public houses. The committee agreed to a weekly payment to Fasham of £2 to meet his expenses in organising games, ‘such an amount to be paid for a period of 3 months and then reconsidered on results’.62

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

4 Announcement of the first Barclay’s Darts League, The Anchor Magazine, December 1924

Examination of the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier (hereafter called the Gazette) reveals that a column entitled ‘Games in licensed premises’ was introduced in the issue dated 20 October 1922. The writer, Fasham, enthused: Just think – of this opportune time for a boom in hotel and inn indoor games –when the provision of better entertainment is being literally craved for by way of the improved public-house … [and] … that the provision of games in licensed houses will mean not only a ‘brighter London’ but a brighter everywhere …63

This ‘craving’ was substantiated by the numerous pub games identified by the Gazette during a single month in early 1923. These included lawn tennis (Sheringham), table darts (Sheffield), draughts (Scotland), cribbage (Palmer’s Green), indoor carpet bowls (Peebles), indoor quoits (Lowestoft), shove-ha’penny (Oxford and Cambridge boat race crews), whist (Norwich) and skittles (Croydon).64

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Just over a year later, in May 1924, referring to ‘the tireless contest against counter-attractions, that grows in intensity, year by year, month by month and even day by day’, the Gazette listed some of the games that were being utilised in that ‘tireless contest’. The list comprised ‘bowls (including table bowls, billiard-table bowls, and carpet bowls), billiards, crib and whist, darts, dominoes, draughts, table tennis, quoits (including rope “deck” quoits, table ring quoits, table step quoits, quoit-bagatelle, Olympic step quoits, wall quoits and table quoits), skittles (including smaller sizes), bagatelle and … shove ha’penny’.65 From this extensive list darts would emerge as the key pub games counter-attraction. Indeed, during the same month that the board of Barclay Perkins met, the Gazette reported that the ‘advance of darts has been greatly due to the players being organised into clubs’.66 Fasham and officers and licensees of the brewery worked together very quickly. The inaugural Barclay Perkins & Co.’s league was formed in early 1925 and consisted of fifty-six teams from Barclay Perkins’ houses across London, divided into five divisions.67 Barclay Perkins were sponsoring darts to the extent of providing trophies and prizes – among the first to do so – but the responsibility for the organisation lay with the licensees. The success, or otherwise, of the league therefore rested on the organisational skills of the individual licensees who had subscribed to the league. The brewery had invited licensees to participate and it was up to them to make it work. The number of teams registering for the first season was encouraging and the board of Barclay Perkins was confident that it would be a success. The first games in the league had been played the week commencing 19 January 1925. The investment of Fasham’s time, and that of the hon. secretary of the league (and also honorary treasurer of the National Darts Association), Mr E. Travis, who was also licensee of the brewery’s house the Hop Pole, was already paying dividends. Travis had taken over the Hop Pole in October 1923 and during his early tenancy had successfully resisted attempts on the part of the brewery ‘to refer the house on grounds of redundancy’, that is to say, to close it down as part of the process of improvement. Through his own business acumen Travis had ‘done much by way of indoor games in his comfy clubroom and in the way of catering’ and he had taken a personal and practical interest in the pub’s darts teams.68 In essence what Travis had achieved through provision of games and catering was a popular, improved public house without the building having to be remodelled whilst, at the same time, defying ‘redundancy’. Travis reported in the February issue of The Anchor Magazine, ‘I am very pleased to say great interest is being taken in the [darts] League and

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the houses have drawn big crowds.’69 This was exactly what the brewers had been hoping to achieve. They were selling less drink per customer, so the only solution had been to increase the number of customers. Crowds in their pubs with darts were drawing interested parties away from alternative leisure forms or from their homes or other brewers’ houses who had yet to provide darts or organise darts leagues. The following month Travis reported ‘crowded houses on Darts Match nights’, with ‘a keen struggle for divisional honours … taking place in the first division’.70 It would not be long before other brewers saw the benefits derived from Barclay Perkins’ initiative. David Gutzke identifies Barclay Perkins & Co. as being one of the ‘most dynamic pub improvers’.71 It is not, therefore, surprising that this brewery company took a lead in the promotion of darts and that darts featured in its on-going successful strategy for the encouragement of new and the retention of existing customers. The growing popularity of darts in and around the capital was further evidenced in early 1924 in the Morning Advertiser. This newspaper, which focused on the licensed trade and circulated mainly in the south-east, began to feature reports on darts leagues, matches and competitions on a regular basis. Between February and March 1924 it published reports on the South West Ham, Southend, Woolwich, Surbiton, the Dittons, Southwark, North Woolwich, Pinner and District darts leagues, the Castle Surbiton Hill Dart Club and the Isleworth Brewery Darts competition.72 Growth in popularity of organised darts leagues and competitions Although brewery leagues existed during the 1920s, and more particularly after the establishment of National Darts Association in 1925 and the success of the Barclay Perkins league that same year, reporting of league results was disparate. However, as the News of the World competition, developed during the late 1920s in collaboration with the NDA and centred on public houses, gained momentum during the 1930s reports and league news in that newspaper became more frequent. The first mention of a brewery league in the News of the World appeared in late 1930: an announcement that entries for the Barclay’s darts league were to close on 30 October.73 Less than two years after the founding of a Darts section at their brewery, the Watney’s Battersea Darts League appeared in that newspaper in January 1932 and from that moment information concerning brewery and non-brewery leagues appeared more regularly in the News of the World.74

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In 1930, five years after both the Barclay Perkins league and the NDA had been established, Travis, honorary treasurer of the Association, reflected on the difficulties that had been experienced and stated that the Association’s early work had been ‘somewhat apathetically received’. However, the number of licensees who realised its possibilities had steadily increased and Travis rightly claimed that Barclay Perkins ‘was largely responsible in urging the executive [of the NDA] to further efforts’, adding, ‘we are naturally proud that it is now the exception to find a brewery without its darts league’.75 However, there were signs that some leagues were struggling. In 1931 the Whitbread brewery’s Northern section darts league was ‘not so strong as last year’, whilst the Eastern section ‘after a little trouble’ was ‘able to restart’ with only eight clubs competing; both managed to complete successful seasons.76 Other major London brewers, such as Whitbread and Truman, did not attend the inaugural meeting of the NDA, but it can be assumed that they were waiting to assess the outcome of the Barclay Perkins league, perceiving it as a pilot, before committing their own resources to the game. John Ross, who began his long career in darts organisation at this time, observed that, in 1926/27, brewers in the London area in particular ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ as soon as they saw how popular other brewery leagues were becoming and set up their own.77 By 1926 Whitbread had a member on the executive committee of the NDA, at which time brewers’ darts leagues were growing ‘at a rapid rate’.78 A survey undertaken in 1985 shows that in London the brewers Charrington & Co. first supported the game in the late 1920s/early 1930s.79 The survey also provides evidence that darts leagues were developing outside the capital, where the main darts and dartboard industries and the NDA were based. Brewers, including Frederic Robinson, of the Unicorn Brewery, Stock-port, Cheshire, Samuel Webster & Wilson, of Newton Heath, Manchester, Mitchell’s of Lancaster, Elgood’s of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, J. W Lees & Co., of the Greengate Brewery in Manchester, the Devenish Brewery of Redruth, Cornwall, McMullen & Sons, of Hertford, Marston Thompson & Evershed of Burton-on-Trent, Bass Worthington, also of Burton-on-Trent, Burt & Co. on the Isle of Wight and George Bateman & Son, of Skegness, Lincolnshire, all introduced darts leagues during the 1930s. Peter Walker, a Liverpool brewer, also promoted darts leagues, but this would have applied to clubs rather than pubs, as darts was banned in pubs in that city during the 1930s.80 The geographical spread shown by this survey indicates the speed with which the game of darts was embedding itself into contemporary leisure and pub culture. Responses demonstrate that brewers throughout England

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

were responding to the increased popularity of darts in the south-east and were recognising the benefits to be derived from darts as an added attraction in their public houses and therefore encouraged darts and darts leagues. All the brewers who responded to the survey recognised that darts was a valuable source of income and improved social interaction between pubs. Such was the apparent success of darts and darts leagues that, by mid1937, Darts Weekly News estimated that darts was ‘the game of one hundred thousand public houses’.81 Even allowing for some exaggeration from a biased source, other evidence suggests rapid and significant growth of interest in the game. For example, in Lancashire the Taylor Walker league boasted 117,000 players, whilst leagues sponsored by Courage, Watney’s, Marston’s, Barclay Perkins and many other much smaller breweries had ‘hundreds of divisions stretching across boundaries of age, sex and region’.82 The brewers had succeeded in utilising darts to attract customers into their pubs and retain existing consumers. However, this is not to suggest that darts was welcomed in all places. Indeed, in some cases the brewers faced an impossible task where pro-temperance licensing benches failed to appreciate the economic and social benefits of the introduction of darts into public houses. Darts as a potential societal nuisance In the late 1930s very few public houses on Merseyside provided facilities for activities other than drinking. A few offered food, but provision for games was rare; the licensing authorities discouraging the use of public houses for playing games. Mass Observation’s Merseyside survey indicated that some public houses had bowling greens and others billiard tables, but games, such as darts and shove-ha’penny, were ‘practically never found’.83 Parts of Liverpool, such as Scotland Road, in the centre of the city, were notorious for their squalor and the ‘seedy rash of public houses.84 Such slum areas of the city were ‘probably the worst slums in England’.85 It was because of such streets and slums that, against a national average of 10.9 convictions for drunkenness per 10,000 of population, Liverpool registered more than double, 27.37 per 10,000, and it was this level of drunkenness that was the key reason why darts and other pub games were banned in all public houses in Liverpool during the 1930s.86 Learning of the high level of drunkenness in Liverpool, Mass Observation sent an observation unit to the city to investigate the possible correlation between the exceptionally high rate of drunkenness in the city

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and the ban on games in public houses. Initially investigating by observation, and then in conversation with landlords and regulars, the observers, in a survey of thirty public houses, found no pub games whatsoever. Responses from customers interviewed by the unit members supported their findings, and the choices open to customers who wanted to play games were either to join a local club or, as one customer suggested, ‘go to Manchester’.87 However, as Terry Cooke s research into Scotland (or ‘Scottie’) Road has shown, darts was available in the area but only thanks to the creativity of the unemployed. Cooke revealed that ‘In an effort to get themselves off the street corners, groups of men rented empty shops, hired billiard tables and dart boards, to enable the premises to be used as social clubs for the out-of-work men, a place where they could seek a brief respite from the horrors of unemployment.’88 In his research into the leisure activities of the working class in Salford and Manchester during the period 1900–39 Andrew Davies stated that they were heavily structured and constrained by poverty and unemployment. However, these constraints did not prevent men from drinking or playing darts in pubs for prizes. Davies does not suggest that the playing of darts in Manchester and Salford was in any way a social threat or such a level of nuisance as to warrant suppression by the authorities, as was the case in Liverpool.89 In Liverpool there was no correlation between fewer games and more drunkenness. Mass Observation timed men drinking gills of beer in both Liverpool and Bolton. The result was that the average speed of consumption of the gill in Liverpool was five minutes and thirty-four seconds, with no drinker taking more than eleven minutes to empty his glass. In Bolton, where pub games were allowed, the average speed per gill was thirteen minutes. This led Mass Observation to postulate that ‘people drink faster in the unsocial atmosphere of Liverpool pubs’ whereas, in Bolton, people drank appreciably slower in company where games were allowed. Mass Observation concluded that ‘Faster drinking is an important factor in getting drunk.’90 Despite the outcomes of the survey by Mass Observation, and the Royal Commission on Licensing (1931) having taken the view that games distracted customers from drinking, all games – even ‘sing-songs’ – in public houses were suppressed in Liverpool.91 As the popularity of darts grew the Liverpool licensing benches continued to resist the introduction of darts into the city’s public houses. In March 1939 the Liverpool licensing sessions considered an application submitted on behalf of the brewers Ind Coope & Allsop for the game of darts to be allowed on the company’s licensed premises in the city. Mr R.

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

K. Milne, representing Ind Coope, appealed to the licensing bench, pointing out that darts was not played in a single one of the brewery’s seventy public houses in the city, yet the game was allowed to be played in clubs. Milne also brought the justices’ attention to the fact that darts was played ‘in every city, town and village throughout the country, except Liverpool’, adding that there could be little doubt that the playing of darts must lead to increased sobriety.92 Despite this argument, and despite the fact that darts was not an unlawful game, Ind Coope’s application was refused. However, the outcome is less surprising than it appears, as the Liverpool Licensed Victuallers’ Association (LVA) had written to the justices prior to the hearing expressing its strong disapproval of Ind Coope’s application. In effect the Liverpool LVA was admitting that, despite evidence to the contrary elsewhere and the outcome of the Royal Commission, Liverpool still had a major problem with drunkenness and therefore it would not condone any action that would encourage more people to go to pubs and/or stay longer in them. After due consideration the justices passed a resolution that ‘In the interests of the licensees, carrying out their difficult and responsible duties, the committee do not look on this application with approval.’93 In addition, this conflict between the brewers and the licensing authorities was not confined to England. By late 1937 darts had finally spread to Scotland. In 1932 there had been ‘only one board in the city of Glasgow’ but by the winter of 1937 the St Mirren Football Club was ‘alive to the value of darts’ as a recreation and had installed a board in its pavilion. A ‘Scottish darts boom’ was predicted.94 Furthermore, there were approximately 1,100 public houses with ‘100 or thereby’ in the darts league within Glasgow at the time.95 A Clackmannanshire league linked with the Alloa Brewery was established in central Scotland in October 1938.96 In the summer of 1938 the newly formed Aberdeen Darts Association held its first ‘social’ at the Bon Accord hotel, and in that city today there exists an inter-pub darts league which still plays for the league cup which was first contested in 1939.97 Despite this apparent increase in popularity, by early 1939 the game was raised as an issue of concern to Scottish licensing justices in Glasgow. Initially the police had informed several licensees in the city that their premises were structurally ‘unsuitable for the game’. This matter was discussed by the Glasgow Licensed Trade Defence Association (GLTDA) in March, but it decided that the police had ‘no power to stop darts’ and members of the Association were reluctant to take their dartboards down in view of the fact that ‘other licence-holders in the vicinity whose premises were suitable, would benefit’.98 The GLTDA decided to take no action.

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However, on 11 April, at the Glasgow Burgh Licensing Court, applications for the introduction of darts games to other licensed premises in the city were considered. The court deciding that, in future, under no circumstances would it allow games of any kind to be played in any of Glasgow’s licensed premises.99 The courts action was described by the licensed trade as ‘a usurpation of authority which no self-respecting community will recognise and which every license-holder in the city ought to resent’.100 The GLTDA appealed and the Burgh Licensing Court reconsidered the matter on 21 April 1939 and lifted the ban on the more established games of draughts and dominoes. However, the ban on darts remained subject to reports from the Master of Works and Chief Constable.101 On 9 May both officials submitted favourable reports supporting the provision of darts in public houses provided licensees conformed with specific requirements ‘for the safety of patrons’. Despite these supportive reports the magistrates upheld their earlier decision to ban darts from all licensed premises in the city, the order coming into operation on 29 May.102 It was estimated that the ban would affect approximately fifty members of the GLTDA.103 The official reason given for the banning of darts on licensed premises in Glasgow was that it was ‘a game for young men and not for old men’, and the senior magistrate, Bailie T A. Kerr, declared that he ‘saw in the application an attempt to bring young people back to the public-house’ and would do nothing to encourage young men to frequent licensed premises.104 The decision to lift the ban on draughts and dominoes had been upheld on the basis that they were games played by older men and therefore held no attraction for the young.105 This attitude was borne out earlier in the decade by Charles and Lillian Russell in their study of boys’ clubs. Whilst supporting the provision of popular games such as billiards, table-tennis, draughts and chess in clubs for boys, and encouraging matches and competitions in such games, the Russells actively discouraged darts and ‘rings’ (quoits). They warned club officials that, although darts and rings were ‘great favourites … specially [sic] in vogue among the rougher boys in a club’, those games did ‘lend themselves to a considerable amount of gambling’ and thus officials should ‘be able to detect this if practised’. Whilst counselling club staff to greater caution, the Russells did not wish to see darts and rings banned from clubs for ‘really rough boys’. They did not think it advisable to organise team games, ‘as ring-throwing and dart matches are almost exclusively held in the smaller public-houses … and it is not prudent to allow a boy to discover great skill in a game which may prove fatal’, adding, ‘For skill in

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

ring- and dart-throwing may certainly best be exhibited in a beer-house, and an excessive liking for strong drink may easily be developed in the lad who goes there to display his dexterity.’106 However, in his detailed research into inter-war adolescence, David Fowler makes no reference to beerhouses or drinking being a part of interwar teenage consumerism; indeed, references to the pub in the entire work are few – a surprising omission – whilst in the chapter on clubs there is no mention of the inherent danger of darts (or any other game) as perceived by the Charles and Lillian Russell.107 Fowler quotes a youth worker at a conference in Manchester in 1919 referring to the ‘bestiality of the public house’ and Cyril Burt in 1925 commended the cinema for having ‘withdrawn young men from the public-house’.108 However, Fowler fails to reveal any social problem linking young people with the public house, whilst Burt and, more recently, Stephen Humphries identify the key impact of alcohol on young people as abuse emanating from alcoholic parents, the latter also making no link between adolescent drinking and the public house, seeing illicit drinking merely as part of ‘larking about’ in a young person’s free leisure time.109 As will be shown in Chapter 5, the popularity of darts grew to such an extent that it began to drive out and replace older established pub games. But it was not just public houses that were affected. On 30 April 1930, when Watney’s brewery formed the Darts section of its sports club at the brewery in Mortlake, London, it was noted that the popularity of the game of quoits, which had been a well supported section of the club for many years, began to fade.110 The importance of darts as an inter-war pub pastime At the beginning of the inter-war period there were very few organised brewery darts leagues in English public houses. By the end of the period it was rare to find a major brewery without its darts league. Despite the threats to the core business of the brewing and licensed trades, the drink interest was able to compete effectively with such attractions as dance halls and cinemas. Increased space, improved lighting and recognition of the need for a wide range of recreations in their houses enabled darts and darts leagues to play an important and growing role in the culture of public houses during the inter-war period. The popularity of darts did lead to some decline in participation in other pub games such as shove-ha’penny, quoits and skittles, but they in the main, although under constant threat, managed to maintain a level of popularity in specific areas

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so that, even today as then, one can still witness ‘brisk conflict in all of them’.111 The impetus, originally created by the brewers in London, and in particular Barclay Perkins, in parallel with other changes, led to other brewers across the country promoting the game, and thus darts developed from a parochial, regional public bar game of the early 1920s to, by the end of the 1930s, a popular organised national leisure pursuit. By the end of the 1930s, with the exception of Liverpool, Glasgow and Huddersfield, where darts was banned, the majority of brewers in most major towns and cities in England, Scotland and Wales had leagues in their pubs and clubs which attracted hundreds of thousands of players.112 In London the Courage league comprised eleven sections with a total of 117 teams, whilst the Taylor Walker brewery boasted twenty-one leagues with a total of 283 competing pub teams.113 Liverpool, Glasgow and Huddersfield aside, brewers and licensees had succeeded in their strategy to popularise the game and it is probable that, given the number of leagues formed and the geographical spread, the strategy exceeded expectations. In 1936 the Financial News reported that ‘The consumption of beer per head of the population is definitely declining, for social rather than financial reasons. Although 1929 is generally recognised as a peak prosperity year, consumption in that year was only 16.09 gallons per head, compared with 17.65 gallons in 1925. ‘The installation of modern machinery, centralisation of production, elimination of overlapping distributive services and the improvement of the standard of comfort of licensed properties have been used to neutralise the shrinkage in demand’ for beer.114 On the evidence, the increasing popularity of darts during the inter-war years should be added to this list of neutralising factors. Without the attraction of darts and organised home and away friendly and/or league matches to keep customers in the pubs and draw in new customers, consumption in a great number of public houses would have been considerably less. Without darts, thousands of customers looking for recreation would have been diverted away from the pub to other attractions. Although it was the power and finance, the capital investment of the brewers that assisted the expansion of the game, it was the licensees at local level that provided the core impetus. To understand why this was the case one must address the problems encountered in defining the leisure industry. Stephen G Jones states that ‘The main distinction to be made is between those concerns such as sports manufacturers, film makers and breweries which were involved in production, and those concerns such as football clubs, cinemas and public houses which provide a service.’115 Thus,

Brewery leagues and the improved public house

whilst the changes in the brewers’ strategy in terms of the improvement and extension of facilities provided the environment to allow development of games, it was the service providers – the licensees – who would realise the full potential of darts. They would naturally look to the brewers to support activities, for example by sponsorship, by the provision of cups, medals and other prizes, but the licensee was the driving force in encouraging and developing the game at local level and indeed at national level. They would look to colleagues in the licensed trade not only for support of their ideas but also to rationalise the game in terms of standard rules and regulations of play.116 In 1949, looking back at his twenty-one years as a director of the Watney Combe Reid brewery company, Walter Serocold considered that the improved public house was ‘one of the most significant social movements of our time’.117 The evidence presented in this chapter has shown that the promotion and development of darts leagues also represented a significant social movement -both within and outside the public house. It was a movement without which the brewers would have found themselves with even more problems than their business already faced during the inter-war years. If darts had not been so readily accepted by pubgoers the brewers’ inter-war strategy might have had to be significantly revised. Notes 1 2 3

4

5 6

7

Brewers’ Journal, 15 November 1937, p. 537. Ibid., 15 January 1925, p. 4. David W. Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives – Reinventing the Public House in England 1896–1960 (De Kalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006), p. 49. Country Brewers’ Gazette, September 1899, cited in Norman Barber, Where Have all the Breweries Gone? – A Directory of British Brewery Companies (Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1984), p. 2. Peter Haydon, The English Pub – A History (London: Robert Hale, 1994), p. 292. Mergers and take-overs continue to the present day. David M. Fahey, ‘Brewers, publicans, and working-class drinkers: pressuregroup politics in late Victorian and Edwardian England’, Histoire sociale – Social History, 13 (1980), pp. 88–9. Haydon, The English Pub, p. 287. The annual beer production in 1905 had been 35,415,523 barrels. By 1915 this had reduced only slightly, to 34,765,780 barrels, but by 1925 barrelage had reduced to 28,826,665. In 1939 the annual barrelage stood at 24,674,992, a reduction of 10,740,531 barrels since 1905, or 30 per cent of the production level of 1905. (Hermann

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8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

Levy, Drink – An Economic and Social Study, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951, p. 78.) Fahey, ‘Brewers, publicans, and working-class drinkers’, p. 89. Richard Wilson, ‘The British brewing industry since 1750’ in Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton (eds), The Brewing Industry – A Guide to Historical Records (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 13. Levy, Drink – An Economic and Social Study, pp. 84–5. John Stevenson and Chris Cook, Britain in the Depression – Society and Politics 1929–1939 (London: Longman, 1998), p. 106. Stephen G. Jones, Workers at Play – A Social and Economic History of Leisure 1918–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 78. T. R Gourvish and R G. Wilson, The British Brewing Industry 1830–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 335. R. G. Wilson, Greene King – A Business and Family History (London: Bodley Head & Jonathan Cape, 1983), p. 163. Francis Sheppard, Brakspear’s Brewery, Henley on Tames 1779–1979 (Henleyon-Tames: W H. Brakspear & Sons, 1979), p. 90; Hurford Janes, The Red Barrel – A History of Watney Mann (London: John Murray, 1963), p. 154. Walter Pearce Serocold (ed.), The Story of Watney’s (London: Watney Combe Reid & Co., 1949), p. 75. Janes, The Red Barrel, p. 158. Gourvish and Wilson, The British Brewing Industry, p. 336; J. M. Winter, The Great War and the British People (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985), p. 81. Basil Oliver, Renaissance of the English Public House (London: Faber & Faber, 1947), pp. 20–1. Ernest Selley, The English Public House as it is (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1927), p. 117; Basil Oliver, FRIBA, ‘The Modern Public House’, pamphlet reprinted from A Monthly Bulletin, 1934, p. 10. Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives, p. 49. Ibid. Sydney O. Nevile, Seventy Rolling Years (London: Faber & Faber, 1958), pp. 76 and 104. Ted Elkins, Our Trade – The Story of the Major Associations of Interest to the Licensed Victualler (Shepton Mallet: Showerings, 1978), p. 118. The Association was formed primarily ‘to combat the open, and also the more or less veiled activity of teetotallers’ (p. 118). Oliver, Renaissance of the English Public House, p. 21. Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace – Cinema and Society in Britain 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 11–12. Roy Armes, A Critical History of the British Cinema (London: Secker & Warburg, 1978), p. 114. The Anchor Magazine, house magazine of Barclay Perkins & Co., September 1930, p. 195. C. Delisle Burns, Leisure in the Modern World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1932), p. 73.

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30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37

38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Noreen Branson and Margot Heinemann, Britain in the Nineteen-thirties (St Albans: Panther Books, 1973), p. 260. Wilson, Greene King, pp. 172–3. Charles Loch Mowat, Britain between the Wars 1918–1940 (London: Methuen & Co., 1968), p. 275. Sean Glynn and John Oxborrow, Inter-war Britain – A Social and Economic History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), p. 145. Brewers’ Journal, 15 April 1921, p. 136. Report of the Royal Commission on Licensing (England and Wales) 1929–1931, Cmnd 3988, chapter VIII, p. 54, para. 239. An Examination of the Evidence before the Royal Commission on Licensing (England and Wales) 1929–1930 (London: Central Board of the Licensed Victuallers’ Central Protection Society of London, 1931), p. 60. Brewers’ Journal, 15 December 1923, p. 632. For the full review of Capper’s ‘trade encyclopaedia’, Licensed Houses and their Management (3 vols, London: Caxton Publishing, 1923), see Brewers’ Journal, 15 December 1923, pp. 632–3. W. Bentley Capper, Licensed Houses and their Management (London: Caxton Publishing, 1924), III, p. 22. Alexander Francis Part, The Art and Practice of Innkeeping (London: William Heinemann, 1922), p. 270. Ross McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class – Social Relations in Britain 1880– 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 162. Wilson, Greene King, p. 200. Selley, The English Public House as it is, p. 122. Clive Aslet, ‘Beer and skittles in the improved public house’, Thirties Society Journal, 4 (1984), pp. 4–5; George Long, English Inns and Road Houses (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1937), p. 177; Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 9 January 1925, p. 2. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 19 November 1926, p. 10. Francis W B. Yorke, FRIBA, The Planning and Equipment of Public Houses (London: Architectural Press, 1949), p. 190. Basil Oliver, The Renaissance of the English Public House (London: Faber & Faber, 1947), p. 33. Ibid., pp. 117–18. Darts Weekly News, 9 October 1937, p. 11. Rupert Croft-Cooke, Darts (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), pp. 24–5. Ibid., p. 25. Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers – A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (Oxford: Berg, 2002), pp. 40–2. Watney Combe Reid had established its own sports club in 1920, which was proving very successful. (Serocold, The Story of Watney’s, p. 58.) To commemorate the return of most of the brewery work force from the war, and in memory of the twenty-one members of staff who were killed, Greene

99

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53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

78

King opened its sports ground to employees in July 1920. (Wilson, Greene King, pp. 205–6.) Minute Book No. 16, Barclay Perkins & Co. Ltd, p. 130. Brewers’ Journal, 15 January 1923, p. 24. Morning Advertiser, 24 January 1924, p. 11. Ibid. Stephen G. Jones, ‘Sport, politics and the labour movement: the British Workers’ Sports Federation 1923–1935’, British Journal of Sports History, 2:2 (September 1985), p. 161. Brewers’ Journal, 15 February 1921, p. 60. The House of Whitbread, April 1924, p. 35. Minute Book of Board Meetings, No. 17, Barclay Perkins & Co. Ltd, p. 414. Minutes of the board meeting held on 20 November 1924, London Metropolitan Archives, Barclay Perkins & Co. Ltd, Minute Books 1918– 1936 (Acc/2305/1/14, Acc/ 2305/1/25/1). The Anchor Magazine, December 1924, p. 158. Minute Book of Board Meetings, No. 17, Barclay Perkins & Co. Ltd, p. 422. Minutes of the General Purposes Committee held on 1 December 1924. This may be the first example of brewers paying a retainer to a consultant in order to introduce organised games into their public houses (a payment very much dependent upon results), an investment by the brewer which they believed would pay dividends. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 20 October 1922, p. 12. Ibid., 5 January 1923, p. 12, 12 January 1923, p. 12, and 19 January 1923, p. 12. Ibid., 16 May 1923, p. 2. Ibid., 5 December 1924, p. 2. The Anchor Magazine, January 1925, p. 6. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 7 March 1924, p. 8. The Anchor Magazine, 5:2 (1925), p. 23. See also Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 28 November 1924, p. 2. The Anchor Magazine, 5:3 (1925), p. 31. David Gutzke, ‘Gentrifying the British public house 1896–1914’, International Labor and Working Class History, 45 (spring 1994), p. 39. Morning Advertiser, 15 February to 29 March 1924. News of the World, 19 October 1930, p. 16. Ibid., 10 January 1932, p. 16. The Anchor Magazine, September 1930, p. 195. The House of Whitbread, January 1931, p. 50, and July 1932, pp. 37–8. Mike Bender (ed.), ‘John Ross – Memoirs of a Darts-playing Man’, unpublished manuscript (December 1983), p. 7. In 1927 John Ross served on the committee which set up the Truman league and helped the brewery in drawing up its rules for that first season. The House of Whitbread, October 1926, p. 48.

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79

80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91

92

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94 95 96

Patrick Chaplin, unpublished ‘Brewing Industry and Darts Survey 1985’, questionnaire issued during 1985 to every brewery in the country listed in the 1981 Good Beer Guide (St Albans: Campaign for Real Ale, 1981), pp. 225– 36. Chaplin, ‘Brewing Industry and Darts Survey’. Darts Weekly News, 15 June 1937, p. 1. Collins and Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers, p. 58. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943), p. 304. Ron Garnett, Liverpool in the 1930s and the Blitz (Preston: Palatine Books, 1991), p. 19. Branson and Heinemann, Britain in the Nineteen-thirties, p. 203. Liverpool Echo, 7 March 1935, p. 6. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, pp. 304–5. Terry Cooke, The Pubs on Scottie Road (Liverpool: Bluecoat Press, 1999), p. 46. It appears that such premises were outside the remit of Mass Observation. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty – Working Class Culture in Salford and Manchester 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992), pp. 34–5 and 46. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, p. 306. Report of the Royal Commission on Licensing (England and Wales) 1929–1931, Cmnd 3988, chapter VIII, p. 54, para. 239. Cooke’s research reveals that although customers were not officially allowed to sing on licensed premises ‘they did so in all pubs’. (Cooke, The Pubs of Scottie Road, p. 27.) This was in fact an erroneous statement, given that darts was also banned in Huddersfield at the time. See Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 23 December 1937, p. 4, and Darts World, November 1989, p. 47. Darts had been banned in Huddersfield for many years as an unlawful game under the Huddersfield Improvement Act 1871, 34 & 35 Vict., clause 266. In 1990 Frank Radforth, a News of the World grand finalist in 1956, told readers of Darts World that in 1938 he visited the Slip inn at Longwood, Huddersfield, where, with the permission of the licensing authority, steel darts had been replaced by darts with ‘rubber suckers’. Radforth, who had qualified for the final as Yorkshire Divisional Champion and Huddersfield and Dewsbury Area Champion, also reported that darts had been banned in Huddersfield years before when ‘a man lost his eye with a dart’. (Darts World, January 1990, p. 8.) Liverpool Daily Post, 8 March 1939, p. 4. For a detailed study of the historical relationship between magistrates and public house managers in Liverpool see Alistair Mutch, ‘Magistrates and public house managers 1840–1914 – another case of Liverpool exceptionalism?’ Northern History, 40 (2 September 2003), pp. 325–42. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 13 November 1937, p. 11, and 18 December 1937, p. 26. Daily Record and Mail, 12 April 1939, p. 28. Alloa Advertiser, 5 November 1938, p. 7.

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97 National Guardian, 17 June 1939, p. 11; Jim Wood, darts player based at the Masada Bar, Aberdeen, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin dated 1 September 2005. 98 National Guardian, 11 March 1939, p. 5. 99 Glasgow Herald 12 April 1939, p. 12. 100 National Guardian, 22 April 1939, p. 3. 101 Glasgow Herald, 22 April 1939, p. 3. 102 National Guardian, 13 May 1939, pp. 5 and 8. 103 Ibid., 20 May 1939, p. 3. Some weeks later it was noted that the game of wall quoits – a board on the wall with numbered hooks on to which players attempted to throw rubber rings – was ‘gaining in favour in Glasgow publichouses since darts stopped’. (National Guardian, 29 July 1939, p. 5.) 104 Daily Record and Mail, 10 May 1939, p. 3; National Guardian, 20 May 1939, p. 3. 105 Daily Record and Mail, 10 May 1939, p. 3. 106 Charles and Lillian Russell, Lads’ Clubs – Their History, Organisation and Management (London: A. & C. Black, 1932), pp. 99–100. 107 David Fowler, The First Teenagers – The Lifestyle of Young Wage Earners in Inter-war Britain (London: Woburn Press, 1995). For Fowler’s review of clubs see chapter 6. 108 Ibid., pp. 124 and 131. See also Cyril Burt, The Young Delinquent (London: University of London Press, 1925), p. 150. 109 Burt, The Young Delinquent, p. 99; Stephen Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working Class Childhood and Youth 1889–1939 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1983), pp. 22 and 140. 110 Serocold, The Story of Watney’s, p. 60. 111 Ivor Brown, The Heart of England (London: B. T. Batsford, 1935), p. 44. 112 The case for darts in Wales, although not covered in this book, is based on the fact that darts was sufficiently popular in the principality by the mid1930s to enable Wales to join the pub-based News of the World competition as a separate division in 1936. (See also Chapter 7.) For discussion in Parliament of the case of the banning of darts in Liverpool see The Times, 21 April 1939, p. 7. 113 Darts and Sports Weekly News, \7 September 1939, pp. 12–14, and 24 September 1938, pp. 6–7. 114 Financial News, 4 February 1936, p. 6. 115 Jones, Workers at Play, p. 35. 116 For the licensees’ role in establishing the National Darts Association see Chapter 5 and for their role as service providers see Chapter 7. 117 Serocold, The Story of Watney’s, p. 75.

The organisation and standardisation of darts in the inter-war years When the [National Darts] Association was formed in 1924 there were only eight [darts] leagues in existence … now there are nearly 200 affiliated to the NDA … More than a quarter of a million players are registered with the NDA and the number playing the game ‘unofficially’ must run into millions.1

O

n Thursday 12 February 1925 a group of professional men met in the offices of the Morning Advertiser to discuss the establishment of an English darts association for the ‘control of the game of darts and of unifying the rules’.2 Thus it might be imagined that their motives were similar to those of other members of the elite who, during the innovative and expanding world of mid-Victorian leisure, had met to organise and codify athletic sports, mainly track and field, to reconstruct football and to reform cricket: their primary aim through rational recreation being to ‘forge more effective behavioural constraints’ in leisure.3 The NDA was a more complex organisation, although it fulfilled the requirement of codification that accompanied all major sports, games and pastimes. How and why the National Darts Association (NDA) was formed, and by whom, and to compare the motives of the elite of darts with those involved in the standardisation of other sports are major issues for this chapter. It is also an aim to analyse the role and methods of the NDA in promoting darts effectively during the inter-war years, turning the game into one of the most popular recreations of the period in England. The rules and principles laid down by the NDA in 1925 remain at the very heart of darts in the world today. The establishment of the NDA and its role in inter-war popular culture has until now received no attention from scholars. Thus the NDA needs to be seen in the context of a wider associational culture that had shaped leisure for more than a hundred years previously.

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Voluntarism and the English public house Voluntary associations have their roots in the period before 1780 and were created as ‘one major response to the problems posed by change and complexity’ in English culture. They enabled members of society to effectively adapt to that change, ‘to experiment with and devise new values’. A key participant in this process was the publican, where the public house was the centre of community activity, and it was from within the public house that many of the voluntary organisations emerged.4 Indeed, throughout the late nineteenth century, as the new regimen of rational recreation was implemented, the publican still enjoyed a strategic advantage in the expanding world of popular leisure, and later still, as developing sports like boxing and football moved away from the public house, the publican would adopt an important role in the rationalisation of darts.5 Between 1780 and 1880 the number of voluntary associations grew dramatically, many societies rapidly adjusting their aims, tactics, constitution, membership and activities in the light of experience. Whilst the primary aim of these associations was to provide alternative facilities and experiences for the working classes, the overall aim was the achievement of social control. However, this was something that the elite were unable to achieve in totality owing to the numerous alternative activities that made it impossible for the middle class to achieve complete control of working-class ideology, thought or social practice.6 In addition to the aims of controlling darts and bringing respectability to the game, the threat from alternative leisure forms was to be a prime motive for the establishment of the National Darts Association. Consolidation of darts and the motives of the NDA From the mid-nineteenth century onwards the working class had more spending power and more leisure time as part of a new urban culture. Recreations such as organised sport brought its own ‘class battles of organisation’, including, for example, the class bargaining of working-class football clubs in the north with the Football Association and the series of disputes within and between organisations ‘vying with each other to control property, audiences and memberships’ which led, in 1895, to the professional Rugby League breaking away from the amateur Rugby Union.7 Issues such as professionalism versus amateurism and social exclusion that affected the organisation of sports such as football, tennis and athletics were not present in the development of darts. In athletics, for

The organisation of darts

example, Bailey argued that, once prejudice had been dispelled, ‘everything was done to maintain a respectable tone by securing amateur athletics against interlopers from lower stations in society’ and in rugby, as Tony Collins has shown, professional status versus amateurism led in 1895 to the split of the game into two codes.8 Whilst the fundamental principle of control was inherent in its rules, the Association was more concerned with protecting the game from external influences which might utilise darts for illegal gain, thus bringing respectability to darts, especially in the context of the improvement of English public houses, than directly promoting darts as a developing sport to compete against football, say, or cricket. By the early 1920s darts was already largely the working-class pastime and thus any thought of social exclusion was meaningless. The NDA’s motives were to consolidate darts as a popular recreation in public houses as a counterattraction to alternative leisure options, including not only other sports but also the cinema and dance halls. As we shall see, the NDA played a pivotal role in the development and expansion of the game of darts as an organised recreation in public houses during the inter-war years. Whilst the brewers provided the premises and financial backing in the form of equipment and prizes, the NDA was responsible for the application of rules and the popularisation of darts in pubs across the country. Ironically, during the mid to late 1930s the NDA managed to achieve social inclusion as darts found favour with the middle and upper classes as a popular form of novelty recreation. The NDA engaged in close working relations with the News of the World, the first national newspaper to sponsor darts. Given the perceived gender bias of both the game itself and the premises on which it was generally played, consideration will be given to the social and spatial issues and opportunities afforded to women by the Association and the News of the World to encourage and enable them to compete in major darts championships on an equal basis against men.9 Consideration will also be given to the NDA’s motives for setting up an organisation in terms of the reconstruction of Englishness and national identity through darts. Finally, this chapter will examine the legacy of the NDA in terms of its contribution not only to the development of the modern game of darts but also to the wider understanding of mass leisure during the inter-war years. The pressing need for standardisation Until the 1920s darts had been developing in public houses in an ad hoc way with different styles, sizes and designs of dartboards, differing rules of

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play and with relatively low levels of participation. However, during the inter-war period the game was transformed by the NDA into one of the most popular participative recreations in England. Until then darts was one of many pleasant participative diversions for the working class – both team and individual -to be found in some, but by no means all, English public houses.10 As was shown in Chapter 3, depending on the locality in which it was played, darts received little or no attention or support from brewers. However, during the early 1920s, darts playing became increasingly popular and forces came into play that would revolutionise darts’ role in English, rather than British, society, thus enabling it to evolve into a key element of mass leisure in parallel, and in competition, with other forms, including the cinema in the country during the inter-war years. It would be easy to state that the NDA was an association born of the licensed trade, which simply imposed rules on the working-class pubgoer, but the situation was in fact much more complex. In essence, the formation of the NDA was a response to the demands from licensees for the regularisation of the game and from the brewers who, as part of their on-going schemes of public house improvement during this period, had begun to recognise the true value to their customers of indoor recreations, which included darts. Although the development of brewery leagues has been traced through the minute books of various brewers and copies of their house magazines (see Chapter 4) the first evidence of substantial and sustained demand for standard rules for the game of darts first appears in early 1924 in the Morning Advertiser, the newspaper for the licensed trade, which circulated mainly in the south-east of England. By the beginning of 1924 the newspaper had begun to feature reports on darts leagues, matches and competitions on a regular basis. Between February and March reports were published in relation to the South West Ham, Southend, Woolwich, Surbiton, Little Ditton and Long Ditton, Southwark, North Woolwich, Pinner and District dart leagues, the Castle Surbiton Hill Dart Club and the Isleworth Brewery darts competition. This was a volume of darts reporting previously unknown in the Morning Advertiser or any other publication.11 Such was the demand for news and advice that by September 1924 the Morning Advertiser had its own – and the first ever – darts columnist. John A. Peel was a journalist from Surbiton, Surrey, and a keen exponent of darts, who played in and was honorary secretary of the Surbiton and Dittons Darts League.12 Licensees responding to the increasing demand for darts in their public houses sought advice and guidance from the Morning Advertiser. In return,

The organisation of darts

Peel proffered the benefit of his experience in organising darts leagues to interested parties whilst accepting that, given there were different leagues extant which had their own systems of play, there were no general rules ‘that I am aware of in existence’.13 Enquiries about standard rules of the game increased substantially between September and December 1924 and it was towards the end of this period that a ‘Central Darts Association’ was mooted for the first time. Through the Morning Advertiser Peel called for delegates to attend an exploratory meeting.14 Actively inviting darts club secretaries to participate in the decision-making process and, eventually, to take seats on the executive committee of the formative Association was a ground-breaking idea in terms of organised sport. Most sports associations, including the Football Association, were founded by men who were closely involved with their sport but had little or no representation by those organisations affiliated to it, the rules being handed down en bloc to the clubs by the mainly upper-class/elite founders.15 Despite his experience of darts, Peel was of the view that the construction of the rules of darts was best dealt with by consulting those at grass-roots level rather than regulations being drawn up by an elite group and then imposed upon Association members. The theme that emerges from Peel’s proposal is that there was a relatively democratic grassroots pattern to darts; no sense of a specific desire on the part of the brewers or licensees to control darts players, but more of a sense of inclusion – a decision that doubtless shaped the character of this developing pub game, although the democratic process was not quite as inclusive as first thought. The establishment of the first national darts organisation By the beginning of 1925 the men and the skills needed to establish a ‘Central Darts Association’ had been identified and league secretaries were asked to notify Peel of their willingness to attend a preliminary, exploratory meeting in London.16 By February 1925 Peel was convinced that time was of the essence and that it was important to bring the association into being sooner rather than later. He wrote, ‘I am not without knowledge of the possibility of others, chiefly for commercial gain, attempting to reap the benefit of the splendid work of the various leagues and to foist their views and rules on the dartplaying public …’ 17 It is unlikely that the Morning Advertiser would have embarked on a campaign to establish an association, or would have reacted so quickly and so positively to the requests for standardisation of darts,

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affording darts valuable column inches, unless there were some significant benefits to both the brewers and the licensed trade. Peel had recognised a number of warning signs and decided that it was an appropriate time to establish a Central Darts Association and for it to be introduced sooner rather than later before one of the ‘others’ stole the initiative. Although the ‘others’ are not defined it is possible that Peel was referring to links with organised gambling or more likely the News of the World, which less than a year later would be working with the NDA on the first major Londonbased sponsored darts competition. In February 1925 a scheme to launch the Central Darts Association was announced, the main principle being the ‘government of darts by the selected representatives of properly constituted leagues’. Honorary league secretaries were invited to nominate two delegates to attend a meeting to be held at the offices of the Morning Advertiser at 127 Fleet Street, London EC 4, at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday 12 February 1925.18 The members of the licensed trade were better placed to implement and control the game of darts locally, whilst, as was shown in Chapter 4, the brewers were a formidably powerful lobby. With the brewers’ backing the NDA would be able to resist any attempt from forces outside the licensed trade to control darts. However, there was more to setting up the Association than simply appointing and encouraging a team of experienced organisers. At the February meeting all twenty-four delegates were darts league representatives and in all probability were either darts club secretaries or licensees – in other words, people either working at grass-roots level, playing in or organising darts leagues, or representing the interests of specific brewers.19 It is likely that their motivation for being there was not restricted to a general interest in promoting the game of darts per se; more likely to hear how best to organise a game that would bring more people through the pub doors, as all-round alternative leisure options were affecting the pub trade. An examination of the list of delegates shows that the geographical spread of the representatives was very narrow indeed: limited to London and the south-east. The farthest any representative had travelled was from Grays, in Essex, less than twenty miles away.20 But it was short notice indeed. The invitation was formally issued to the readership of the Morning Advertiser only on 10 February and it was thus more or less impracticable for anyone else to organise themselves to travel to London at two days’ notice, particularly on a weekday. W. T Mycroft, chairman of the Surbiton and Dittons Darts League, one of the earliest darts leagues to be formed, presided at the meeting.

The organisation of darts

Mycroft stated in his introductory address that he had ‘done his best to father the game’, expressed his great pleasure at the large attendance and anticipated ‘a big success’.21 This form of words used by Mycroft, taking credit for ‘fathering’ the game, is significant and is a claim that does not appear to have been openly challenged for any reason. Therefore it is possible that Mycroft was the first person involved in darts to realise the full potential of the game. The only place he could have become convinced of the potential of organised darts would have been through the league of which he was chairman. If darts had been successfully organised in the Surbiton and Dittons league, providing benefits for customers, licensees and brewers alike, there would be little reason to believe that such benefits could not accrue nationally. It can be no coincidence that John Peel, who for months had been strongly advocating standardisation of the game, was also honorary secretary of the same league of which Mycroft was president. To further support this supposition, in 1923 the Surbiton and Dittons league had brought a highly successful season to a close and would hold a meeting, in August that year, to revise its rules.22 Mycroft and Peel would have been active participants in that process and were, therefore, able to bring their experience from the leagues to bear in drafting the initial rules of the NDA. Later, together, these two men would be elected to key positions on the NDA and take responsibility not only for rationalising and standardising the game of darts but also for promoting the NDA rules across the country. At the inaugural meeting in February 1925, Peel presented his report and hoped that all had attended in ‘a conciliatory spirit, determined, if possible, by a sporting spirit of give and take to come to conclusions which will remove the present anomaly of different rules for different competitions’. Despite different rules being key to the opening statement of his report, Peel identified the main objects of an English Darts Association as protecting the game from the attacks of ‘fanatics’ (another word for the ‘others’ referred to earlier – fanatics who, as far as can be determined, had not up to that point in time launched any attack on darts) and to control the game in such a manner as to make it ‘free from the taint of gambling, and a pure, clean, and skilful sport worthy to rank with any other’.23 At the meeting Peel reminded delegates of two recent cases where certain police reports had been made about the game, ‘obviously of a prejudicial nature’. However, he added that, in the main, nothing detrimental had been reported to the various Brewster sessions. On the contrary, Peel commented that the general authoritative opinion was that

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the conduct of licensed premises had vastly improved over recent years; ‘This,’ he said, ‘in a year when the game [of darts] has grown out of all knowledge is eminently satisfactory,’24 Thus the main thrust – the primary reason – for setting up an ‘English Darts Association’ was not to standardise the game but to take control of it – even though darts was not out of control or yet in the hands of ‘others’ – something which Peel felt could be achieved only through standardisation. The game of darts was providing the working class with ‘healthy and capital sport’ which allowed the working man to pass away ‘a pleasant hour or so’ in the pub. It had also managed to ‘raise the tone’ in pub and club rooms where it was played.25 At first there appears to be a paradox here, implying that darts could not possibly be a ‘healthy’ sport if it took place in a smoky pub, but drinking and smoking were complementary aspects of working-class pub culture during the inter-war years. In 1949, using information collected during Mass Observation’s study of ‘Worktown’ (Bolton) in 1937 and from subsequent interviews and questionnaires undertaken by Mass Observation during the Second World War, the group revealed that smokers were more likely than non-smokers to be pubgoers and that smokers spent more money on drink than non-smokers.26 Indeed, the ‘Worktown’ study showed that ‘at almost any moment nearly half the people in a pub may be smoking, many just ‘in order to be sociable’.27 Little was then known then of the dangers inherent in the consumption of tobacco. According to Matthew Hilton, the report of the Royal College of Physicians published on 7 March 1962 is ‘universally recognised as a landmark in the history of the public understanding of the medical dangers of smoking’.28 During the inter-war period smoking was regarded as part of the general atmosphere of the pub in which the healthy sport of darts could be played. Importantly, in Peel’s view, darts promoted goodwill and not drunkenness.29 If the working man is preoccupied with playing darts he is less likely to engage in other less salubrious pursuits such as drinking himself into oblivion. So in fact the concern from Peel, the licensees and the brewers was not so much, or not just, the welfare and progress of the game of darts, but to ensure that as many customers as possible visited the pub. Such actions have strong overtones of rational recreation, fair play and social control, particularly the hope of raising the tone of darts and promoting goodwill. The meeting agreed to form an English Darts Association and to elect officers and an executive council (later executive committee) to conduct all business until a general meeting could be arranged to discuss detail. W Mycroft was elected president and Peel was appointed honorary secretary.

The organisation of darts

5 The ‘clock’ dartboard, selected as standard by the National Darts Association in 1925

E. Travis, licensee of the Hop Pole, Gambia Street, London, SE 1, was elected honorary treasurer.30 Described by Peel as ‘one of the quiet type of sportsmen who work hard and talk little’, during the 1924/25 season Travis had been one of the key organisers in launching the Barclay Perkins league.31 The remainder of the inaugural executive council were H. R. Whitta (representing the Putney and Wandsworth Darts League), J. C. Marshall (Grays and District Darts League), H. Davis (St Luke’s Darts League), G. Fry (Hounslow Hospital Cup), T. Roche (Isleworth Brewery), G. Murray (Southwark league), J. Hearne (Barclay Perkins & Co.), E. M. Fryd (Staines and District Darts League) and D. Tillcock (St Pancras Darts League).32 Several delegates to that inaugural meeting spoke in favour of the ‘clock dartboard (Figure 5). This dartboard was only one of a number of different dartboards played on in London and the south-east which included the ‘clock, which had double and treble rings, a bull’s-eye and an outer bull, the ‘Kent’ (doubles, no treble ring; bull’s-eye but no outer bull) and the ‘fives’ board (twelve segments, 5, 10, 15, 20 (× 3) plus bull’s-eye and outer bull). Others present believed that such technical matters should be discussed at a later date, but, despite this, the uniform dartboard debate was allowed to take place and agreement was reached to adopt the ‘clock type; the actual dimensions of the dartboard would be subject to further discussion by the executive committee. However, some strong opinions were expressed against adopting a dartboard by any particular maker.33 The emergent Association wanted to keep its options open in this respect and not to be seen to be favouring any particular supplier at that early stage.34

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Within a week of the inaugural meeting the original name of the organisation – the English Darts Association – was changed to the Darts Control Association, which better reflected its primary purpose. However, for an undisclosed reason – but probably because ‘Control’ was too emotive a word, especially in relation to the control legislation introduced in respect of the government control of breweries – the executive committee immediately changed it again, unanimously agreeing and adopting the title National Darts Association to more properly embrace the overall intention of the Association, to make darts a national pastime.35 Social control and nationalism The executive committee then agreed the seven key objectives of the Association, which reveal much about the primary motives for setting up the organisation, motives which extend beyond the natural bonding of association and simply promoting the game of darts for profit. These aims included protecting the game from those ‘others’ previously mentioned, the suppression of gambling in darts, sanctioning and controlling competitions, sponsoring cups and prizes, the examination of dartboards for approval by the NDA for use in its competitions, to promote the social side of the game and to establish county and district associations.36 Thus, by establishing a set of objectives for the game of darts, the NDA was becoming an agent of change for the brewing and licensed trade, devising new values and reinforcing good practice, especially in terms of anti-gambling and sportsmanship.37 Surprisingly, the establishment of the NDA was not reported in any other brewery or licensed victuallers’ newspapers or journals or in the national press. Although there are no specific references in the reports in the Morning Advertiser of the meetings of the formative NDA to indicate that there was any intention of directly controlling a sub-group of the working class – primarily the male working-class pub goer – the inclusion of words such as ‘protect’, ‘suppress’, ‘sanction’ and ‘control’ in the aims of the Association reveal the subtext and the underlying ideology of the NDA executive. John Simons has argued that cricket has become ‘almost synonymous with all that is English and that, of the major sports, only cricket has taken on board the cultural weight which has ‘projected it out of the realm of the competitive and professional and into that of the aesthetic and … political’.38 Comparatively, darts could be described as almost synonymous with all that is English but, more accurately, all that is synonymous with

The organisation of darts

the English working class generally and specifically the working-class pubgoer. It was within the design of the NDA to create an English national game rather than necessarily a British game (although ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ were often used interchangeably, at least by the English, in this period). The explanation for the focus on England is straightforward; darts in the 1920s was played almost exclusively in England and then primarily in London and the south-east. As late as 1936 Rupert Croft-Cooke in his personal survey of the incidence of the game stated that darts was ‘wholly … English … Not British merely – for there are practically no dartboards in Ireland, few, though an increasing number in Wales, and none whatever … in Scotland’ and was ‘played little in the North of England’.39 Although Croft-Cooke’s assessment of the geographical spread of the game in the mid-1950s was fairly accurate, further progress was to be made in terms of the rest of England, Wales and Scotland before the end of the decade thanks to the on-going progressive strategies of the NDA. Philip Dodd has argued that there is evidence to suggest that Englishness along with national culture was reconstituted in order to ‘incorporate and neuter various social groups’, including the working class, and that it was unhelpful to view any reconstruction as a simple matter of the imposition of an identity by the dominant on the subordinate.40 This, Dodd stated, was because the establishment of hegemony ‘involves negotiation and the “active consent” on the part of the subordinated’, for our purposes that element of the working class who played and organised darts in pubs.41 The NDA was able to achieve this control through the members of the Association who already organised the game at local level such as key licensees and the league chairmen and secretaries. Those individuals chaired and administered local league meetings and thus were able to negotiate and gain the consent of the members to the aims and rules of the Association, who in turn imposed them on the intended target social group, the ordinary pubgoing darts players. Through that process of consultation and constructive feedback the league representatives were able to obtain the active – yet passive – consent of working-class darts players not only to the imposition of rules but also, unknowingly, to be instigators in changing the very nature of darts itself, assisting with the transformation of a former casual pub game to a properly organised and standardised pastime which would eventually (six decades on) achieve the status of national (in the wider British sense) sport. Although its target membership was ostensibly the male working-class pubgoer, the fact that the executive wanted to ‘promote the social side of

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the game’ indicates that, ideally, there should be no restriction as to the social status of individual participants; that is, it should include people beyond the confines of the public house.42 At an economic level this reinvention of the game of darts was designed not only to retain current levels of pub attendance but also to offer darts as a leisure option within the pub to distract from the mere business of drinking whilst, at the same time, attracting more people in to play darts.43 Although Eric Hobsbawm has shown that sport, as a mass spectacle between the wars, was ‘transformed into an unending succession of gladiatorial contests between persons and teams symbolizing state-nations which is part of global life today’, in terms of darts nationalism was simply not an issue, for three reasons.44 First, despite the number of participants, no appropriate structure was either planned or in place; second, the form of darts, although attracting spectators in greater numbers, was still confined primarily to the inside of the public house; and, third, the NDA had no plans at the time to work towards the creation of a national team but merely to establish darts as a respectable game and to set up county and district associations. The associations designed not to further any nationalistic cause but merely ‘to lighten the work of headquarters’.45 There is no evidence of the NDA wishing to challenge any other country. Indeed, the first reference found thus far concerning a possible international challenge was that of darts player Jim Pike, who, looking back at the darts of the 1930s, stated that ‘Belgium, France, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, even Australia and New Zealand now have experts in abundance’ and that a Britain v. America match at Madison Square Gardens had been mooted.46 No evidence has so far been uncovered to confirm that the Britain v. America match ever took place. Despite having ‘experts in abundance’, other countries had yet to reach the same point of organisational development of darts as England had under the NDA. The NDA’s first objective, to further the Association’s interests by ‘legitimate means’, is a fundamental principle of association, linked directly to the application of agreed rules. In the case of the emergent NDA, the Association was devising new values during a period of rapid change and challenge in the context of the public house.47 There is no more efficient method of maintaining control of proposed changes than hard-and-fast rules with which every person affiliated to the Association must comply. The reign of the English public house as the major source of recreation for the masses was rapidly fading, being consistently threatened and reduced in importance by more familial forms of mass leisure. In response to this

The organisation of darts

change and complexity, one of the major issues the licensed trade addressed was to improve recreational facilities in public houses. In the 1920s darts was already manifesting itself as a key element of this provision in London and the south-east. It had been the landlords and their customers who had organised themselves into loosely constituted and friendly darts clubs and leagues, and now they were demanding some form of regulation, but not necessarily stipulated or perceived by them as ‘national’. It was the wider implications of regulation that led the executive of the NDA down the national route rather than merely to create an association of localised central control for the game in London and the provinces. Therefore it is significant that, when the impetus to establish a governing body for the game reached its height in 1924–25, rather than create a darts association specific to London and the south-east or seek to set up a sequence of regional associations from which a national association could naturally grow, those leading the initiative decided on a national association which would, after due consultation with its members, formulate rules to be issued to all members, those rules then being disseminated across the rest of the country without any consultation whatever with darts organisers anywhere else. As will be shown, this action was to pose a significant threat to the development of darts during the inter-war years. Another potential threat to darts and to the progress of completing the task of standardisation came from the law. Although a number of biased police forces and temperance licensing benches were known to exist, they did not interfere with the process of regularisation or the work of the NDA. There is no evidence from legal cases to suggest that there was any overarching, nationwide ‘delinquency of darts’ or for that matter of any other pub game. By taking on the self-policing role the NDA would demonstrate to the forces of law and order that their intervention was not required, that the licensed trade could take on the burden of responsibility and, quite literally, put its own houses in order. The NDA’s approach to the threat posed by gambling The second objective of the NDA related to the suppression of gambling. The ‘devilish vice of gambling’ was one of the two key factors which led to many well known and some obscure sports, including horse racing, football, cricket, golf ice hockey and billiards, being standardised by the late nineteenth century. As far as gambling was concerned, if huge sums of money were at stake in sporting competition, as indeed there were in horse racing, for example,

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then it was essential for everyone to understand exactly what regulations were accepted. Sport followed the pattern and influence of rationalisation as being the natural tendency of aspects of life to become even more concrete, formed and defined.48 As a result sport grew increasingly discrete in structure and technical in performance. Wagering in some form or another has been ‘endemic among the lower orders since time immemorial’.49 Bookies would hang around in the street taking bets or, more discreetly, running their trade from public houses. Wagering was certainly common among lower-class pub habitués in the 1920s, whether it was an intellectual exercise in the study of the form of horses, as Mark Clapson suggests, ‘to predict its likeliness of winning and to back up their considered opinion with a small investment’ or, as is suggested in this chapter, a small side stake on a game of cards or darts.50 The immediate action of the NDA in seeking to ‘suppress all forms of gambling’ demonstrates not only that the Association was aware of the regulations already extant in sports and other mass leisure activities but also that it recognised the dangers and consequences of uncontrolled illicit gambling, which was a key element of the life of many public houses. The inclusion of references to gambling amounted to recognition by the NDA that such a problem still existed in public houses and although it was moderate – usually the playing of a game of darts for half a pint of beer – such activities were contrary to the Licensing Acts – and that there were still a good number of police forces and Brewster sessions that were anti the brewing trade. As Mark Clapson has demonstrated by oral evidence and examination of the Mass Observation archive, ‘sidestake wagering on darts’ and other pub games was, at this time, a significant social activity in public houses and working men’s clubs, such establishments running the risk of being prosecuted as common gaming houses.51 In reinventing darts the NDA was aware of the need to transform the bar parlour game into a respectable and closely regulated leisure form. This corresponds with the overall objective of the brewers of improving the image of the public house.52 The third objective established the NDA as the ultimate arbiter in any disputes concerning the rules, an important element if the Association was to maintain control of the affiliated leagues and individual members. For example, following discussions between the NDA and brewery representatives on 11 February 1927 concerning the establishment of the Islington section of the Whitbread Darts League (North East Division), and after officials had been appointed to the new league, an appeal board was elected. It consisted of J. A. Peel (honorary secretary of the NDA), R.

The organisation of darts

B. Tillcock (vice-chairman of the NDA) and E. J. Scott representing the Whitbread brewery.53 This small board would deal with any disputes relating to or breaches of the approved NDA rules and its decision would be final, the constitution of the appeal board being weighted in favour of the NDA. Competitions, tournaments and the News of the World By April 1926 the NDA had formulated and published rules for individual and team play and represented 15,000 players, all drawn from London and the south-east.54 The Association had also by that time established no fewer than three major competitions: the Licensees’ Charity Cup, for individual licensees, the NDA Challenge Cup (between affiliated pub teams), and the NDA Individual Championship. 55 Through the enthusiasm and flair of the NDA, and its close connections with the licensed trade and the brewers, the game of darts spread very quickly, so that by the end of the 1920s it was the exception in the capital to find a brewery without a darts league.56 The fourth objective was the provision of cups. Nowhere in the source material relating to the NDA is there any indication of prize money being offered in competition, and this was generally reflected throughout sports during the inter-war years. The glory for the winner(s) lay in lifting the trophy. Presenting a trophy very much fell into the NDAs remit of being anti-gambling and thus ensured that, without any financial incentive, there would be no cheating and that the men (and to a lesser extent women) were competing for no personal gain other than the knowledge that, as champion(s), they were the best – the trophy being the general physical representation and manifestation of victory. This objective, when combined with the third objective of sanctioning and controlling competitions, was to prove the key to the eventual national acceptance of the NDA rules. In 1927 the NDA entered into discussions with the News of the World to organise an individual darts competition for that newspaper. The News of the World was a most powerful medium, having a readership of millions. In 1930–31 the newspaper commanded 24.32 per cent of the total readership held by Sunday newspapers.57 Then, as today, those who controlled the newspaper were always looking out for something new. By 1927 the News of the World had already been running many sportrelated competitions, including quoits and golf, and darts took its place in the paper’s columns alongside other working-class sports, including dog racing, football and pigeon racing.58

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Whether the NDA approached the News of the World or vice versa is not clear, but confirmation of the News of the World sponsoring an individual darts championship first appeared in the Morning Advertiser in August 1927 and in the News of the World in September that year.59 The tournament was originally set up to ‘endeavour to solve the problem’ of who was ‘the best darts player in the metropolitan police area’; the News of the World agreeing to provide a 25–guinea perpetual challenge cup together with a replica each year to become the permanent property of the winner whilst runners up would receive other prizes.60 Once again, as with the inaugural meeting of the NDA, other possible interested parties were omitted from this competition but probably in this instance only because the News of the World wanted to test the water in terms of reaction to their London-based competition before considering launching the event further across the country, which they eventually began to do in the 1935–36 season.61 A committee to run the competition was appointed in September 1927 and comprised four senior members of the NDA executive, E. H. Leggatt (president) (also managing director of the Nodor dartboard company), R.

6 Members of the National Darts Association at a promotional event, 1927

The organisation of darts

B. Tillcock (chairman), A. W. Pick (vice-chairman) and E. Travis (hon. secretary), together with E. Linley, James Ling, T. G. Gentry and Steve Young, presumably – although not stated – representing the News of the World.62 A few days later four licensees, E. Higgs, G. Gill, Jnr, J. D’Arcy and Len Tucker, were co-opted on to the committee.63 Edward Leggatt’s presence on the executive should be noted here as representing the first member of the emerging darts industry to secure senior office on the NDA, a position which he surely utilised to promote Nodor dartboards. It was agreed that the NDA would organise the competition and that, because of the diversity of dartboards even within the metropolitan area, the games in the preliminary rounds would be played according to ‘house rules’ but that the final round would be played strictly in accordance with NDA rules.64 The committee then established a number of divisions and appointed voluntary unpaid divisional honorary secretaries to co-ordinate arrangements at local level.65 For the first News of the World competition 1,010 entries were received, and numerous preliminary matches were played between December 1927 and the end of January 1928.66 On 2 May 1928 the inaugural News of the World Individual Darts Championship finals were held at the Holborn Hall, Gray’s Inn Road, London, where the winner was Sammy Stone, a forty-nine-year-old slater, a veteran of the Boer War and father of nine, representing the New South West Ham Working Men’s Club. The runner-up was B. Haigh (Victoria inn, Kensington).67 The importance of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship in popularising darts during the inter-war years cannot be overstated. Negotiated links between the newspaper and the NDA acted as a catalyst to organising this first London-based national newspapersponsored individual darts contest – one which would, by the 1970s, expand into an international darts tournament.68 However, from that mere 1,010 entrants from the metropolitan area of London in 1928 the competition developed nationally, so that by the 1938/39 season there were six areas which spanned England and Wales, namely London and the south, Wales, Lancashire and Cheshire, Yorkshire, the north of England and the Midland counties, each area having an individual secretary and a supporting group of volunteer organisers.69 In the late 1930s the success of the News of the World generated interest in darts from other national Sunday newspapers, which would sponsor major darts competitions. In October 1938 The People launched a national team competition organised by the NDA, and that same month entries for the Sunday Pictorial Pairs Championship of England, Wales and Scotland

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closed.70 Not surprisingly, broadsheets such as The Times did not pick up on the growth of interest in darts, in terms of competitions, as it would have promoted alternative newspapers.71 Importantly, the Sunday Pictorial Pairs competition allowed mixed teams, thus allowing women to participate. Women’s participation in darts competitions was an issue first raised within the NDA as early as 1926. Many women seem to have become enthusiastic for sport in general, and football in particular, during the Great War when they were serving as munitions workers and in other trades.72 However, it is ironic that, whilst the Football Association managed to more or less eradicate women’s football by banning women’s teams from utilising the grounds of its affiliated clubs in 1921, only five years later the direct involvement of women in darts, a game usually perceived, like football, as essentially masculine game, was being discussed by the NDA.73 Darts, masculinity and opportunities for women In 1925 the NDA formed a committee chaired by R. B. Tillcock to organise and run the NDA Licensees’ Charity Cup, its primary purpose to raise funds to support licensed victualler charities and charitable institutions. When the draw for the first round was made in January 1926 it consisted of eight sections and 124 – all male – competitors.74 All matches were played to standard NDA rules, and at each match licensees were encouraged to take a collection for Charity Cup funds.75 Initially there was no provision made for women to participate in NDA competitions. This was not surprising, given that separate leisure provision for men and women was not unusual during the inter-war period, although couples might go to the cinema together. As Claire Langhamer discovered, even if a couple visited a public house together, the parlour or ‘best room’ would be presented as ‘a room in which women could drink with or without their husbands’, the public bar, tap room or vault being a strictly men-only domain.76 Similarly, Valerie Hey when commenting on the pub as ‘a male domain’ argued that wives were invited at the weekends to the lounge, the so-called ‘best room’, and effectively confined there whilst the men drank in an alternative bar, usually the vault or public bar.77 But no exceptional degree of physical strength is required in playing darts that might have prevented women, had they desired (and there are few indications that they did in fact desire), from participating in the game, so why were they apparently excluded?

The organisation of darts

The word ‘apparently’ is important here because, in the same way as John Tosh has argued the case of war in general, the public house has tended to be seen as ‘uncompromisingly masculine’.78 The pub, as Barbara Rogers argued, was important in the context of men-only meeting places ‘because it is a public place, however restricted by custom and practice’.79 As Mass Observation showed, darts, like other pub games, was not played in ‘the home-from-home part of the pub’, the lounge bar, snug or best room, but in the tap room or vault, ‘usually depending on which of these rooms is most patronised by the regulars’, both areas traditionally designated as rooms exclusive to men.80 Thus darts developed an essentially male image, built around the men-only camaraderie of the public bar, with women having few, if any, opportunities to engage in similar pub activities. Therefore the key issue here is a spatial one: the public bar (vault or tap room) for the men and the parlour for the women, and the general uncompromising masculinity of the pub defined the differing spheres of activity of men and women within the public house and thus prevented most – but not all – women from playing the game. In the present research no specific reference has been found of women commenting on their apparent lack of involvement in games in pubs, the generalisation being that the public bar or in fact the pub in general was ‘a male domain’.81 If the public bar or vault and the activities within held little or no interest for women then it naturally follows that their interest in pub games would be minimal. In cricket Jack Williams has acknowledged the supporting role played by women in relation to the game during the 1920s and 1930s whilst at the same time presenting comparative evidence of ‘blokeism’ – the implication that sport ‘provides opportunities for men to express what they take to be male identities and male bonding, usually exclusively in male company’, although this was not as excessive in cricket as it was in other sports.82 Darts-playing in English public houses in the late 1920s and 1930s was clearly the zenith of excessive ‘blokeism’. The NDA was certainly slow to consider women players in terms of competitions. However, W. My croft, the president of the NDA, did acknowledge their contribution in darts, women playing an important supporting role, particularly in the organisation of the Licensees’ Charity Cup. In the summer of 1926 Mycroft hinted at possible flexibility to come when he encouraged women to play – outside the competition – by arranging a number of trial matches between him and licensees’ wives.83 In the autumn of 1926, possibly as a result of My croft s experiences against women dart players in the preceding months, the NDA recognised the participation of

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women in the Licensees’ Charity Cup. However, it was not an ‘open’ competition, the executive deciding that ‘ladies can compete but must be a licensee in her own right or be the wife of a gentleman who is eligible to play according to the rules’.84 In addition women were allowed to enter the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, and in April 1937 Mrs Morgan, representing the Old House at Home, Colden Common, Hampshire, became the first woman to win a News of the World area title and qualify to go forward to the grand finals in London.85 Mrs Morgan was the wife of the licensee of the Old House at Home.86 The agreement by the NDA to allow women to enter strictly according to the rules was hardly the ‘bridgehead into the “masculine republic”’ that Collins and Vamplew identified after the Second World War as increasing numbers of women’s leagues appeared, but it was a significant development towards the acceptance of women as darts players.87 Licensees’ wives would naturally have access to the public bars and tap rooms and time to practise during and outside opening hours. This small step began to undermine the status of the public bar as an exclusively male domain.88 A question of social control and freedom of choice Of the remaining objectives of the NDA, the fifth, that the NDA should not identify one particular dartboard manufacturer as being better than any other, is discussed in Chapter 6. The sixth objective was that the Association was seeking to control the rules and regulate the game of darts whilst maintaining a degree of social control, not simply in terms of darts for all classes, but also in the context of the appropriateness of venues and publicans. Whilst it may appear that the NDA was attempting to impose some form of social control upon the adherents of darts, who were in the main working-class males, it was more that any level of perceived control gained by the Association – the rigid rules of the Association imposing conditions of play on a working-class subculture – was via ‘webs of affiliation and friendship’, a pattern similar to that observed by Richard Holt among the adherents of Rugby Union.89 This was of vital importance, as the licensed trade needed to retain and control its existing customers, to further encourage and promote and extend participation in the game of darts to raise consumer interest, widen its customer base and improve customer attendance levels, which would all lead ultimately to an improvement and increase in the profits of the capitalist brewers. The emphasis on ‘aiming at a standard of sportsmanship worthy of its founders’ had originally been raised by Peel as aiming for darts to become

The organisation of darts

‘a pure, clean and skilful sport worthy to rank with any other’ and brings to mind the notion of ‘playing the game’ in established sports such as cricket, which was linked with the preservation of gentlemanly standards, a notion which the elite of the NDA clearly wished to instil into darts.90 Even with the introduction of formal regulation and control couched within official rules, the majority of working-class dart players still had a choice. Indeed, one of the ‘problems’ with leisure at this time was the complexity of choice, not only for the individual but for the masses, such was the range of affordable leisure options available and the nature of developing consumer society.91 Darts players not only had the choice of playing darts in an organised pub or club league or to participate outside that arrangement by playing friendly games in the bar but they also had the choice of not playing darts at all, being able to choose from a number of altogether different leisure options which, during the inter-war period, included cinema, dancing, speedway, greyhound racing and staying at home with the family. Striving for national status and the resistance to change The seventh objective, to establish district and county associations, represented one of the keys to nationalising the game and suggests comparisons between the organisation of cricket, already established at county level, and the aspirations of the NDA.92 Although reference is made to lightening the work of headquarters, darts could not achieve national status without there being an effectively organised matrix of county and district associations. The key to national status for the game of darts lay in the amalgamation of the organisational and regulatory skills of the NDA. However, despite the establishment of the first county association, in Worcestershire, in late 1938 and the suggestion in April 1939 that a Surrey ‘select’ county team might be formed, there is no evidence to suggest that this final aim of the NDA was achieved.93 The reason why the NDA was unable to achieve this aim was the way in which areas other than London and the south-east had reacted to the imposition of rules from the capital. Some of these areas were inspired by the general interest in and momentum for darts created by the actions of the NDA and decided to set up independent district leagues in the 1930s, working with the existing local rules and equipment. These included the Simonds brewery league in Berkshire in 1934.94 In the south-east, once the standard dartboard and rules had been agreed by the NDA for all competitions under its auspices and control,

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those leagues and clubs affiliated to the NDA accepted the conditions more or less without question. No serious dissension is recorded in this area – exponents of the ‘Club’ and ‘fives’ boards were allowed to affiliate to the NDA provided they adhered strictly to the NDA rules in NDA cup competitions – and as the popularity of darts spread and the NDA rules became established they were adopted by leagues which had formerly played on other ‘regional’ boards. In September 1937, following a record number of entries in the Simonds brewery league, the organisers climbed down and announced that An important change this year will be that all games will be played on the NDA board, instead of the Reading type.’95 However, major problems persisted as the NDA continued to try and impose its rules on those in the north. The NDA could never achieve the national status it sought unless it overcame these ‘powerful factors’.96 The active consent of participants to the imposition of rules and the establishment of the hegemony of the NDA were gained with relative ease in London and the south-east, but those in the north were less easily convinced. The north–south rivalries that Tony Mason revealed in his research into Association football – ‘or, more accurately, London and the provinces’ – can also be found in darts. In football Mason found that it was because of the efforts of those who had worked out the body of rules and set up the Football Association that the rules quickly came to be widely accepted, despite dissent from some areas.97 The rules of football were determined in London, as were those of darts, but although London was often the most frequent direct source of influence it was not always, as Morris argues, ‘the source of innovation’.98 Whilst the NDA may have believed it was being innovative, those outside the capital, in other centres of industry and in rural areas perceived the NDAs actions as interfering, intrusive and unnecessary. Thus during the first five years of its existence – up to 1930 – the NDA made little headway in terms of progress beyond London and the south-east. There was certainly no smooth transition to the clock board, especially in Burton-upon-Trent, Manchester and parts of Yorkshire, where resistance exists even today.99 Even as late in the period as 1938 there is evidence that the success of the NDA in terms of acceptance of its rules across England was fragmentary. In some areas there were signs that standardisation was still an issue to be resolved. The NDA had managed to raise the profile of darts, and the game had never been so popular in England. Despite this, in some areas the original local or regional rules had been retained. Darts increased in popularity in those areas, darts not on the ‘standard’ clock board but on the original boards to be found in those areas. The methods of play too remained unchanged.

The organisation of darts

The South Shields and District Darts League had been founded in 1935 at the instigation of Walter Wilson, manager of the Wellington Hotel, Saville Street, South Shields.100 In March 1938 the league organisers proposed the formation of a darts association to enable ‘standardisation of rules throughout the north-east’ and bring together ‘hundreds of little districts who run their darts activities as a separate entity under different rules and regulations’.101 Later that same year, in the south, Peel, now writing for the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, praised the decision of a Kent league ‘to play only on the clock board in future’.102 Peel, it seemed, was still advocating universality of rules thirteen years after the establishment of the NDA. The overall success of the NDA in terms of the application and imposition of rules had not been particularly great, and the reason revealed in the lead article of the Darts and Sports Review published on 24 September 1938. In the article the editor criticised Peel and, without mentioning the NDA, wrote: the rules which Mr Peel insists should be universal were formulated primarily in a rather arbitrary manner. Were the many parts of the country where dart leagues have been in regular and successful operation for over twenty years asked for their opinion? Were really representative meetings convened so that players from all over the country could state their views?103

As was noted earlier in this chapter, at the inaugural meeting of the NDA executive in 1925, without exception, all attendees were based in London or the Home Counties. Over a decade later the view of the editor of the Darts and Sports Review in September 1938 was that the resistance of those ‘northern friends’ to the imposition of rules was born out of being summarily told that ‘they must scrap the rules which have served them for so long and adopt those of the despised southern’ [sic].104 Resistance to the implementation of formal rules was evident in the countryside too in the 1930s. Any suggested or implied imposition of any formal rules from any source whatsoever was greeted with disdain, so much so that no attempt was made to convert individual country inns to the rigours and restrictions of standardisation during the 1920s, and indeed many country inns retained their house rules throughout the inter-war years. In the mid to late 1930s, when the popularity of darts was at its height across England, T. H. White and Rupert Croft-Cooke – both authors and lovers of the countryside and of traditional darts – viewed rules imposed by London as an affront to rural life and rural tradition. In a thinly veiled reference to the NDA White wrote of ‘cockneys [who] issue an authoritative booklet of their own rules to any degenerate publican who

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chooses to observe them’. White preferred, in his local pub, to ‘observe our own rules’.105 Croft-Cooke included a set of rules in his book on darts published in 1936 but did so under protest and then only in order to present ‘some common canon of play’ for those who might be interested.106 For his own part Croft-Cooke ignored the NDA and stated that he was ‘as glad as anyone that the game is free from officialdom and dogma’. He was a man who believed in the ‘happy-go-lucky system’ by which the rules of the house were followed.107 A solution to the initial resistance of some areas to embracing darts had been proposed from within the dart industry. E. H. Leggatt of the Nodor company had approached the NDA early in March 1925 and suggested that manufacturers of dartboards should be represented on the executive committee of the NDA, as it would benefit both parties, but discussions on the proposal had been shelved. However, Leggatt pressed his case. He argued that it was the dartboard manufacturers’ business to travel throughout the country, mixing with clubs and, if the makers were directly represented on the NDA, they could act as agents of the Association and undertake ‘valuable propaganda work. Leggatt suggested that they would also bring news of the game from quarters, ‘whence it is now difficult to obtain’.108 This principle was then accepted by the executive and aided the further progress of the gradual expansion of the acceptance of standardisation of darts across England. Displacement of other pub games There were also early signs that, in the south at least, organised darts was becoming so popular as to displace other established pub games. As early as 1926 J. Barbiellin, licensee of the Fox public house, Holloway, London, withdrew his skittles team from the league because his ‘darts family’ had become so strong.109 The indoor version of the game of quoits began to fall into sharp decline in the counties of Kent, Suffolk and Essex so that pub-based and local quoits leagues began to disappear and were succeeded by darts.110 In the late 1930s Mass Observation discovered that quoits was ‘dying out’ in Bolton and that the quoits boards were being replaced by darts, which ‘went out in Worktown before the war [but] is now coming back rapidly’. The mass observers also noted that the small dartboard utilised before the Great War was ‘being replaced by the larger type originally used in the south’. The observers then outlined the game of 301, most commonly played ‘in most parts of the country’ on the southern board, but added that that method of play was ‘rarely used’ in Bolton pubs, the

The organisation of darts

preference being for the established game of ‘round the board’.111 Here then was acceptance of the bigger NDA standard clock dartboard but a stark refusal of the new method of play. A challenge to the NDA Unlike many associations, the NDA rarely adjusted or changed its aims or constitution or revised its approach to implementation of the rules, and this lack of flexibility led, in 1937, to the fragmentation of the executive of the Association. In August that year the establishment of an alternative darts organisation, the British Darts Council (BDC), was announced: a new organisation founded by two former members of the NDA executive. By adopting the word ‘British it recognised that darts was no longer purely English but played throughout Great Britain.112 Ironically, this ‘Britishness’ of darts had been achieved by the NDA raising the profile of the game nationally and did mean that darts had spread by the mid to late 1930s to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.113 It is also likely that the continuing friction between north and south was another motive for the foundation of the alternative governing body. The BDC was set up with the express purpose to study and look after ‘its [darts’] welfare from every point of view’. The Council’s brief was to publish rules, help with the formation of leagues and clubs, act as ‘impartial Court of Appeal’, promote competitions and supply darts news to the press.114 Although most of the aims of the BDC, such as promoting competitions and the welfare/social aspects, were not dissimilar to those of the NDA, the BDC made no mention of either protectionism – the NDAs first objective – or the NDA’s second objective, that of suppressing gambling. As these issues seem not to have been a priority for the BDC in the construction of its constitution, this reflects positively on the achievements of the NDA. In twelve years the NDA had become the national controlling body of darts and thus any fears from the ‘others’ previously discussed had been eradicated. The gambling aspect was no longer a problem and had paled into insignificance compared with the level of gambling on football pools, greyhound racing and horse racing. Henry Durant estimated that, in 1935, 4.5 million completed pools coupons were submitted to the pools promoters, a figure which represented 35–40 per cent of the total population in Britain, making it the most popular pastime ever, excluding the cinema.115 Compared with the estimated total darts-playing population

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of 300,000,116 the threat of the pools to the working man’s pocket was potentially much greater than that of darts. The new theme that the BDC was developing was one of participation: inviting clubs, leagues and individual darts players throughout the country to become affiliated and make the new organisation work. The BDC appears to have been a breakaway faction of NDA members who were presumably dissatisfied with lack of national progress. Indeed, the founder members of the BDC had previously held senior positions on the executive committee of the NDA. E. H. Leggatt, managing director of Nodor and former president of the NDA, was a member of the executive of the BDC and R. B. Tillcock, honorary secretary of the BDC, had been a former vice-chairman of the NDA and ex-chairman of the Licensees’ Charity Cup Committee.117 In 1995 Leggatt’s daughter, Doris Bugler, recalled that c. 1934–35 her father had broached the notion with a number of London publican friends that a ruling body should be formed ‘to recommend only one pattern [of dartboard] of certain specifications to allow for inter-district matches’, adding that they then ‘formed the National Darts Association with Dad as president’.118 Clearly Doris Bugler simply made an error of recollection and that, rather than establish the NDA, her father had founded the BDC. R. B. Tillcock was a London publican, being licensee of the Two Brewers, Gough Street, London WC 1, and known to Leggatt through their both having held office on the executive committee of the NDA. By the end of 1938 the BDC was already faltering. Both Leggatt and Tillcock attended an executive committee of the NDA where a proposal was put ‘that Mr E. H. Leggatt and Mr R. B. Tillcock be invited to return to the executive’. The proposal was ruled ‘out of order’, as it would have indicated that the NDA was in some way at fault and needed Leggatt and Tillcock back. The honorary secretary suggested that ‘the gentlemen concerned might be invited to discuss the possible amalgamation of the NDA and the British Darts Council’. This proposal was then put to the meeting and defeated.119 No further records of the BDC have been discovered to date, and so it is assumed that at that point the Council folded. However, it appears that by the beginning of 1939 the damage was done and that, without Leggatt and Tillcock, the NDA itself began to falter.

The organisation of darts

The demise and legacy of the NDA The NDA continued working up to the Second World War but faced increasing criticism about its overall effectiveness. Travelling around the country in late 1938 with the People darts competition, a concerned individual, penning his opinion under the pseudonym ‘Long Acre’, commented, ‘I am convinced that the game nationally is so badly organised that it is disorganised,’ adding, ‘It is perfectly useless for one section of the country, either north or south, to say that others should follow us.’ Ironically, ‘Long Acre’ wondered ‘why the breweries throughout the country have not thought fit to get together and see if some national rules cannot be framed to suit the requirements of all parties concerned …’ 120 The social history of the organisation of darts during the inter-war years had come full circle, as this was exactly what the NDA had set out to achieve in league with brewers’ representatives when they had met at the offices of the Morning Advertiser in February 1925. In September 1939 the war intervened and, although there is no record of any NDA activity between then and 1945, the Association was mentioned at the inaugural meeting of a new post-war darts governing body, the All England Darts Association (AEDA). At the meeting held at the Woodstock Hotel, Sutton, Surrey, on 20 May 1946 a man named Dell informed those present that he was ‘unofficially looking after the NDAs interests’ and stated that the NDA was ‘still alive but at the present moment dormant’. Despite this statement the resolution to form the new body, the AEDA, was carried.121 From that moment the NDA was a spent force. Ironically the AEDA lasted only a few years and it was not until the management of The People – the newspaper that had so criticised the NDA in 1938 – decided to work with darts organisers that in 1954 the National Darts Association of Great Britain (NDAGB) was established.122 The NDAGB was to become a more permanent structure and remained the controlling body of darts until it was overcome by the gathering momentum and force of the emergent British Darts Organisation (BDO) in the mid-1970s. The News of the World Individual Darts Championship emerged from the conflict and in the 1947/48 season introduced its ‘national’ individual darts competition – of England and Wales. The programme notes for the grand final in 1948 made no mention of the role played by the NDA in the Individual Championship for the twelve years preceding the war. On the contrary, the programme stated very clearly that:

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No national set of rules had ever been laid down and we were considering how to standardise the game by promoting a completely national competition when the war came along and blighted our hopes … In my opinion the game as we have [now] standardised it is the finest test of a player s mental as well as physical skill because you have to be a bit of a mathematician to play the game expertly on the trebles board.123

Thus the organisers of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship gave themselves full credit for the progress made in the sport during the inter-war years and the NDA was erased from that newspapers version of the history of the sport. Indeed, the above quote indicates that, for all intents and purposes, the News of the World was the controlling body of the sport. For nearly three decades after 1948 it would be the News of the World Individual Darts Championship that was the primary aim and focus for hundreds of thousands of dart players. It would be the News of the World that would be more successful in making inroads into making darts a truly national game, but this would not be fully achieved until the early 1970s. The competition was firmly based on the founding principles of the NDA and organised both nationally and locally by nominated paid staff and hundreds of unpaid volunteers and responsible to no national governing body of darts. Thus the success of the News of the World was due, in no small measure, to the work of the NDA officers and volunteers who created the model of darts rules, regulation, control and organisation on which the News of the World competition was based. Despite being in apparent disarray by the end of the 1930s, the NDA had succeeded in transforming darts from a pub game into a national pastime and making darts ‘the most popular pub sport of all in the interwar years’.124 Darts had become an integral part of what J. A. Mangan has called the ‘social cement’ of the working class during the inter-war years.125 Sanction and control had been achieved through the provision of competitions and the establishment of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, although by the end of the period there were signs that the competition was perceived more as a News of the World event than as one staged by the NDA. The Association’s success was not as far-reaching as the executive may have hoped. What is clear is that, thanks to the enterprise and organisational skills of the NDA, working with the brewers, the licensed trade, the darts industry and in particular the News of the World, darts had changed its identity and from its original English roots was by the end of the 1930s a British characteristic of national mass leisure. By 1939 darts was more popular in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Eire and

The organisation of darts

the Channel Islands than it had been at any time before 1918. Certainly none of the post-war success of darts could have been achieved without the effectiveness of the groundwork undertaken by the NDA and its associates. Without the NDA, darts would certainly have continued to be played during the inter-war years but participation would have been local, as so many regional pub games were then and remain today.126 Globalisation of the standardised dart game would not occur until the 1970s with the formation of the British Darts Organisation and the World Darts Federation (WDF). It would be the fundamental rules and principles of organisation and regulation determined in the 1920s by the NDA that formed the basis of those applied by the BDO and now accepted worldwide today as standard. The actions of the NDA and its partners during the inter-war years had effectively promoted darts to the extent of establishing the game as one of the most popular recreations in England. The rules and regulations set out by the NDA were utilised by succeeding darts organisations, both local and national, with few alterations until the present day – principles of play that remain at the heart of darts in the twenty-first century. The NDA established darts so firmly in the psyche of the masses that by 1939 it was embedded in the culture of the public house and the consciousness of the nation.127 Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10

11

Charles W. Garner, ‘Darts: from village inn to Mayfair’, Radio Times, 18 June 1937, p. 8. Morning Advertiser, 12 February 1925, p. 11. Peter Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England – Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control1830–1885 (London: Methuen & Co., 1987), pp. 4 and 133. R. J. Morris, ‘Clubs, societies and associations’ in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750–1950, III, Social Agencies and Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 395, 396 and 400. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England, p. 178. Morris, ‘Clubs, societies and associations’, pp. 406 and 415–16. Ibid., p. 418. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England, p. 143; Tony Collins, Rugby’s Great Split – Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football (London: Frank Cass, 1998), especially chapters 4 and 5. The News of the World Individual Darts Championships are dealt with in detail in Chapter 7. For a comprehensive list of games played in public houses at the turn of the twentieth century see Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office, Lawful Games on Licensed Premises (London: Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office, 1903). Morning Advertiser, 5 February to 29 March 1924. Earlier issues of the Morning Advertiser and other newspapers have been examined to substantiate this claim.

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12 Ibid., 2 September 1924, p. 11. 13 Ibid., 16 December 1924, p. 11. The Grays Social Darts League (Essex) published in 1924 one of the earliest darts league handbooks traced to date. The twenty-four-page booklet was compiled by J. C. Marshall, Secretary to the League. (See Morning Advertiser, 7 October 1924, p. 11.) The Grays League played on a ‘Corringham board’ (no trebles and no outer bull) which was exactly the same as the ‘Yorkshire board’ (see Chapter 5). (Eddie Haywood of Grays, Essex, telephone conversation with Patrick Chaplin, 19 April 1991, in response to letter in Turrock Gazette dated 19 April 1991.) The London Brewers Amateur Sports Association (LBASA) mentioned in Chapter 3 would most certainly have codified its rules for darts as part of its Indoor Section, although no copies of such rules have been discovered to date. 14 Morning Advertiser, 30 December 1924, p. 11. 15 Tony Mason, Association Football and English Society 1863–1915 (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981), p. 255. 16 Morning Advertiser, 9 February 1925, p. 11. 17 Ibid., 10 February 1925, p. 11. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 14 February 1925, p. 11. 20 As we shall see later, this restricted representation was to cause the NDA major problems in the future as it tried to impose the London treble dartboard and London rules on, for example, those darts players in Manchester who competed on a completely different design and size of dartboard and played according to different rules. 21 Morning Advertiser, 14 February 1925, p. 11. 22 Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 27 April 1923, p. 12. To date no formal record of that meeting has been found. 23 Morning Advertiser, 14 February 1925, p. 11. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 10 February, 1925 p. 11. 26 Mass Observation file report 3192, ‘Man and his Cigarette’, 1949, p. 120 (Mass Observation Archive, University of Brighton), cited in Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800–2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 117. 27 Mass Observation, The Pub and the People (Welwyn Garden City: Seven Dials Press, 1970; originally published London: Victor Gollancz, 1943), pp. 43 and 203. 28 Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture, p. 202. 29 This was a view later endorsed by the Royal Commission on Licensing (England and Wales) in its report dated 1929–31 (London: HMSO, 1932), Cmnd 3988, chapter VIII, para. 239, which stated, ‘we believe that games … have a definite value as distractions from the mere business of drinking’. However, brewers and licensees would not wish games to be too distracting from the ‘business of drinking’, as, of course, purveying drink was their trade. 30 Morning Advertiser, 14 February 1925, p. 11. 31 Ibid., 12 January 1926, p. 11. 32 Ibid., 14 February 1925, p. 11.

The organisation of darts

33 Ibid. 34 As we shall see later in this chapter, this agreement was borne out in the fifth aim of the NDA. However, as will also be shown, members of the emergent dartboard industry would soon become closely involved with the Association, and as the relationship developed one of their number became president of the NDA. 35 Morning Advertiser, 21 February 1925, p. 10. 36 Ibid. For full details of the aims of the NDA see Appendix A. 37 The rules of play for both individual and team competitions were drafted by the NDA during late 1925 or early 1926 and were published in the Morning Advertiser in January and April 1926. These are shown in Appendix B. 38 John Simons, ‘The “Englishness” of cricket’, Journal of Popular Culture, 29:4 (spring 1996), p. 41. 39 Rupert Croft-Cooke, Darts (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), pp. 1–2. 40 Philip Dodd, ‘Englishness and the national culture’ in Robert Colls and Philip Dodd (eds), Englishness – Politics and Culture 1880–1920 (London: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 2. 41 Ibid. 42 For a detailed analysis of the wider social role of the NDA and of the promotional activities of the NDA under the auspices of its honorary secretary, Charles Garner, see Chapter 7. 43 The overall effect of the NDAs strategies for widening interest in darts to people and classes beyond the public house are discussed in Chapter 7. 44 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 – Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 142. 45 Morning Advertiser, 21 February 1925, p. 10. 46 Jim Pike, ‘Darts’ in James Rivers (ed.), The Sports Book (London: Macdonald & Co., 1946), p. 97. 47 Morris, ‘Clubs, societies and associations’, p. 400. 48 Eric Midwinter, Fair Game – Myth and Reality in Sport (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1986), p. 36. 49 Ross McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class – Social Relations in Britain 1880–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 103. 50 Mark Clapson, A Bit of a Flutter – Popular Gambling and English Society c. 1823– 1961 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 3. 51 Ibid., p. 92. For an example of gaming in ‘ill-conducted houses’ in Scarborough where darts, dominoes and other games were played for beer see Brewers’ Journal, 15 February 1922, p. 58. 52 See Chapter 4. 53 The House of Whitbread, April 1927, pp. 49–50. The vice-chairman’s name is spelt ‘Tillock in the article. The correct spelling, Tillcock, is used in this book. 54 Morning Advertiser, 19 January 1926, p. 11, and 22 April 1926, p. 10. For the full set of rules see Appendix A. Surprisingly only objective No. 5 was gender-specific. 55 Morning Advertiser, 9 March 1926, p. 11. The Charity Cup is of particular importance and will be referred to later in the context of the provision of opportunities for women to play in NDA competitions.

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56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

The Anchor Magazine, house magazine of Barclay Perkins & Co., September 1930, p. 195. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures England 1918–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 504. News of the World, 28 August 1927, p. 4 (quoits), and 11 September 1927, p. 3 (golf); Richard Holt, Sport and the British – A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 193. Morning Advertiser, 26 August 1927, p. 11; News of the World, 4 September 1927, p. 3. News of the World, 4 September 1927, p. 3. These ‘other prizes’ were medals. John Morris (ed.), News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89 (London: Invincible Press, 1988), p. 28. News of the World, 18 September 1927, p. 3. Ibid., 25 September 1927, p. 16. Ibid. Ibid., 27 November 1927, p. 16. These secretaries were ordinary folk, club secretaries or players with organisational flair, willing to work for the love of the game; people who would be the key to the success of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship from the late 1920s until the cessation of the competition in 1997. Ibid., 4 December 1927, p. 3, 18 December 1927, p. 16, 4 March 1928, p. 16, and 15 April 1928, p. 16. Ibid., 6 May 1928, p. 15, and Stratford Express, 5 May 1928, p. 12. Full discussion of the development of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship during the inter-war years and its effect on darts playing in general throughout England can be found in Chapter 7. Morris, News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89, p. 25. For discussion of the News of the World as a newspaper and the way its character shaped darts see Chapter 7. Darts and Sports Review, 8 October 1938, p. 4, and 22 October 1938, p. 5. Specific reports from The Times, Daily Herald and other dailies and the nature of their reports are discussed in Chapter 7. Dave Russell, Football and the English (Preston: Carnegie Publishing, 1997), p. 96. Ibid., p. 97. Morning Advertiser, 9 March 1926, p. 11. Ibid., 9 February 1926, p. 12; for the full rules see Appendix B. Claire Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England 1920–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 154. Valerie Hey, Patriarchy and Pub Culture (London: Tavistock, 1986), p. 41. John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, 3rd edn (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 289. Barbara Rogers, Men Only – An Investigation into Men’s Organisations (London: Pandora Press, 1988), p. 3. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People – A Worktown Study (Welwyn Garden City: Seven Dials Press, 1970), pp. 94–5 and 301. Valerie Hey, Patriarchy and Pub Culture (London: Tavistock, 1986), p. 41.

The organisation of darts

82 83 84 85 86 87

88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

100 101 102 103 104 105

Jack Williams, Cricket and England – A Cultural and Social History of the Inter-war Years (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 92–3. Morning Advertiser, 3 June 1926, p. 11. Ibid., 14 September 1926, p. 10. A more detailed examination of women playing darts is undertaken in Chapter 7. Hampshire Observer, 10 April 1937, p. 9. Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers – A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (Oxford: Berg, 2002), p. 33. For discussion of the masculinity of public houses see Chapter 4. For the key arguments relating to the public bar as a ‘masculine republic’ see Chapter 4. Hey, Patriarchy and Pub Culture, pp. 13–22, which, although concentrating on the Victorian period, is still relevant to perceptions of the English pub’s public bar in the early twentieth century. The role of women and their degree of success in the News of the World competition is discussed in depth in Chapter 7. Richard Holt, ‘Sport and history – the state of the subject in Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, 7:2 (1996), p. 251. Derek Birley, Playing the Game – Sport and British Society 1910–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 28. Eric Larrabee and Rolf Meyersohn, Mass Leisure (Glencoe IL: Free Press, 1958), p. x. For the organisation of cricket at county level see Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket (London: Aurum Press, 1999), pp. 116–17, 143–5 and 348–51. Darts and Sports Review, 31 December 1938, pp. 6–7, and 8 April 1939, p. 3. The Hop Leaf Gazette, house magazine of H. & G. Simonds, October 1934, p. 4. Darts Weekly News, 18 September 1937, p. 22. Morning Advertiser, 9 March 1926, p. 11. Mason, Association Football, pp. 4 and 255. Morris, ‘Clubs, societies and associations’, p. 411. For further information concerning regional dartboards see Darts Player 97, pp. 44–5, and Arthur R Taylor, The Guinness Book of Traditional Pub Games (Enfield: Guinness Publishing, 1992), pp. 13–18, and for an example of a present-day Manchester Log End League see Darts World No. 357 (August 2002), p. 13. In 2004, following the overcoming of a crisis in dartboard supply which threatened the log-end leagues in Manchester, the Manchester Dart Board Federation (MDBF) was established to protect the future both of the leagues and log-end board manufacture. (Darts World, March 2004, p. 57.) Michael Gilmore, ‘The Birth of Darts in South Shields’, unpublished manuscript (2000), p. 1, copy in possession of the author. Darts Weekly News, 12 March 1938, p. 2. Ibid., 24 September 1938, p. 1. Ibid. Ibid. T. H. White, England have my Bones (London: Macdonald Futura, 1981, p. 182; originally published London: Collins, 1936). The third edition of the NDA Official Handbook had been published in 1934. (London: National Darts Association, 1934; British Library shelf ref. P. P. 2489.zba.)

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106 107

108 109 110 111 112 113

114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121

122 123

124 125 126

127

Croft-Cooke, Darts, pp. 86–92. Ibid., p. 86. Croft-Cooke quoted the rules of the ‘London Darts Club’ but later admitted that the club was ‘an imaginary body’ and that the rules were his own. (Rupert Croft-Cooke, The Wild Hills, London: W. H. Allen, 1966, p. 134.) Morning Advertiser, 31 March 1925, p. 11. Ibid., 28 July 1926, p. 11. Collins and Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers, p. 32. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, pp. 299–301. Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 25. Wales was granted affiliation to the NDA in 1936. (Darts Weekly News, 25 September 1937, p. 9.) For Scotland see Darts Weekly News, 15 January 1938, p. 10, and Alloa Advertiser, 9 July 1938, p. 7. For Northern Island (Belfast) see Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 21, and for Ulster see Darts Weekly News, 16 October 1937, p. 11. For Channel Islands see Darts Weekly News, 4 September 1937, p. 33. Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 25. Henry Durant, The Problem of Leisure (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1938), p. 181. Daily Herald, 6 February 1937, p. 8. The House of Whitbread, April 1927, pp. 49–50; Darts and Sports Review, 17 December 1938, p. 2. Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 12. Darts and Sports Review, 17 December 1938, p. 2. Ibid., 26 November 1938, p. 5. The Dart, 52:2 (1 June 1946), p. 7. It is likely that Dell was F. W. Dell, a former member of the NDA executive and representative of the Courage brewery whose place on the executive was forfeited in 1938 when the Courage League withdraw its affiliation to the NDA. (Darts and Sports Review, 17 December 1938, p. 2.) Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), p. 14. News of the World Individual Darts Championship of England and Wales – Match Programme of the Championship Games, Empire Pool, Wembley, Wednesday 9 June 1948, p. 2. Collins and Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers, p. 32. J. A. Mangan, ‘Series editor’s foreword’ in Williams, Cricket and England, p. xi. For examples of regionalised pub games see Aunt Sally’ (Oxfordshire) and ‘Twister’ (Norfolk) in Timothy Finn, Pub Games of England (London: Queen Anne Press, 1975), pp. 79–84 and 118. The more popular aspects of the NDAs promotion of the sport of darts in the variety theatre, in cabaret and on the wireless are dealt with in Chapter 7.

The darts industry from the late nineteenth century to 1939 [S]port is now a major industry, part of the corporate world, and as such its development ought to be traced in the same way as should that of any other important industry1

T

his chapter examines the origins and development of the English darts industry2 from the late nineteenth century to the end of the inter-war period. One of the problems with leisure histories can be that the development of the industry underpinning a particular sport or mass leisure pursuit is often missing. It would have been impossible for darts to develop in the way that it did during the inter-war period without an industry that manufactured darts and darts equipment. Thus overcoming this potentially major omission better informs both the economic and social history of the game.

The commercialisation of sport and leisure Between 1870 and the beginning of the Great War the growth of sports consumption led to existing manufacturing structures being adapted and modified to suit the new market. Technological change and new investment enabled the sports industry to grow substantially during this period.3 Long before circumstances were right for the commercialisation of darts, major sports, such as cricket and football, had been commercialised.4 As Jeffrey Hill has argued, by the turn of the twentieth century football had made the greatest progress, and few other sports could be found that combined the same degree of popular interest and commercial orientation that was found in ‘the people’s game’.5 The commercialisation of cricket had begun in the mid-nineteenth century when the manufacture of cricket goods had been created as a spin-off from existing wood and leather trades. Most early sports companies were family-based concerns, inherited across generations: for example, John Wisden, which had been located in London

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and Brighton since the 1850s.6 This tradition of family-based industry would also be found to be true of the emergence of the darts industry, but on a smaller scale. Stephen G. Jones argued that, although the preconditions for commercialised leisure – rising incomes, urban transport infrastructure, increased leisure time and improved technology – were all present by the end of the nineteenth century, it would not be until the inter-war period that commercialisation would ‘take off. Although during this period the operation of sports, including football and horse racing, was based on prevailing commercial practices, in the main an important element, capitalist enterprise, had yet to enter all leisure activities.7 However, Adrian Harvey has more recently demonstrated that, as early as the French wars, sport was being treated as a commercial business, with the major activity, namely horse-race meetings, ‘attracting an increased proportion of expenditure on sport’.8 Despite this, the commercialisation of darts did not, to use Jones’s words, ‘take off until the inter-war years. Moreover, of course, it was not only sport that was undergoing a commercial revolution. Producers, such as film makers and breweries, and service providers, including cinemas and public houses, responded to increasing consumer demand for leisure goods throughout the inter-war years – a period during which the purchasing power of the working class increased and the length of the working week fell, thereby releasing more time to indulge in leisure pursuits.9 Whilst the preconditions for the commercialisation of some sports were certainly in place before 1918, darts required the additional catalysts of popularisation through the public house and the investment of the brewers before sufficient demand encouraged a few entrepreneurs to establishment a separate industry in England which, even then, would be based mainly in the East End of London. The darts industry, such as it was prior to the 1920s, barely existed, being an overlapping combination of disparate suppliers including the toy and fancy goods industry, hobbyists, skilled immigrants and tradesmen such as wireworkers. The darts industry emerged partly from the manufacture of toys. In his seminal work The British Toy Business Kenneth D. Brown noted that ‘the majority of toy makers left at best only the barest traces of their existence’.10 The same is true of the darts industry. Archival evidence relating to the emergent darts industry in England from any source is sparse and fragmentary. No darts company records for the inter-war period have yet been traced. However, some data have been obtained from the toy and licensed trade press and from the National Fairground Archive. Despite

The darts industry

two dart and dartboard providers – Nodor (founded by Edward Leggatt) and Jack Hood – being based in the East End of London, no mention of these companies or the individuals who managed them has yet been found in the numerous published memoirs of East Enders or in histories of the East End. Both Edward Leggatt and Jack Hood were entrepreneurs running small family businesses, employing only a few staff, and therefore their companies would be unlikely to feature large in the memoirs of ordinary working-class East Enders. Nor has the East End darts industry previously been the subject of academic research. This is because scholars have tended to concentrate on those light industries that were more established in the area, which included furniture, footwear and textiles.11 Thus this chapter, as with much of this book as a whole, is dependent upon research material obtained from telephone conversations, correspondence and oral testimony. Vital to the construction of this industrial history during the inter-war period are unpublished manuscripts recovered through contact via the internet with families directly connected with Leggatt (Sheila Sussman, granddaughter of Edward Leggatt, living in New York) and Hood (Sally Hood, daughter of Jack Hood, a resident of New Zealand since the early 1950s). In addition, company histories and archived company catalogues from the early part of the twentieth century enable the origins of the manufacture of darts equipment to be recovered, especially in relation to provision via the toy and fancy goods industries. Darts as a toy During the Victorian period the increase in personal disposable incomesespecially for sections of the middle class and some skilled workers – increased demand for toys.12 Advertisements appeared in the national press, the earliest reference to a manufactured darts game traced to date being for a product called ‘Dartelle’ which was featured on the front page of The Times during the period 28 September 1864 to 10 January 1865 inclusive.13 Jaques & Son of Hatton Garden promoted this product as one of a number of ‘new winter games’. Dartelle, which retailed at 10s 6d, was described in 1896 as ‘the name given to Dart and Target at the toy shops’ which made ‘a pretty toy, and combines in itself both darts and a duly marked target, with the necessary instructions for play’.14 Those who could not afford the expensive manufactured product, but could afford the basic materials, could make darts for themselves. Advice on the construction of home-made darts was provided in the ‘Toy games and toy-making’ section of Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes:

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The dart is a straight piece of stick, about six inches long, with a pin stuck in at one end, and a paper guide in the other. The pin, which should be an ordinary large-sized pin, must have the head removed, and be pushed into the end of the stick, with the point outwards, and then secured in its place by a piece of twine or sealing-wax. The guide is made of a square piece of paper folded twice from corner to corner, and then inserted in cross-slits made at the opposite end of the stick.15

Instructions were also included for the construction of the target and the method of play: The target is best if made from a piece of softwood board, and should have painted on it three or four concentric circles of different colours, with a bull’s-eye in the centre. The darts should then be thrown at the target from some distance, to be agreed upon, and scores made according to the nearest of the darts to the bull’s-eye. Each circle should be differently numbered, the outer circle counting one, the next two, and so on, an extra allowance being made for the bull’s-eye.16

Here between Dartelle and dart-and-target is the differentiation of early toy darts between classes: the wealthier families able to enjoy the relative safety of playing Dartelle whilst the less fortunate faced a rather laborious and dangerous process of construction. Indeed, Iona and Peter Opie’s research confirmed that lack of money often caused children to play with home-made toys or to make do with whatever was available.17 To reinforce this point, Norman Douglas cites children in London playing in the streets with pins or old nibs that had been made into makeshift darts by the insertion of a piece of thread.18 Note too the direct link with archery in both the descriptions of the target, something that is reinforced by the alternative name for the game of ‘drawing-room archery’. However, as has been shown earlier, the concentric target was utilised earlier in puff-anddart, the true link between modern darts and archery. As the popularity of and demand for toys grew, such goods were classified as ‘educational toys and appliances’. By 1914 most toy manufacturers had accepted that there was a strong link between toys and education, with girls being directed to gentle and domestic activities, such as pressing flowers, sewing and playing with dolls whilst boys’ leisure time was applied to more robust, manly activities such as carpentry, construction and playing games.19 Thus sexual stereotypes were reinforced through toys. In the context of darts, the robustness of boys’ play was illustrated in 1895 by the Reverend J. G. Wood in his description of how to make puff-and-dart. This included cutting sticks into lengths, filing

The darts industry

spikes into ‘a good point’, dipping the point into candle-grease and holding it ‘in the flame until it is nearly red hot’, then ‘plunging it into cold water’, filing off projecting pieces of metal and forcing the blunt end of a nail into the end of the stick.20 The toy industry’s response to increasing demand The first significant commercial interest in darts came in the late nineteenth century when showmen introduced darts as a game of skill at their fairgrounds. Targets were readily available from hobbyists and woodworkers either locally or from within the fairground community and, as we have seen, darts were imported from France by the toy and fancy goods industry specifically for sale to showmen.21 There is no evidence to suggest that darts were manufactured in England at the time. In response to the demand for toys and games, the manufacturers began to make available bright catalogues of their range of products to further stimulate interest and demand. For example, in the oldest known catalogue produced by J. W. Spear & Sons, of Nuremberg, dated 1904, a wide range of toys and games are displayed. The catalogue, dominated by parlour games for children and adults, lists over 130 items, including several games of skill such as tiddlywinks, ball and quoits games and darts.22 In that same year the Johnson brothers of Harborne (Birmingham) advertised the ‘Chad Valley’ series of indoor games – the affordable ‘Chad Valley Series of Penny Games’. These included darts games that comprised 1d Dart Sheet (Manilla) 15˝ × 15˝ in bright colours’, ‘1d Dart Board (Stout) 10˝ × 10˝ in bright colours’ and the ‘1d Dart Board (extra stout) 5˝ × 5˝ … printed in colours’.23 The latter included the provision of one dart and, although details of the mode of play did not accompany the description in the catalogue, this is indicative of a straightforward version of the game in which the highest score with a single dart wins. It certainly does not suggest any degree of complexity, which is common in darts today, where three darts are thrown, scores are deducted from 301 or 501 and finish on a double. By 1905/06 Johnson Bros were producing a £6 ‘Champion’ compendium of games which included ‘Painted Twisted Straw Target for Dart Games; Large Wood Dart Board, with Plated Blowpipe and Set of Darts’. The ‘special cheap’ ‘Colonial’ edition of the games, which included ‘Puff-dart, board and darts complete’, was intended to suit the special requirements of certain export markets, particularly those of Australia and New Zealand, where the high freight and duty charges prevented the standard patterns being retailed at regular prices.24 This is one of the

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earliest examples of an English games company exporting darts to Australasia discovered thus far and may well have been an element of the original founding of the game in those countries. However, it would have been only as a toy and not as a pub game, as, according to author Len Burgess, the entrepreneur Cyril Viner brought ‘the first commercial supply of darts’, manufactured by Magnatex UK, to Australia in 1946 and discovered that Aussies had never seen a game of darts.’25 The extracts from catalogues show that darts games were being priced so as to be affordable to a wide-ranging customer base: all those who could afford to pay from 1d to £6 for their games. The catalogues also reveal the materials involved in the construction of the dartboards, which included paper, stout paper, wood and twisted straw.26 The late nineteenth/early twentieth century period was also the time of the development of a ‘commercially aware and aggressive retail system’ represented by the continued development of the department store and multiple shop organisations.27 One of the key department stores specialising in toys was Gamage’s in Holborn, London. In 1913 darts appeared for sale in the ‘Games for clubs, institutes, &c’, section of the store’s catalogue, along with puff-and-darts, ring, rope and peg quoits, shove-ha’penny and other indoor games. Targeting the growing ‘club and institute’ market, Gamage’s offered for sale a ‘Solid Wood Dart Board’, 2 in. thick with ‘stout wire divisions and numbers, wired on one side’, complete with three darts at a cost of 5s.28 In response to the increasing market for toys, and an indicator that the toy trade was taking a more organised approach to its business, the magazine Games and Toys was introduced in 1914. The magazine received its first enquiry concerning darts the following year and mentioned the company of William Lindop, of Shudehill, Manchester, as being present at the toy exhibition to be held at the Royal Agricultural Hall, London, between 16 and 26 March 1915. Lindop’s goods included ‘dart boards’.29 However, darts is not mentioned in the magazine again until 1920, a time which corresponds with the growing interest in the game post-war.30 However, Lindop and others had found a firm market for darts supplying fairgrounds. Darts and the fairground William Lindop had been manufacturing dartboards and darts and supplying ‘games of every description suitable for showmen’ for many years. In the advertisement for his products that appeared in the Showmen’s Year Book in 1900 ‘dart boards and darts’ were included. Both the style and

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content of the advertisement indicate that darts was already no longer a novelty but an established part of the fairground tradition.31 Throwing games proliferated at fairgrounds, and an indication of the way in which showmen assisted the geographical spread of darts can be assessed from the examination of issues of World’s Fair for 1906. During that year darts was specifically mentioned as being provided at fairs and wakes at Acomb (Yorkshire), Mexborough, Owlerton, Halifax, Eastbourne, the Wilmslow wakes and at the Hull fair, whilst during that same year a report of the fair at Wanstead Flats in April records ‘throwing games in abundance’, at the June fair in Cambridge ‘a large number of throwing games’, and at the Oldham wakes the throwing games were ‘more numerous than ever’.32 In May 1907 ‘the great Cockney Jack, the Dartboard King’ attended Lincoln Pleasure Fair.33 Although not specifically mentioned in a number of reports of other fairs, it is probable that darts would have featured on the general list of throwing games provided by showmen for, as one report stated in October that year concerning the Hull fair, ‘in the miles of Throwing Games it would be impossible to mention all’.34 Moreover, it is from within the fairground that the modern dartboard may have developed. The person responsible for creating the familiar numbering of the face of the modern segmented dartboard at the end of the Victorian period is Brian Gamlin, a forty-four-year-old carpenter from Bury, Lancashire.35 The sequence of numbers starting with the 20 segment at the top and moving clockwise round, 18, 4, 13, 6, 10, 15, 2, 17, 3, 19, 7, 16, 8, 11, 14, 9, 12 and 5, is featured on the most popular form of dartboard sold across the world today. Gamlin is purported to have devised the sequence, which rewards accuracy and punishes inaccuracy, in 1896, but apparently died in 1903 ‘before he could patent the idea’.36 Dave Lanning originally revealed this ‘fact’ in 1979, details of which he had culled from the Daily Mirror cuttings library during his research for his ghosted biographical work on Welsh darts professional Leighton Rees. It was not long until the information appeared in other darts publications and, like the case of Annakin discussed in Chapter 3, Gamlin became an accepted part of darts history.37 As late as 1992, in answer to the question ‘Who decided the numbers on a dartboard should be so jumbled and why?’ the Daily Mirror published information from a reader in Germany who stated: Brian Gamlin of Bury, Lancs, introduced the odd numbering system in our fairgrounds in 1896, boasting ‘No skill required.’ Drunks had no chance, as the test of sobriety, the darts game ‘round the clock, in which players have to score with darts in numerical order, became a great success.38

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If Gamlin had been a showman, or even a journeyman carpenter in some way connected with the fairground, this might explain why it has been impossible to discover any contemporary evidence of his existence. Gamlin may have received acknowledgement for his invention whilst at Bury and then moved on, but, despite extensive research, no trace of Gamlin can be found.39 He therefore remains an enigma. However, research has revealed two other men who are potential claimants to having designed the modern dartboard.

The development and early manufacture of the modern dartboard About the first, E. Walkers, little is known except that he was a wireworker from Kirkgate, Leeds. He published advertisements in World’s Fair from 28 September to 19 October 1907 inclusive, claiming to be ‘The first and best maker’ of dartboards and darts to fairgrounds, and warning his customers to ‘Beware of agents posing [sic] Boards on you as our make.’40

7 Thomas Buckle, wireworker, of Dewsbury and Leeds, c. 1915

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The second and more sustainable claim is that of Yorkshireman Thomas William Buckle.41 Buckle, a one-time craftsman, fireman and steeplejack, was also a hobbyist who, during the early years of the twentieth century, made dominoes in his spare time, selling sets to local pubs and clubs in and around the Dewsbury area.42 By 1910 Buckle had transformed the cellar of his home in Dewsbury into a workshop, and it was there in 1913 that he converted a London fives board (a dartboard with twelve segments all multiples of five and numbered 20, 15, 10, 5, 20, 15, 10, 5, 20, 15, 10, 5) into a more complex twenty-segment dartboard with the numbering that is recognised as standard today and upon which the modern game and the modern darts industry is based. Buckles board became known as the ‘Yorkshire board’ and was later to be adopted and adapted in the south by the addition of a treble ring. 43 Between 1913 and 1916 Thomas Buckle moved from Dewsbury to a workshop in Crown Court, Leeds He is listed as a ‘wire worker’ in the local trade directory for 1916.44 By 1938 Buckle is shown as a ‘dartboard maker’.45 The process of construction of the board was as follows: A local timber merchant supplied the Dutch Elm boards in ‘raw’ form, 14 ins, 16 ins and 18 ins diameter and 1½ ins thick. All of the wiring, numbering and colouring were undertaken by hand using basic tools. The colours were compiled from powder-based materials, mainly red, yellow and blue, and were water repellent. The numbers themselves were handmade from 18g wire using pliers adapted to suit the purpose. The wiring of the dartboards [was] also by hand, 20g wire being used for quadrants and 18g for the doubles. Staples were used to fix the wire to the boards.46

Buckle’s interest in dartboards appears to have sprung legitimately from his trade as a wireworker but other working-class men, with the working day reduced from fifty-four hours per week in 1914 to forty-eight per week in 1919, found they had time on their hands and therefore focused some of their improved leisure time on the pursuit of hobbies.47 Ross McKibbin argued that the ‘mental energies [of the working class] necessary for effective industrial work were being diverted to, and absorbed by, substitute work: by sports and hobbies’.48 Hobbies were not necessarily collective activities, and it was the individual hobbyists – particularly those with carpentry skills – who were important to the development of darts. Some of these hobbyists supplemented the family income by manufacturing darts and dartboards to satisfy local demand. Such activities as these (and others, such as Harry Schofield, cited below) could also be seen as examples of ‘penny capitalism’, where working-class entrepreneurs who, whilst retaining another source or sources of income, diversified and ‘tried to make a little money on the side’.49

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Small-scale local darts and dartboard manufacturers Harry Schofield of York was a skilled hobbyist and produced darts composed of brass tubing, cut to size, into which was poured measured scoops of molten lead for ‘light’, ‘medium’ or ‘heavy’ darts. Originally Schofield sold his product to his local pub, the Spotted Cow in Barbican Road, York, or gave them away to his friends as gifts. However, local demand increased sufficiently for him to set up in business in a newly built council house in Burlington Avenue.50 Schofield’s father, Herbert Edwin Schofield, of Wakefield, had originally patented the concept of the ‘Schofield dart’ in 1906 whereby ‘the tip is secured in the ferrule by means of a filling of white metal’ but high demand for the product was not apparent until 1935, when modern darts reached the north of England. Schofield died that same year and his widow sold the rights to a local sports equipment company, T. J. Hooke & Sons.51 Another example of small-scale home-based darts industry seeking to satisfy local consumer demand in the mid-1950s was Herbert Soen, a dartboard maker working from his workshop at home in Farnham Road, Slough. Like Schofield, Soen sold his products to local publicans. He was an accomplished darts player in his own right but, being teetotal, seldom frequented public houses except to sell his dartboards, preferring to hone his own skills playing in pairs and four-a-side competitions at his local branch of the British Legion.52 Although a very small entrepreneur, Soen devised some original advertising techniques to promote his products, including nailing a metal dartboard to the side of his house and, in spring and summer, fashioning the flowers in his front garden into the shape of a large dart.53 Doubtless the additional income derived from these individual, small-scale enterprises supplemented the existing household budgets of those involved and perhaps even helped alleviate the threat of short or long-term poverty. Larger darts and dartboard manufacturers and importers Over and above individual endeavour, the 1920s provided indicators of the growth of interest in the manufacture of darts requisites. In 1921, at the British Industries Fair, held at Vickers House, Westminster, Thomas Salter Ltd (TSL) was represented, the only line on view from the company being ‘a range of feather-throwing darts’. Although Salter, as an importer of fancy goods, was sole agent for a number of French manufacturers, and also imported products from others countries, at this particular fair only British-manufactured goods were allowed. It is therefore significant that

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the darts produced by TSL were described as ‘one of the lines which [Salter] manufacture[s]’.54 The company had begun to manufacture darts in England, presumably because increasing demand had made home production economically viable and considerably cheaper – for Salter at least – than continuing to import the goods from France.55 To promote their products a number of companies were beginning to employ commercial travellers – sales representatives. One of these was Ernest Deverell, who was employed in that capacity just after the Great War by Thomas Salter and given responsibility for the sales area designated ‘the eastern counties’.56 Such was the growing interest in darts that Deverell managed some key successes, including selling 250 gross of darts to the Chad Valley company in his first year. He also identified a potential gap in the market, that of selling direct to pubs, which he personally believed at the time would eventually lead to the consolidation of the game in public houses. When asked about the playing of darts in pubs at that time (1920) Deverell recalled that the incidence of the game was ‘isolated’ and that, to the best of his knowledge, there were no leagues or clubs. He also observed that most darts players he had met made their own darts out of a piece of cane and a pin, with the flights being constructed out of paper.57 However, an increase in interest in darts was only part of the growth evidenced in the toy market just after the Great War. At that time London accounted for 49 per cent of the entries in the Tattersall’s [Toy] Directory and the end of the war had signalled the release of pent-up wartime demand and a boost to domestic toy manufacturers.58 Shopkeepers were astonished at the amount of money changing hands for toys during the approach to the first Christmas after the cessation of war.59 Examination of the trade press reveals that new companies were being established every single week. Even during 1922, when the post-war boom was beginning to falter, no fewer than sixty-seven public and 190 private companies were registered for the manufacture of sports goods and toys.60 However, it was Nodor, a London-based company registered the previous year, and one involved in the manufacture of educational modelling clay, that was to become of significant importance to the social and economic history of the emergent darts industry. In 1921 Games and Toys featured an advertisement for Nodor clay, ‘The Odourless Modelling Clay … being rapidly adopted by Schools and Studios all over the country …’ 61 This substance had been invented by Edward Leggatt, an analytical chemist, who produced and marketed the clay in direct competition with the highly successful ‘Plasticine’.®62 Plasticine® had been perfected by William Harbutt, of Bath, in 1897 and

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marketed as ‘a modelling paste possessing all the advantages both of clay and the expensive wax of the artist’, but having the disadvantages of neither.63 However, Harbutt’s Plasticine® did have one distinct disadvantage, which Kenneth Brown has described as ‘odiferous’.64 In response to a request from his young daughter, who found the odour of Plasticine® unpleasant, Edward Leggatt undertook extensive experiments and produced a similar but odourless product.65 Seeing the potential advantages over Plasticine®, Leggatt decided to produce the clay commercially. With financial help from his brother Alfred – the agreement being that profits would be shared equally – Leggatt purchased a secondhand roller mill and other necessary equipment and rented an upper-floor factory in Bow Bridge, Stratford, east London. The trade name ‘Nodor’ was agreed – a simple compression of the words ‘no odour’.66 As we shall see, a short time later Leggatt was to utilise Nodor clay in the manufacture of dartboards. As seen in Chapter 4, it was the brewers and licensees based in London and the immediately surrounding area who had first seen the economic potential of darts. Interest in the game had grown as brewers continued to improve their facilities and introduce organised darts leagues into their public houses. As shown in Chapter 4, the increased popularity of darts in the south led directly to the establishment in London in 1925 of the NDA, which began to promote the game actively and effectively in the capital and the south-east of England. Thus, during the early 1920s, the growth in levels of participation was sufficient to support a very small number of entrepreneurs who began to forge a separate industry for the production of darts and dartboards which supplemented the continuing provision of the toy industry. The ‘north–south divide’ – the more prosperous south versus the less prosperous north – does not appear to have been a major issue in the initial development of darts. Usually there would be social or economic factors that made the south more attractive than the north. However, as Keith Laybourn has argued, whilst the majority of the working classes lived in poverty or near poverty during the inter-war years, the depression was not offset by the economic progress being made in the Midlands and the southeastern consumer and service industries, although ‘the working classes in these regions were certainly prospering’.67 The perceived increased prosperity of the working class in the south-east compared with those in the north would tend to suggest that those in the south could afford to spend more money on their leisure and purchase more leisure goods, a part of which for the pubgoer would include the purchase of beer, darts and

The darts industry

darts accessories. Whilst this may be so, the truth about the Londoncentric darts industry is simply that darts was more popular in London and the south-east of England than anywhere else and thus the emergent darts industry was initially established in the areas where the real demand was. Such positioning of the industry was vitally important if the momentum following the introduction of the standardised game by the NDA and the brewery leagues was to be successfully maintained. As we shall see, the inter-war years were a period of development and innovation in the new darts industry. In order to understand fully the progress of the industry between 1918 and 1939 it is important to identify the elite of the industry and understand how, where and why the companies were founded and also to consider the action they took to bring attention to their products and promote interest in the game of darts. The elite of the darts industry As far as the British toy business was concerned, Kenneth Brown argues, between the years 1923 to 1944 it was going through the phase of ‘comfortable maturity’.68 During the inter-war years the darts industry went through an adolescent phase and was coming of age by the outbreak of the Second World War. 69 Indeed, from 1923 the foundation stones of the modern darts industry were being laid in the East End of London, and leading the way was Edward Leggatt’s Nodor company, based at Magnet Wharf, Stratford, London E 15, and Jack Hood, who originally worked out of Bow Common Lane, London E 3. The East End was an ideal area in which to accommodate the darts industry. Stephen Inwood has argued that commentators on pre-1914 London industry, including Charles Booth, focused on the capital’s industrial problems, ‘its declining industries, its sweated system and casual labour’, and entirely missed ‘the green shoots of industrial renewal’. According to Inwood, one of the key facts overlooked by previous commentators was the ‘striking progress in the engineering industr[y]’.70 Engineering, especially light engineering, with its machinery, such as lathes, and skills, such as toolmaking, was crucial to the manufacture of darts, as were some of the highly skilled trades which remained in the area after 1918, including carpentry, assembly and finishing, skills necessary in the construction of wooden dartboards and dartboard cabinets. The East End was also central to the main areas in which darts was developing and within close proximity to the brewery companies and pubs which would originally comprise their main customer base.

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Industries in the East End had access to main arterial roads, railways and rivers, which were vital to any production industry to efficiently bring in raw materials and deliver finished products. However, the East End had a traditional reputation of ‘sweating, cut-throat competition, starvation wages and intensification of work’ characteristic of the pre-1914 clothing trade, for example.71 Such traits were not to be found in the formative darts industry. Both the Nodor and Hood companies were essentially small, family-run businesses which employed, by comparison with the clothing, footwear or carpentry trades, very few people. Certainly no evidence has been found to suggest exploitation of workers by either Leggatt or Hood, but the wages paid to those who were not ‘family’ would probably have been comparable to those paid in other light industries in the surrounding area. Indeed, apart from Nodor and Hood, there was little other competition in the darts business and thus, once established, these two companies more or less controlled the industry in London and parts of the south-east for most of the period 1925–39.72 Edward Leggatt and the Nodor company Although by 1922 the Nodor company had secured lucrative orders for modelling clay from three major local authorities (Kent County Council, the London County Council and the West Riding of Yorkshire), the business was not making the inroads into the clay market that Leggatt had anticipated. Thus he sought to diversify and to develop other practical uses for Nodor clay. One simple experiment led to Leggatt’s involvement with the darts business. In her unpublished memoirs his wife Amelia describes Leggatt experimenting by throwing darts at a piece of Nodor clay affixed to an office door. She recalled, the darts ‘stuck in, and the holes were constantly filled by the pressure of the next dart’, the material being of the right thickness and consistency to support the darts. Leggatt developed the idea further by employing a tinsmith to make metal dartboard frames that were attached to wooden back boards and filled with Nodor clay in black and orange colours.73 By early 1923 the Nodor clay dartboard was in production, and Leggatt launched an aggressive advertising campaign in the licensing trade press (Figure 8). It was aimed primarily at the inadequacies of the existing elm wood boards – the need to be soaked overnight and the eventual disintegration of the natural product – and highlighted the benefits of the Nodor product. Slogans included ‘The only perfect board’, ‘Silent and everlasting’, ‘Guaranteed to give satisfaction’, ‘Wooden boards are relics

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8 Advertisement for the Nodor Patent Dart Board, 1925

and dear at any price’ and ‘Play on a Nodor Everlasting Dart Board and you will scrap your wooden one’.74 Later that same year Leggatt approached the organisers of the Brewers’ Exhibition and Market – an important event in the brewers’ calendar which was held annually in London during November – for space to present his new product to the drinks trade. The immediate reaction was one of prejudice. According to

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9 Examples of darts available from Kent & Cleal’s Wholesale and Shipping Catalogue of Indoor Games, 1929/30

Amelia Leggatt, darts was simply ‘not at all in the class that [the exhibition] signified’ and Edward Leggatt’s proposal to bring darts, a ‘game played in country pubs by yokels on a floor covered with sawdust and a few very poor pubs in London’, to such a high-profile exhibition was distinctly questionable. Although this rationale of unacceptability would rapidly change within the next two years with the introduction of brewery leagues

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and the advent of the NDA, Leggatt seemed faced with a dilemma. Fortunately for him, and for the future of darts, he was eventually able to persuade the organisers to accept his product, although he was allocated only ‘a passage between two stalls’. Despite this position, Leggatt managed to create substantial interest in Nodor dartboards, finding women easier to persuade to purchase a dartboard than men.75 In a review of the exhibition in the licensed trade press the Nodor dartboard was described as ‘An old friend in a new guise’ and comments were made that ‘Those who have had them in their use speak highly as to their satisfactory service, both from the point of view of the householder [that is, the publican] and his customers.’76 Leggatt and Nodor were breaking new ground, yet, despite this seemingly successful start, sales volumes of the new boards were not as high as Leggatt had expected. The reason was that Leggatt had underestimated the strong tradition of wooden dartboards and had not anticipated players’ reaction to the revolutionary new clay board. With the elm dartboards players were used to hearing their darts strike the board with a reassuring ‘thud’. This sound was absent from the Nodor product, which was, by comparison, silent, and thus both players and publicans experienced difficulty in coming to terms with what was a profound psychological change in the methodology of play. In the main they rejected the Nodor board despite its key benefit of longevity.77 Nodor continued to lose money and by the end of 1923 was in significant debt. However, in 1924 a substantial school order for twentyfive tons of Nodor clay was secured from New Zealand. The ship carrying the product foundered at sea and, whilst it was an economic disaster for the New Zealand educational authorities, it benefited the Nodor company, as the order was repeated. This considerably improved the firm’s economic position and meant not only that it moved into profit but also enabled Leggatt to direct additional funds into the darts business that he was keen to develop. By the late 1920s Nodor was producing traditional elm dartboards whilst maintaining production of the ‘Nodor (Patent) “Home” Dart Board’, now produced specifically ‘for family use’.78 The change of fortune and the refocusing of the company ensured that, by the early 1930s, Nodor was enjoying significant business, employing seventy-five staff. The popularity of darts boomed from mid-decade onwards and demand for darts and dartboards soared, so that, in 1938, Leggatt relocated the company to larger premises in Hatfield Road, Stratford, and an additional twenty-five ‘hands’ were employed, bringing the total work force up to 100.79

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Jack Hood Whilst Leggatt had been experimenting with the Nodor clay dartboard in the early 1920s, another small East End entrepreneur, Jack Hood, became involved in the manufacture of the traditional side, elm dartboards. He became a pioneer of large-scale elm dartboard production. In the early 1920s Hood, the former teetotal landlord of the Dolphin public house, Devonshire Street, Bethnal Green, started out in business in rented accommodation at 45 Bow Common Lane, London E 3, a building which had previously been the Locomotive public house. The premises stood in a row of shops which included on one side a shoe repairer and a sweetshop and on the other side a grocery business and a pie-and-mash shop.80 Hood’s business at that time was hiring and repairing bicycles and selling ice cream. As previously noted, a twopenny ice cream was one of the cheap luxuries, ‘something “tasty”’, identified by George Orwell as a cheap palliative which contributed to the aversion to revolution among the working class. To Orwell’s list of cheap luxuries which helped to ‘mitigate the surface of life’ should be added the hiring of bicycles.81 Hood hired bicycles out for 2d per half-hour. (Even from central London the countryside was only half an hour away by bicycle.82) Hood sold ice cream at his door and was aided in this work by his children, who were employed in turning the drum which made the ice cream.83 In the main, however, the sale of ice cream and the hiring of bicycles were summer activities and, although bicycle repair work may have sustained him and his family through the winter months, Hood, like Leggatt, was always looking to diversify. In 1925 Jack Hood turned his attention to darts, the causation being a simple household event. Watching the action of his wife in the process of cutting a large, newly baked jam tart into wedges, Hood was inspired to experiment in making a dartboard. He purchased a sawn-off log end of elm wood and created the dartboard by hand. Once completed, he carried it to the Nag’s Head public house on the corner of Bow Common Lane and St Paul’s Road and sold it to the publican for 12s 6d. This generated further orders not only from other local publicans but also from the local major brewers, who were in the process of introducing darts and darts leagues into their public houses. They included Truman Hanbury Buxton & Co. (Brick Lane, E 1), Taylor Walker & Co. (Barley Mow Brewery, Church Row, E 14) and Mann Crossman & Paulin (Albion Brewery, Whitechapel Road, E 1). Demand also came from elsewhere in London, particularly from Watney Combe Reid & Co. (Stag Brewery, SW 1). Such was the

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10 Jack Hood supervising dartboard production at his Devons Road London E 3, c. 1935 factory,

demand for Hood’s product that the whole family became involved in the production, administration and distribution of the products, often working through the night when a large order had to be completed, maintaining morale by ‘singing all the old songs and having a good laugh.84 Family involvement at any time in the development of a small business is essential, but even more so at times when demand is high. John Hill, whose father, Alfred Thomas Hill, had established the Abbey Sports

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Company in Borough High Street, London, in 1899, remembered the company experiencing a substantial increase in demand for darts in the mid to late 1920s and, as a child only five years old in 1925, becoming part of the family’s ‘production line’ in the preparation of promotional flyers. Hill recalled that ‘We were forever folding circulars. That was our life. We came home from school into the dining room. Albert, one of the staff from Borough High Street, he was in there, and he’d show you what to do.’85 Jack Hood’s family business thrived throughout the late 1920s, so that, by 1931, demand was such that the business had outgrown the existing premises. Hood acquired a factory in Devons Road (off Bow Common Lane) and took on a number of local men from the wood-turning and carpentry trades to manufacture dartboards, darts and dartboard cabinets (Figure 10). Profits were large enough to enable Hood to purchase a new house for his family in Streatfield Street, retaining the property in Bow Common Lane and converting it into an additional workshop.86 As work increased, further family members were brought in to secure the working future of the firm. Hood also diversified into the manufacture of other styles of dartboard. During the 1930s he produced a variety of other designs to satisfy local and regional markets.87 Hood’s portfolio of products included not only the ‘London’ (or ‘clock) dartboard, as introduced as standard by the NDA in 1925, and the locally popular London ‘fives’ board – also known as the ‘East End’ board – but also the ‘Kent doubles’ board, the ‘Tunbridge Wells’ board and the ‘Club Tournament’ board.88 Hood also manufactured two novelty boards; the ‘Football (three goals up)’ and ‘Shove-ha’penny’ boards, which he devised specifically to attract the interest of followers of other sports and pub games to the game of darts by combining the basic elements of those alternative popular pastimes on the dartboard.89 Leggatt and Hood both offered limited additional but much-needed local employment for members of the skilled working class in the area, for example carpenters for making darts and dartboards and clerical staff to manage the offices. Sally Hood recalls that her father’s business: [s]tarted off strictly as a family concern, Mum, Dad and six children … and … as we got busier my two elder sisters’ husbands joined in, then a couple of cousins, and about six or eight local chaps, [whilst] a separate office was built across the road for myself and two girls to run the office, we all had our individual roles to play in a s[u]ccessful business.90

From the late 1920s both Hood and Leggatt became involved through the National Darts Association with the News of the World darts

The darts industry

championship.91 Hood also diversified further by producing and providing staging and dartboards for many darts competitions, including one sponsored by Sporting Life. By 1926 Hood had employed his inventive talents to produce a ‘Sporting Life’ dartboard with ‘patent revolving numbers’ which, according to his advertising material, gave ‘more wear and fairer play than any other dart board on the market’.92 Leggatt’s successful move into the elm board market led to Nodor producing a dartboard of ‘specially selected elm’ of standard design marketed under the title the Manda board – the name created by combining the initials of the Morning Advertiser and the National Darts Association.93 In April 1926 the NDA had published its rules, the fifth being that the Association would not identify one particular dartboard as being any better than any other. Leggatt, it seems, had worked hard over a relatively short space of time (less than eight months) to forge links with both the Association and the Morning Advertiser sufficient to be allowed to become the supplier of a recommended Advertiser/Association-specific product. As darts increased in popularity across the country during the 1930s a number of additional producers came into the market to satisfy local demand. One company that had been established in England in the midnineteenth century was that belonging to a Frenchman, Henri Perrigo. The family, who were traditional cabinetmakers and woodworkers, emigrated to England in the 1850s from the village of Saint-Jory-de-Calais in the Périgord region of France, fleeing the general upheaval in Europe, and settled in Manchester. By the end of the nineteenth century Perrigo had established a small carpentry business in the Ancoats district. As a sideline the company produced small 10 in. diameter dartboards, the designs of which Perrigo had brought with him from France. However, they were sold not as a public house game but as a children’s toy and occasionally for amusement at garden fêtes.94 It was only during the late 1920s, as the popularity of the game began gradually to spread northwards, that Perrigo recognised a new trading outlet and began to supply Manchester pubs with small wooden dartboards.95 Nodor and the introduction of the ‘bristle’ dartboard During the 1930s, despite the increasing success of the Nodor company, Leggatt continued to seek a practical solution to the limitations of using elm in the construction of dartboards.96 Elm was the traditional material.97 The process of treating elm dartboards was quite complex. Every evening pub landlords placed the wooden dartboard in water to soak, not, as might be imagined, to make it subtle enough to take a dart – a dart would

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penetrate elm whether it was wet or dry – but to prevent the wood from shrinking. Shrinkage produced cracks and thereby occasioned damage to the wires dividing the segments of the scoring area. The dartboard would buckle and have to be replaced. If landlords did not change the water regularly, the surface of the board would become mouldy and infested with small insects, so that, as John Ross recalled, when the players retrieved their darts ‘they could end up with a black patch on … [their] … hand’.98 The insects bred and thrived in poorly maintained dartboards and thus posed a genuine although relatively insignificant threat to the health of dart players. In 1932 Leggatt found the solution which would, in a period outside the remit of this book, revolutionise the dartboard industry and eventually replace the wooden dartboard as standard. As is so often the case in any manufacturing industry, approaches are made offering new ideas for products or improvements to existing lines. Leggatt had often been approached by inventors – people offering him new ideas for darts, dartboards and other darts-related products. He turned down most of their ideas as either unpractical or unoriginal. However, in 1932 Frederick Dabbs, the licensee of the Trafalgar Hotel, Ramsgate, approached Leggatt with a prototype dartboard constructed of short pieces of rope laced vertically and bound together to form a circular playing surface which resembled a ‘compressed brush. Leggatt had previously experimented with a similar idea, hanging a ‘coir fibre’ doormat on to a door at home and using it as a target.99 The darts had not stayed in because the fibres were not packed together tightly enough. With Dabbs’s approach the darts stayed in, and, unlike the Plasticine® and wooden dartboards, the darts left no holes when removed.100 Leggatt applied for a patent, which was registered on 12 September 1932 and completed and accepted on 12 March 1934.101 The fibre that Leggatt finally utilised in the process was sisal, a vegetable material imported from Africa and used in the manufacture of rope. When launched in 1935 the Nodor ‘bristle’ dartboard was, in the main, well received by publicans and customers. Importantly for the established players, darts entering the new bristle board did so with a reassuring ‘thud’.102 In 1938, in response to the increase in demand for darts and wooden and bristle dartboards during the mid to late 1930s, the Nodor factory in Stratford, London, was improved and enlarged by the addition of an extra floor and the installation of a lift. The floor area was doubled, more workbenches and machinery were installed, and office space was increased. The company also continued to manufacture Nodor clay dartboards and wooden dartboards, together with the original Nodor modelling clay for schools and the new bristle dartboard.103

The darts industry

In the late 1930s Mass Observation found an alteration in the vault of a public house in Bolton made ‘to make room for a new dartboard’. An ‘old hand’ showed the observer how the darts made no impression once removed from the board and commented that the darts used on the new board were heavier than usual.104 It is probable that the brewer, having installed a new bristle board, had also supplied new, heavier brass-barrelled darts to replace the former light all-wooden ‘French darts previously utilised by the majority of darts players. John Ross, who spent a lifetime playing darts and being involved in the organisation of darts leagues and competitions, recalled that the bristle dartboard did not take on at first but eventually gained in popularity.105 One of the reasons was the cost. In 1938 an elm board cost 7s 6d, whilst the new bristle board retailed at 25s.106 Although an unattractive price for a new dartboard in terms of affordability by the working class for home use, the breweries could afford to install them in their public houses. The new boards lasted longer than the elm boards and thus were more economic in the long run, but the pricing issue remained a significant factor and the traditional elm board remained the most common and popular type of dartboard for at least another twenty-five years, bristle not taking over from elm until the 1980s.107 Not only had the bristle board become more affordable but also by the late 1980s Dutch elm disease had wiped out most of the elms in Britain, leading to a shortage of supply.108 Although alternatives, such as poplar, were tried, sales of wooden dartboards failed to recover, although Perrigo continued to make the specialised Manchester dartboard. The growth of darts and dartboard producers For almost all of the late 1920s and the 1930s Nodor and Jack Hood were the elite of the new darts industry, even though other dartboard manufacturers – such as B. Storer, of Hackney Road, London E 2, purveyor of ‘Red Elm’ boards109 – established themselves in the East End during this time. Other examples of darts-related companies which established their business during the inter-war period include C. Giles & Co. and M.Y. (Darts) Games Company. It was in 1923 that William Messer, from Oldham, Lancashire, went into partnership with Christopher Giles in the company called C. Giles & Co. They had a small office and warehouse in Gordon Square, off Russell Square, London, and imported games, including puzzles, chess and French darts. Given the growing demand for darts and the growth of their market share this company continued in the general games market for the remainder of the inter-war period.110

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Sidney Marks started in the toy business by selling darts in pubs in 1936. London-based Marks then later expanded into the toys and games industry, concentrating on games which were ‘within the range of most children’s pocket-money’.111 However, it was not until the end of the 1930s that Nodor’s and Hood’s market leadership in darts and darts equipment manufacture in the south-east was finally challenged. Hungarian immigrant Ferenc (known as Frank) Lowy had settled in England in 1929. An engineer by trade, Lowy found his early success as a patent agent, although he also undertook work as an engineering consultant. In 1936, whilst on holiday with his family in Littleham, near Exmouth, Devon, Lowy observed a game of darts being played in a local public house. Upon returning to London he purchased an elm dartboard and began to consider the business potential of darts, with the result that he turned his engineering knowledge and skills to the manufacture of his own style of darts, targeted at the middle and upper classes, and produced a dart of revolutionary design.112 Before Lowy became involved with darts manufacture there were two kinds of darts that were most commonly used in England, the ‘French dart, which was machined out of wood and had turkey feathers for flights, and the brass dart, which consisted of a brass barrel and a wooden or cane stem with feather or paper flights. Lowy’s unique revolutionary concept in darts was an all-metal, except for the flight, chromium-plated dart which featured a new innovation, a small streamlined screw-on cap. This cap, of patented design, performed the dual function of holding the paper flights securely in place and deflecting any incoming darts that struck it into the board.113 Lowy’s darts were marketed through John Wisden & Co., who, at the time, held the royal warrant for the supply of sports goods.114 Wisden’s had for many years sold a range of sports goods under their own brand name, including tennis racquets, which were manufactured by others.115 The brand name was ‘Silver Comet’ and Lowy’s darts were included in that range. Wisden’s sold Lowy’s darts in boxes of three, which in itself was an innovation at the time, as, until then, unless three darts had been provided with a dartboard as part of a set, darts were sold singly, working-class players not being able to afford or indeed needing to replace all three darts at once. Lowy sold each set to Wisden’s for 1s, Wisden sold them to sports shops for 1s 6d, and the shopkeepers charged the customer 2s 6d. At the time the shopkeepers’ selling price was five times more than the price of three wooden ‘French darts. At such a high price Silver Comet darts were produced to satisfy demand from the more affluent middle and upper classes, who during the mid to late 1930s had become interested in the

The darts industry

game as a current novelty. Lowy was taking a considerable gamble that such interest would sustain his business but, despite the cost, following their launch in 1937, the Silver Comet darts were an instant success, 170,000 sets being sold in the first year.116 In 1938 the branded sports goods division of John Wisden & Co. went into bankruptcy and Lowy sustained a loss of £800. Despite this setback Lowy established his own business and for a short while traded as F. Lowy, which, by late 1938, was changed to Unicorn Products Ltd. Five decades later Unicorn Products was described as the ‘Biggest success story in the game of darts’.117 Substantial growth supports the emergent darts industry Thus between the late nineteenth century and 1939 a recognisable small darts industry was established in England. Darts had made the transition from an occasionally played, unregulated pub game and toy to an organised and ubiquitous recreation. The game had become so popular during the inter-war years, especially in the south-east, that demand for darts products was able to sustain a small number of entrepreneurs. These men had recognised the potential of darts as a diversification from their established small businesses; they were prepared to put their time and effort into this growing sector of the leisure industry. Between 1923 and 1939 the growth of the darts industry was underpinned by the continued rapid growth of the popularity of the game. In the case of darts the social position had changed so dramatically during the inter-war period that the demand for darts, dartboards and accessories was such that manufacturers had difficulty in keeping up with their orders. More dartboards and darts were sold in 1937 than in any previous year – a demand generated by at least 300,000 enthusiasts registered with the National Darts Association and countless millions of ‘unofficial’ players in pubs, clubs and the home.118 It was during the 1920s that conditions were right for capital to be invested in darts by a few determined individuals who recognised the economic potential of the game. This, together with the changes in the economic fortunes of Britain, the increased time available to and the higher wages of the majority of the population during the inter-war years and the increase in conspicuous consumption, accelerated the commercialisation of darts during the inter-war period, led in the south-east by Edward Leggatt and Jack Hood. The efforts of both Hood and Leggatt were supplemented by the work of the NDA, the brewers, licensees, sales representatives – like Ernest Deverell – and the News of the World in popularising the game

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across the country.119 Further demand for darts goods and accessories was stimulated late in the period when the new King and Queen played darts at the Slough Community Centre in December 1937.120 The darts industry was able to grow despite the greater proportion of participants – working-class pubgoers – being constrained by limitations of funds expended on leisure. The brewers and licensees overcame this by purchasing substantial supplies of darts equipment for their pubs for use by their customers free of charge as part of their response to the clamour for the provision of amusements in their improved public houses. The expansion of the consumer-led industries, including the darts industry, would not have been achieved without the ability and capacity of millions of working-class and middle-class wage earners to enjoy the small surplus left over from their essential expenditure, spending it on whatever leisure pursuit they chose. The demand for darts also favoured the toys and games and sports businesses. The inter-war period saw the darts industry develop in three distinct directions, first remaining within the toy or sports industries, such as C. Giles & Co., M.Y. (Games) and Abbey Sports, or, second, by forming independent darts companies, among them Nodor and Hood. Third, where demand for darts was lower, this was sustained by the one-man businesses such as Schofield in York or by hobbyists like Soen in Slough. By the end of the 1930s, compared with the toy industry, the darts industry was ‘small beer’, a mere fragment of the English industrial economy. However, by this time Leggatt, Hood and others had not only ensured that darts had become one of the most popular games in the country but also succeeded in laying the foundations of an industry that continued to grow after the Second World War and remains today a major component of Britain’s sports industry.121 Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

Wray Vamplew, Pay up and Play the Game – Professional Sport in Britain 1875–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 13–14. ‘Darts industry’ in this chapter refers primarily to the production of darts and dartboards. John Lowerson, Sport and the English Middle Classes 1870–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 227. Vamplew, Pay up and Play the Game, p. 4. Jeffrey Hill, Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 33. Lowerson, Sport and the English Middle Classes, p 227. Surprisingly, given the class divide of exponents of cricket and those of darts, as shown later in this

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7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25

chapter, John Wisden & Co. would play a key role in the founding of a major darts business in 1937. Stephen G. Jones, ‘The leisure industry in Britain 1918–1939’, Services Industry Journal, 5:1 (1985), p. 91. Adrian Harvey, The Beginnings of a Commercial Sporting Culture in Britain 1793–1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), p. 27. Jones, ‘The leisure industry in Britain’, pp. 91–3. Kenneth D. Brown, The British Toy Business – A History since 1700 (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 74 and 77. For furniture see Pat Kirkham, Rodney Mace and Julia Porter, Furnishing the World – The East End Furniture Trade 1830–1980 (London: Journeyman, 1987); for footwear see P. G. Hall ‘The east London footwear industry – an industrial quarter in decline’, East London Papers, 5 (1962), pp. 3–21; for textiles see Andrew Godley, Anne J. Kershen and Raphael Schapiro, ‘Fashion and its impact on the economic development of London’s East End womenswear industry 1929–1962 – the case of Ellis & Goldstein’, Textile History, 34:2 (2003), pp. 214–28. Brown, The British Toy Business, p. 50. The Times, issues dated 28 September 1864 to 10 October 1864 inclusive, p. 1. Ibid., 28 September 1864, p. 1; Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes (London: Cassell & Co., 1896), p. 802. The game was also described as ‘Drawing-room archery’, Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, p. 803. Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, p. 802. In 1903 these instructions would be lifted word for word and included in Lawful Games on Licensed Premises, detailed guidance for the licensed trade published by the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette Office in London, p. 162. Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, p. 802. Iona and Peter Opie, Children’s Games with Tings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 13. Norman Douglas, London Street Games (London: Chatto & Windus, 1916), p. 83. Brown, The British Toy Business, pp. 53–5. Rev. J. G. Wood, The Boy’s Modern Playmate – A Book of Sports, Games and Pastimes (London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1895), pp. 164–5. Darts Weekly News, 11 September 1937, pp. 22 and 31; Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 21 August 1903, p. 558. Helmut Schwarz and Marion Faber, Games we Play – The History of J. W Spear & Sons (Ware: Spear Charitable Trust in association with Spear’s Games Archive Trust, 1997), pp. 53–4. 1904/05 ‘Chad Valley’ catalogue, Johnson Brothers (Harborne), p. 24. 1905/06 catalogue, ‘The “Chad Valley” Series of Indoor Games’, pp. 30–1. Len Burgess, Darts – The Rules of Play – A Guide for Playing and Games (Croydon, Qld: published by the author, n.d. but c. 1980), p. 2. So far, no similar indicator has been found for the development of darts in New

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26

27

28 29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36

37

38 39

Zealand, it currently being assumed that it too was a post-Second World War phenomenon. Keith Turner also found that dartboards were often made out of more local materials, citing the Staffordshire board as being ‘normally … of wooden construction, but at one time it was traditionally produced in clay from the local potteries’. (Keith Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980, p. 71.) Brown, The British Toy Business, p. 62. For details of the development of department stores see Bill Lancaster, The Department Store – A Social History (London: Leicester University Press, 1995). Gamage’s Christmas Bazaar 1913, introduction by Alison Adburgham (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1974), p. 227. Games and Toys, 1:9 (March 1915), p. 340 and 374. Ibid., 6:64 (January 1920), pp. 769 and 828. Reverend T. Horne (ed.), The Showman’s Year Book – The Official Organ of the United Kingdom Showmen and Van Dwellers’ Protection Association 1900 (London: United Kingdom Showmen and Van Dwellers’ Protection Association, n.d. but 1899), p. 70. World’s Fair, 21 April 1906, p. 1, 19 May 1906, p. 1, 23 June 1906, p. 1, 30 June 1906, p. 1, 7 July 1906, p. 1, 14 July 1906, p. 4, 28 July 1906, p. 1, 1 September 1906, p. 1, and 8 September 1906, p. 1. Ibid., 4 May 1907, p. 5. Ibid., 20 October 1906, p. 1. Daily Express, 24 November 1998, p. 43. Dave Lanning (ed.), Leighton Rees on Darts (London: Cassell & Co., 1979), p. 9. For an examination of the combinatorial problem arising from the location of numbers around a dartboard see H. A. Eiselt and Gilbert Laporte, A combinational optimization problem arising in dartboard design’, Journal of the Operational Research Society, A2:2 (1991), pp. 113–18. Dave Lanning, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 9 March 1996. For an example of another writer reproducing the story see Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), p. 10. Daily Mirror, 20 August 1992, p. 28. However, despite extensive searches in the Greater Manchester Council County Record Office and the Manchester Studies Unit at Manchester Polytechnic in May 1985, enquiries in local newspapers and writing to all the Gamlins in the Bury, Lancashire, telephone directory no information was found. Similar detailed research at the Suffolk Record Office in June 1988 and telephone books in case the town had been incorrectly stated and should have been Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, also failed to produce any information about Brian Gamlin. An article placed in Platform, the official magazine of the Fairground Society in May 1999 resulted in no replies. (Plaform, 56, May 1999, p. 7.) In addition a half-page article in the Bury Times (Lancashire) (13 October 2005, p. 14) produced no response whatsoever. More significantly, a recent examination of the 1901 census reveals no carpenter named Gamlin

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40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65

registered in Bury, Lancashire, or Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. (Web site address www.1901censusonline.com/ accessed 7 September 2006.) World’s Fair, 28 September to 19 October 1907 inclusive, p. 11. Darts World, May 1992, p. 34. Thomas Edward Buckle (son of Thomas William Buckle), interview with Patrick Chaplin held on 14 March 1992. Darts World, May 1992, p. 34. Robinson’s Directory (Leeds), 1916. Ibid., 1938. Darts World, May 1992, p. 34. Andrew Thorpe, Britain in the 1930s – The Deceptive Decade (Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1992), p. 102. Ross McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class – Social Relations in Britain 1880– 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 140. John Benson, The Penny Capitalist – A Study of Nineteenth Century Working Class Entrepreneurs (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1983), pp. 129–30. Such examples also provide support to Benson’s theory that ‘penny capitalism’ remained a vital component of working-class life in the early twentieth century. (Benson, Penny Capitalist, p. 129.) Tom Schofield (son of Harry Schofield), letters to Patrick Chaplin dated 3 October 1997, and Darts World, 316 (March 1999), p. 39. Darts Weekly News, 16 October 1937, p. 29; patent No. GB190601919, dated 13 September 1906. L. J. Webb, undated letter to Patrick Chaplin received 27 May 1997 sent in response to a letter published in the Slough Observer, 25 April 1997. Thomas F. Shuttle, undated letter to Patrick Chaplin, received 3 May 1997, in response to letter published in Slough Observer. Tom Shilton, telephone conversation with Patrick Chaplin on 25 April 1997 in response to letter published in Slough Observer. Games and Toys, 8:88 (March 1921), p. 540. To date the TSL darts-making facility has not been traced. Ernest Deverell, taped interview with Patrick Chaplin, 12 December 1991. Ibid. Brown, The British Toy Business, pp. 93 and 95. The Times, 12 December 1918, p. 5. Brown, The British Toy Business, p. 95; Toyshop and Fancy Goods Journal, January 1923, p. 16. Games and Toys, 9:91 (June 1921), p. 1. As a registered trade name, Jack Harbutt’s request to the author that every written reference to the product bears the ® mark is respected. Jack Harbutt, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 22 April 1992. William Harbutt, Harbutt’s Plastic Method and the Use of Plasticine in the Arts of Writing, Drawing and Modelling (London: Chapman & Hall, 1897), p. vii. Brown, The British Toy Business, p. 69. Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 10.

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66 67 68 69

70

71

72

73 74

75 76

77 78

79 80

81 82 83

Amelia Leggatt, untitled family memoir, unpublished manuscript, 1968, pp. 5 and 6, copy in possession of author. Keith Laybourn, Britain on the Breadline – A Social and Political History of Britain between the Wars (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1990), p. 210. Brown, The British Toy Business, p. 115. By comparison, according to Brown, the toy business went through its ‘adolescence’ between 1850 and 1914 and its ‘coming of age’ between 1914 and 1922. (Brown, The British Toy Business, pp. 41 and 79.) Stephen Inwood, ‘London’s industries before the First World War’, Centre for Local History Studies (Kingston University, London), 10 (summer 2005), p. 3. Andrew Godley, ‘Immigrant entrepreneurs and the emergence of London’s East End as an industrial district’, London Journal, 21:1 (1996), p. 40. See also Gillian Lonsdale, ‘The changing character of the east London industry’, East London Papers, 5:2 (1962), pp. 91–102. Other companies trading in darts and dartboards in the East End during the 1920s included F. H. Ayres, of Aldersgate Street, EC 1 (Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 3 November 1922, p. 24), and Traish Bros of Walthamstow (Darts World, March 1976, p. 35). Currently little is known about the history of these companies. Amelia Leggatt, memoirs, p. 6. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 5 January 1923, p. 12, 12 January 1923, p. 12, and 16 February 1923, p. 12. Advertisement shown is from the 1925 campaign. Amelia Leggatt, memoirs, p. 7. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, 9 November 1923, p. 14, reporting on the fortieth Brewers’ Exhibition and Market, held at the Agricultural Hall, London, on 3 November 1923. Bull’s-eye News, winter 2002, downloaded 15 February 2003 from wwwbullsey-enews.com/feature2301–01.htm. Amelia Leggatt, memoirs, p. 7. By 1929 the Nodor company was also producing brass-ferruled ‘Trueflight’ darts, prices ranging from h 3d to h 9d per set. Kent & Cleal, Wholesale and Shipping Catalogue of Indoor Games, List No. 6, 1929/30 (1928), p. 19. Darts and Sports Review, 10 September 1938, p. 6. Memoirs of Sally Hood (Jack Hood’s daughter), published on her home page at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/sallyhoo/ (downloaded 2 August 2004), and e-mail from Sally Hood to Patrick Chaplin, 20 August 2004. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 80–1 and 86. Paul Thompson, The Edwardians – The Remaking of British Society, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 30. Memoirs of Sally Hood and e-mail from Sally Hood to Patrick Chaplin, 20 August 2004. For the history of cycling see Andrew Ritchie, King of the Road – An Illustrated History of Cycling (London: Wildwood House, 1975). For the

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84

85 86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

early history of the cycle industry see W Grew, The Cycle Industry – Its Origin, History and Latest Developments (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1921). For the ice-cream industry see K. A. Hyde and J. Rothwell, Ice Cream (London: Churchill Livingstone, 1973). Sally Hood, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin, 5 October 2003, p. 1, and Norman Barber, Where Have all the Breweries Gone? (Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1984), pp. 23–4. John F. Hill, interview with Patrick Chaplin, 9 June 1994. Sally Hood, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin, 13 May 2005. Darts World, June 1982, p. 39; Darts Player 97, p. 44. One of a series of undated photographs of Jack Hood’s company in the possession of the author, obtained on 18 February 1999 from Don Coutts, of Christchurch, Dorset, darts player and author of the booklet Play Better Darts (Croydon: World Magazines, no date but c. 1978). One of a series of undated photographs of Jack Hood’s company in the possession of the author, obtained on 18 February 1999 from Don Coutts. Sally Hood, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin, 3 September 2004. This involvement of two members of the elite of the darts industry is discussed in Chapter 5. Morning Advertiser, 22 December 1926, p. 1. Ibid., 4 November 1926, p. 9. Nigel Thompson, great grandson of Henri Perrigo, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin dated 6 January 2000. Nigel Thompson, e-mail dated 6 January 2000. Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 12. When asked what wood was used in the manufacture of dartboards Jack Hood stated, ‘It’s a saying in darts that men play with the same wood as they are buried in.’ (The Anchor Magazine, June 1929, p. 118.) Mike Bender, ‘John Ross – Memoirs of a Dart-throwing Man’, unpublished manuscript (December 1983), pp. 17–18. Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 10. ‘Coir fiber’ was made from the husks of coconuts. Ibid., p. 10. Patent No. 407336 (25319/32). Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 11. Ibid., pp. 12 and 14. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, p. 115. Bender, ‘John Ross – Memoirs of a Darts-playing Man’, p. 17. John Young, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dart Board (London: W Foulsham & Co., 1938), p. 13. Darts World, 13 (December 1973), p. 33; Bull’s-eye News, November 1995, p. 16. Stephen Westover, arboricultural and sylvicultural consultant, e-mail to Patrick Chaplin, 4 June 2004.

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109 Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier, TJ February 1925. Interestingly, ‘red elm’, ulmus rubra, was a species of elm very difficult to cultivate in England but native to the central and eastern United States. (As per e-mail from Stephen Westover, 4 June 2004.) This is the first evidence of wood being imported for the manufacture of dartboards. 110 Roger Messer, son of William Messer, interview with Patrick Chaplin, Thursday 6 May 2004. 111 Darts World, 4 (March 1973), p. 10. In 1973 Sidney Marks’s company, M.Y. (Darts), produced 25 million darts and 4 million dartboards and claimed to be the country’s biggest manufacturers of darts and dartboards, not only introducing children to the game but also ‘bringing in formerly disinterested parents’. (Ibid., March 1973, p. 10.) 112 Ibid., 177 (August 1987), p. 24. 113 Stanley R. Lowy, MBE, interview with Patrick Chaplin, 16 August 1996. Although the patent application was dated 4 November 1937, the specification was not finally accepted until 3 May 1938 (patent No. GB484292). 114 Stanley Lowy, interview with Patrick Chaplin, 16 August 1996. 115 Lowerson, Sport and the English Middle Classes, p. 228. 116 Stanley Lowy, interview 16 August 1996, and Darts World August 1987, pp. 24–5. 117 Darts World, August 1987, p. 24. 118 Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend – A Social History of Great Britain 1918–1939 (London: Faber & Faber, 1941), p. 385; Daily Herald, 6 February 1937, p. 8; Radio Times, 18 June 1937, p. 8. 119 For the important role of the News of the World in the development of darts during the inter-war years see Chapter 7. 120 Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, p. 300. For discussion of the role of the royal couple in promoting darts, especially among women, see Chapter 7. 121 The Brewer and Licensed Retailer, October 1939, p. 54. Both Nodor and Unicorn remain among the elite of the darts industry in the twenty-first century. Jack Hood’s company closed almost immediately after his death from a heart attack on 5 August 1951. (E-mail, Sally Hood to Patrick Chaplin, 5 October 2003.) For a brief overview of the darts industry today see Catherine Eade, ‘Tip of the iceberg’, Sports Insight, September 2006, pp. 27–9.

The darts craze of the 1930s

Darts, the pastime of Kings, Cabinet Ministers, novelists, stage, screen and sports stars, has become the most popular game in Great Britain … and darts matches are among the most popular of BBC broadcasts.1

D

arts became a cultural phenomenon in England in the 1930s. The continuing effective interaction between the brewers, the NDA, the press and other media, licensees and darts players since the mid-1920s had expanded working-class participation in the game across England but, in addition, had brought about a significant, albeit temporary, change in the social status of the game. Darts had been transformed from a largely working-class game which, Robert Graves and Alan Hodge observed, was ‘only occasionally indulged in by middle-class commercial travellers’ into a recreation where ‘Darts, with beer and sausages, became as upper-class as bridge, with whisky and pâté de foie gras sandwiches.’2 The 1930s played host to many leisure novelties, including mah-jong, the pogo stick and the yo-yo, but darts had a much wider appeal to the novelty seekers, and this interest was reflected in other examples of mass culture – in the cinema, the theatre, in literature, in the press, on radio and television and in advertising.3 This chapter will interpret the craze for darts in terms of these cultural forms and assess the impact of darts across English society during the ‘devil’s decade’. The 1930s were also a time when more women participated in the game. How this happened and the problems that were encountered also form a part of this chapter. As the popularity of the game increased during the inter-war years, darts, like other sports, generated its first local heroes – ordinary men who displayed extraordinary talent in their chosen recreation; men who commanded respect and support from within their local community as they took on the challenge of all comers. Bradford stoneworker and darts player Harold Barker will be used to illustrate the few opportunities

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afforded to a small number of darts players to make a living from the game. The devil’s decade Despite its being a period of great economic and social upheaval, leisure expanded during the 1930s. Andrew Thorpe has suggested that, in recent years, the social history of this period ‘has joined or even replaced, economics as the arena in which historians differ most significantly’.4 However, both present-day and contemporary social commentators have found it difficult to agree on the true nature of the 1930s.5 Asa Briggs argued that one’s view of the 1930s depended ‘on whether the spotlight is turned on Jarrow or on Slough; on Merthyr Tydfil or on Oxford; on Greenock and Birkenhead or on Coventry, Weston-super-Mare and the environs of London’.6 Historians John Stevenson and Chris Cook were of the view that, of all the periods in recent history, the 1930s has had the ‘worst press’. The Second World War served to perpetuate the more depressing image of the decade, partly because ‘the politics of the immediate post-war era were fought on the record of the pre-war years’.7 Therefore, post-war politicians drew no real comparison between the negative images of the decade, for example, the Jarrow march, and the positive images, such as the economic development of areas such as Slough. The archetypal image of the age is one of hunger marches and mass unemployment. However, in attempting to reconcile the distorted image of the 1930s, McKibbin argued that, whilst nearly all working-class men and women experienced some period of unemployment during the inter-war years, for most the period was short. Despite the economic recovery of the 1930s, for those who remained part of the old staple industries, mainly located in the north-east, the northwest, the west of Scotland and South Wales, the periods of unemployment were long, if not permanent.8 A. J. P. Taylor’s view was that the 1930s were ‘the black years, the devil’s decade’, expressing the decade’s popular image in two phrases: ‘mass unemployment’ and ‘appeasement’. However, despite painting this depressing sketch of the period, Taylor added: Yet, at the same time, most English people were enjoying a richer life than any previously known in the history of the world: longer holidays, shorter hours, and higher real wages. They had motor cars, cinemas, radio sets, and electrical appliances. The two sides of life did not join up.9

The darts craze of the 1930s

Despite the dole queues, the Means Test and the vulnerability of those industries that had, in the past, been responsible for Britain’s domination of world markets, the leisure industry was expanding and so, therefore, were leisure options for all. However, Peter Bailey has noted that ‘overall, as the two indicators of time and expenditure show, leisure appeared to thrive’.10 Thorpe developed this theme, stating that the ‘changing pattern of leisure was one of the most significant aspects of British social history in the 1930s’ and identified three preconditions that were necessary to afford the expansion of leisure, namely time, money and provision, all of which. he argued. were present ‘to an unprecedented degree’ during the 1930s. The increase in leisure provision was occasioned by three main agencies: the local authorities, voluntary organisations (including Churches) and, most important of all, private enterprise and investment. Thorpe indicated that ‘The sheer expansion of the range and output of leisure activities must temper, or even destroy, any view that the Thirties was a decade of depression.’11 However, Keith Laybourn has argued that, whilst unemployment was the dominant social and political issue in British society during the inter-war years, particularly in relation to those regions that were not dependent upon the staple industries of coal, engineering, shipbuilding and textiles, there was also evidence of rising living standards due to the economic progress made in the Midlands and south-eastern consumer industries. As we noted earlier, whilst the working class in those regions were prospering, that did not, Laybourn argued, offset the impact of the Depression.12 Darts and the mass culture of the 1930s Despite the conflicting images of the 1930s, it is clear that all classes including the working class – had more time for leisure and more leisure opportunities and that a number of affordable recreational activities were available to the working class, ranging from non-participative/participative sports, such as football, to the passive offerings of speedway and greyhound racing, where thousands of people sat or stood watching their chosen sport which had few of the benefits of actual participation.13 Both greyhound racing and speedway racing, introduced in the 1920s, also increased in popularity.14 But whilst both were spectator sports, they were also almost totally commercialised from the beginning, there also being little amateur speedway.15 Comparatively, throughout the period, whilst elements of darts were commercialised, the game remained essentially an amateur pursuit, with few players being paid to play and then never enough to rate them as

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11 Sheet music of ‘The Dart Song’, 1937

full-time professionals. Thus throughout the inter-war years the game was free from the disputes and debate concerning amateurism so deeply ingrained in other sports.16 For darts, as with other leisure forms, the 1930s were a period of consolidation and expansion. It was also the moment during which television made its initial appearance, in the London area. In the south, in particular, darts also embraced, albeit momentarily, the elite, including members of the royal family. The popularity of the cinema continued to expand during the 1930s. In 1934 the estimated total number of cinema admissions amounted to

The darts craze of the 1930s

963 million per year.17 Since the early twentieth century the cinema had been a significant threat to the public house, although some evidence suggests that middle-aged and elderly males, in the East End of London at least, continued to find their main relaxation in ‘pigeon clubs, in darts matches and championships, in their working men’s clubs, their trade unions and political organizations and … radio construction and listening’, with women and young people seemingly almost entirely dependent on the cinema for their entertainment.18 As Selina Todd and David Fowler have argued, whilst young working-class women’s consumption of leisure items increased during the inter-war period, particularly on visits to the cinema and dance halls, cosmetics, clothing and magazines, young working-class men, although keen and regular visitors to cinemas and dance halls, spent less on their personal appearance and more on books, hobbies, sports and motor cycles, whilst for the older men leisure lay in smoking, drinking and gambling.19 Dance halls, with an increasing emphasis on imported American music, continued to flourish during the 1930s and, as Stevenson argued, such venues as the local ‘palais’ were probably the ‘only major rival to the public house and the cinema for an evening out in the average town’.20 This is reinforced by James Nott’s work in which he demonstrates that dancing ‘increased the boundaries of sociability’ and was of particular significance for women because they found in dance similar cultural and physical creativity that men found in sport and, for working-class women in particular Nott argued dance was a ‘wholly liberating force’.21 Opportunities for gambling also increased during the inter-war years. The introduction of the football pools diverted hard-earned, mainly workingclass, wages into a dream of easy money and an escape from the general drudgery of everyday life.22 Private companies fuelled the growth of mass culture by producing affordable leisure products, including the wireless/radio and gramophones, while those with greater disposable income could afford a television or a motor car. The mass-produced motor car afforded owners the opportunity to drive out into the country and explore the rural areas and visit the new, improved and rural public houses where darts could often be found. Improvements in bus and coach services ensured that those in outlying villages could travel into town for shopping or to visit the cinema or dance hall.23 In addition, sales of bicycles continued to rise during the decade and had become a working-class necessity.24 Both local and national government continued to recognise the importance of leisure provision. Local authorities provided facilities including swimming baths, public parks and recreation grounds, libraries and, often in partnership with

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private companies, community centres. Leisure during the 1930s was operating within an increasingly organised and centralised framework.25 Also the increased availability of all forms of popular music, James Nott argues, not only ‘significantly increased the social and expressive possibilities of working-class life’ but also played a part in producing and maintaining political stability during a time of great economic and social upheaval.26 Women, darts and masculinity Throughout the inter-war period there were few forms of popular culture that were not male-dominated. Drinking, gambling and sport were, as Andrew Davies suggests, the cornerstones of traditional male working-class popular culture which were central to the formation of masculine identities, sport especially being ‘overwhelmingly male-dominated’. Davies argues that leisure activities were ‘firmly structured by gender’, with women enjoying far fewer opportunities for leisure than men, women’s main preoccupation being ‘household management’.27 During a period popularly regarded as one of female emancipation and greater social freedom for women it is difficult to come to terms with this concept given that the majority of working-class mothers not only had the family to contend with but also, out of necessity, had to seek employment to make ends meet. Any working-class mother with a large family had little money to expend on forms of leisure.28 However, evidence has shown that, when they were able to afford it, working-class women did increasingly go dancing during the inter-war period, many finding in dance ‘the same kind of cultural and physical creativity that men found in sport but which had hitherto been denied women’.29 In addition many working-class women sought escapism at the local cinema and found a seat at ‘the pictures’ ‘one of the easiest and cheapest ways of getting a change from the daily round’.30 However, the social lives of working-class women had to be ‘maintained within financial, domestic and moral constraints’, the needs of the family being put before their own, and thus in working-class communities women in general enjoyed fewer opportunities to socialise than men.31 And, within this framework of working-class community and poverty, there were two competing notions of masculinity which dictated the behaviour of working-class males in terms of leisure. First, the male who was family-oriented, family-focused and saw his priority as providing bread on the table could act out his control over and exploitation of women (his wife) and his family without recourse to external factors such as the public

The darts craze of the 1930s

house. Second, there was the man who placed his personal, selfish desires before provision for his family and thus identified himself with the ‘masculine spheres’ of sport and the pub and demonstrated his control by actions that were tantamount to abandoning his wife (and family) in order to indulge, for example, the masculine pleasures of the public house.32 The generally accepted view of the 1930s is that women rarely visited pubs and, if they did, few would do so unaccompanied, their leisure choice being primarily the cinema or dancing.33 Although Mass Observation’s research showed that in Bolton in the late 1930s between 16 per cent and 19.5 per cent of pub customers were women, the vaults and tap rooms were ‘tabu [sic] to them’, women to be seen only in the parlours and the lounge bars. Having recorded these data, Mass Observation added that on only one occasion had women been observed in a vault, in a large towncentre pub which had a ‘very good class’ vault ‘with chairs and tables’. However, Mass Observation revealed that the two women were not locals but ‘women of the market, gypsy types The other taboo identified by Mass Observation was that ‘women don’t stand at the bar’. Again, Mass Observation noted only one example of this custom being ‘violated’ by ladies who were members of a touring company, ‘Londoners … and middle class ones’. According to Mass Observation, both these taboos were unbroken by ‘ordinary working-class women’, although those ordinary women would later be observed drinking in vaults and standing in bars in Blackpool during holiday week.34 The absence of women in bars such as the vault which were effectively closed to them not only reinforced the notion of the patriarchy of the public house but also restricted any opportunities women may have had to enter into recreations such as darts. Valerie Hey’s work relating to women and the pub in the 1930s is very much focused on patriarchy and the ‘bourgeois masculinity of the public house’, the ‘classic token woman’ (the barmaid) and the exclusivity of the tap room to male customers, which usually offered a variety of games, developed as a men’s games/club room ‘out of bounds to women’, their place being either the lounge bar or ‘best room’.35 Shirley Ardener’s argument that ‘it is often the presence of men that defines a space as … out of bounds to women’ certainly appears to ring true of the 1930s Bolton tap room, where the sanctity of these men-only bars reinforced the masculinity of the public house.36 The tap room or vault could never be described as a gender-neutral space. Indeed, Mass Observation cites one premises in Bolton where the door to the vault bore a notice, ‘Gentlemen only’.37 But the Mass Observation study was one of a kind. It was restricted to Bolton, and to a lesser extent Liverpool, and it is thus to be regretted that

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its groundbreaking research into English public houses had not commenced earlier to afford time to undertake comparative research in public houses in the more affluent south, for it was there that darts, in terms of women’s participation, was making most progress. This may have been due to a more relaxed attitude to women by southern licensees and male customers to the presence of women in public bars. Although insufficient evidence can be found to confirm this, significant data can be found to challenge Hey’s view of the exclusivity and control of the pub by men and show that women were allowed access to the inner sanctum of the public bar and did participate in darts in pubs in the 1930s, had their own darts leagues in some areas and were, very occasionally, successful when pitted against men. Even before the Queen threw three darts at Slough in 1937 (discussed below), and despite the perception that the patriarchal nature of the pub prevented women from playing darts, the game was becoming more popular with women in the south and the opportunities for participation were increasing. From a physical point of view there were no reasons why women should not compete against men; only a modicum of strength being required to propel a dart. Women, if permitted, could play on an equal footing with men provided they had access to the necessary equipment, the chief requisites of playing the game being ‘a true eye, a neat movement of the wrist and correct balance’, qualities which Wellington suggested women displayed to a marked degree and which often made them difficult opponents.38 Of primary importance to the development of ladies’ darts in the south of England was that they were allowed to participate in the News of the World competition, which ran thousands of ‘house’ matches in public houses prior to the main area and divisional finals. Women were in open competition against men in public bars across southern England but their success tended to be confined to the early rounds, female players rarely making it to the area finals. However, in March 1936 Mrs Chandler, playing at the NDA headquarters at the Hanbury Arms, Linden Street, London, ‘more than held her own’ against the men with scores of 78, 82, 91, 95 and 99. Although Mrs Chandler failed to finish she was described by the News of the World reporter as ‘a good loser’.39 In May the same year Miss E. Turnage, from the Cherry Tree, Cressing Road, Witham, Essex, became the first lady player to win through to the last eight of a News of the World area final, held at the Golden Fleece, Chelmsford.40 In March 1937 the News of the World recognised that women were playing a prominent part in the championship not only because of the success of Mrs Chandler

The darts craze of the 1930s

and Miss Turnage but also because of the unparalleled success of Mrs A. Morgan of the Old House at Home, Colden Common, Hampshire.41 By March 1937 Mrs. Morgan had played well enough to make it through the preliminary stages to what the News of the World described as ‘the competition proper’.42 The Winchester area News of the World Individual Championship was held on Monday 12 April 1937 and a local darts correspondent reinforced the value of Mrs Morgan’s participation, noting that it was ‘a novel experience’ but conceding that ladies’ darts would be well represented, as Mrs Morgan had won through four previous rounds, all against men, and therefore had earned the right to be there.43 Mrs Morgan then won the Winchester area competition against an all-male field and became the first woman to win a News of the World area title.44 On 24 June 1937 Mrs Morgan joined thirty-one other area champions – all male – at the Agricultural Hall, Westminster, to contest the grand final. The woman ‘who had beaten all the men in the Winchester district’ was accompanied by a large number of supporters. Unfortunately, like a number of men who were expected to do well, Mrs Morgan was unable to reproduce her home form at the main event and was eliminated in the first round. However, the News of the World reported that Mrs Morgan ‘may be proud of the fact that she is the first woman to take a place in the final’.45 There is no evidence that the male finalists thought any the worse of Mrs Morgan competing because she was a woman. However, this might have been different and more revealed concerning male attitudes to women playing darts if she had won the championship outright. Mrs Morgan’s progress in the News of the World competition was the best performance by any woman, never bettered in the history of the competition.46 Given that women were afforded few opportunities to play, and particularly to play competitively in the male-dominated public house environment, it seems surprising that Mrs Morgan managed to achieve the required standard and the experience to become proficient at darts and win through to the grand final of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship. However, Mrs Morgan’s task was made easier because she was the wife of the licensee of the Old House at Home. The opportunity to play was afforded to her by her husband’s occupation and her presence behind the bar rather than by any freedom women may have felt at the time to venture into a public bar and encroach on established male territory. The tap room customers would have been more receptive to Mrs Morgan’s presence, as wife of the licensee, in the bar and at the dartboard. Mrs Morgan stepping from behind the bar counter and offering to play the men at darts would have been greeted in a welcoming way. The attitude of

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the customers, the locals, would have been different from that which male occupants of the tap room would have adopted if a female customer had simply walked into the bar and attempted to join the locals in a game of darts. The case of Miss Turnage of Witham, Essex, in May 1936 was similar to that of Mrs Morgan. Miss Turnage was the daughter of James Turnage, the licensee of the Cherry Tree.47 Further evidence that the tap room was not as closed to women as appeared to be indicated by earlier research is that, by the mid-1950s, some brewers were running darts championships exclusively for women. On 21 May 1937 ‘remarkable play by a girl’ was witnessed at the final of the Taylor Walker Ladies’ Championship, held at the Ironbridge Tavern, East India Dock Road, London. The finalists were Mrs Gotobed (of the Bishop Bonner) and Miss Ring (the Duchess of Kent, Islington). They played two games, both exhibiting ‘amazing skill’ with no trace of nerves. Miss Ring, who was only sixteen years of age, won both games.48 Ladies’ leagues were also in place by the mid-1950s, for example, the Isleworth brewery in Middlesex setting up its league in 1934.49 During 1937 the Darts and Sports Weekly News reported regularly on ladies’ matches which included successes over men and in response to the question ‘Should women play darts?’ the editor of the newspaper suggested that inevitably ‘No mere man will stop them.’50 In 1938 the brewing trade was ‘happy to note that in this darts boom women were taking their part’, brewers having instituted women’s darts knockout competitions to be played in public houses. The industry was certain that ‘when women associate themselves with any activity attaching to the licensed house, better conditions follow’.51 In many cases it had been the better conditions of the improved public house which had encouraged more women to frequent licensed premises. As Valentine Williams observed in 1937, upon returning to London after fifteen years aboard, ‘People who in my younger days would never have thought of entering a public house now gather in the evenings, husbands and wives, for a glass in pleasant surroundings, varied by a game of darts or ping-pong or a turn on the adjacent dancefloor.’52 However, in the less affluent north-east of England attitudes to women’s darts appeared completely at odds with the south and in South Shields not without its controversy. The South Shields and District Darts League was inaugurated in 1935 and thrived, but by 1937 problems were being experienced in terms of women’s participation. According to research undertaken by Michael Gilmore, a South Shields darts player and darts league organiser, it had been recognised practice that, on the occasions when teams were short of a player,

The darts craze of the 1930s

a spectator would be invited to take his place and that occasionally the substitute would be a woman. Although this was not necessarily approved of by all the men present, the ‘intrusion’ tended to be overlooked – that is, until it came to light that two teams in the league had ‘ten women between them’. Such was the furore generated by the extent of women’s participation that a special meeting of the league was held and a motion put to the effect that ‘mixed darts must cease and that the league would continue to be managed by men’. Under pressure from the local press the secretary of the league, Mr Wilson, issued the following statement: There can be no objection to women playing darts in the ordinary way, but most teams will not stand for women and are opposed to them playing in league matches. It often happens that women accompany the teams and occasionally some of them have taken part. It is suggested, however, that, as good as their aim may be, they are temperamentally unsuited to the game. Experience has shown that they quickly lose their heads. Although they are enthusiastic, they get excited and give out a yell which is very disconcerting to the men. The men have complained and they are not going to stand for it.

Subsequently the subscriptions paid by the ten women were returned and they ceased to be members of the league.53 Darts was but a small part of a rigid male subculture in the north-east born of living (and sometimes working) in an ‘industrially crippled area’ in the 1930s.54 The statement above from the league secretary, whilst acknowledging that women had the essential skills necessary to participate, is a sweeping generalisation of men’s perceived fallacies about women and indicates a dramatic closing of ranks on the all-male committee to exclude without redress all women from the league. By such action the threat from women to men’s gregarious pub activities and also to their masculinity is repelled, male dominance of darts in South Shields secured and the male subculture preserved. However, graciously, women were allowed to play darts in the ‘ordinary way’, a reference to basic, day-to-day participation in the public bar. Thus women could make up numbers in friendly games in their local or play ‘ordinary’ games for pleasure but they were no longer welcome in league competition. This exclusion from the league occasioned one woman to write to the local Gazette to the effect that to exclude women from the league was ‘shameful’ and that, ‘rather than suffer the humiliation of a beating at the hands of the weaker sex, men are determined to keep women out of the game’. Given the male-dominated nature of the pub this was most probably true. The correspondent added, ‘Male members of the

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league have found that in darts, as in any other games which were once monopolised by men, women are not infrequently their equals’, the writer concluding, ‘They may keep us out of the game for a short while, but the time will come when they will have to admit us.’55 Despite this determination there is no evidence to show that women were welcomed back into the South Shields and District Darts League during the remainder of the decade. Whilst women’s participation in some sports, such as cricket and tennis, continued to be encouraged and actively promoted during the 1930s, the women dart players of South Shields may have sought some solace from women footballers whose attempts to promote and expand their game in the male-dominated sport post-1918 were, to all intents and purposes, destroyed by the Football Association in December 1921 when the FA announced that the ladies could no longer use the grounds of any of its affiliated groups. One important exception was the Dick Kerr Ladies, of Preston, sponsored by the Hey brewery, of Bradford, a team which was determined that women should not be kept out of the game and who managed to continue to play despite the FA ban by using stadiums that were not under FA jurisdiction. However, in the main, ladies’ football lost the considerable momentum it had built up since 1918 and it would not be until the late 1960s that it resurfaced again to any significant extent.56 Outside the confines of the public house women were afforded other opportunities to play darts. There were few restrictions to playing the game at home or as an adjunct to works social functions. In the home darts took the form of family entertainment, often entered into when bad weather forced young people indoors. For example, Joyce King, aged eighteen, who had purchased a dartboard on 14 November 1939, recorded in her diary on 25 November, Albert [her fiancé] came home for the week-end. Rained. So played darts.’57 As regards more formal social functions, at the annual staff social of the Terminus Road, Eastbourne, branch of Boot’s the chemists in February 1939 whist, dancing and a darts competition were the main features of the evening. In the latter event the women ‘proved to be better darts players than the gentlemen’. On 30 March the same year, at the last Boot’s dance of the season at Stamford Street, London, a darts competition was included, the winner of which, ‘to everyone’s mild surprise’ was a woman, Miss I. M. Smith.58 The level of women’s participation in darts during the 1930s was never so great as to threaten to displace it as a men’s game of the public house and never sufficient to displace men from the tap room. However, men

The darts craze of the 1930s

had sufficient cause to feel challenged by women and in some cases, as in South Shields, direct action was taken to exclude women. One contemporary writer at the end of the period insisted that ‘Darts … remains, for all its intrinsic merit, a social performance; and with beer and tobacco, and rather coarse talk … essentially a masculine pastime.’59 Indeed, throughout the 1930s darts remained primarily a male activity, although the participation of women has been shown to be far greater than any previous scholarly research has indicated. Darts and the popular press Throughout the 1930s the increase in the popularity of darts was assisted by and reflected in other developed or developing elements of popular culture, especially in the popular press. In the 1930s darts was achieving an increasingly prominent place in English society, that place being enhanced by the attention the game was receiving from the popular and influential News of the World. Ever since the 1840s the News of the World, and other Sunday newspapers such as Lloyd’s Weekly News, had developed, as Adrian Bingham argues, ‘a successful mixture based essentially upon humaninterest stories spiced in some way with sex, crime, or both, supplemented with sport and music features’.60 By the end of the nineteenth century newspapers had become ‘securely implanted into the cultural landscape as an essential reference point in the daily lives of millions of people’ and journalism ‘lurked in such unedifying places as inns and street corners’.61 The Sunday newspapers were the first successful mass newspapers in England, were popular in reach and had the ability, as Martin Conboy argues, ‘to articulate aspects of authentic popular experience of everyday life and express it in a language identifiable as belonging to its audience’.62 The most successful of the Sunday newspapers was the News of the World. Before the Great War two Sunday papers, the News of the World and The People, had become Britain’s most popular newspapers. By 1937 the circulation of the News of the World had reached 3,850,000, compared with 1,500,000 in 1910. Its major rival, The People, had a circulation of 3,406,000 in 1937, compared with 2,535,000 in 1930.63 Between them in 1931/32 the News of the World and The People held 46.87 per cent of the total readership of Sunday newspapers: the News of the World 24.32 per cent, The People 22.55 per cent.64 The major reason for the News of the World’s success and great influence among sports fans was that it was prepared to cover what were then regarded as minority sports, which included bowls, angling, pigeon

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racing and snooker. Many years before darts was popular on television, the News of the World was, in terms of the London area, enthusiastically and comprehensively covering what the newspaper would eventually help to become one of the most popular of working men’s pastimes.65 As shown in Chapter 5, the News of the World was the first newspaper to inaugurate a major London-based darts competition. The Sunday newspaper, with its potent mixture of scandal, sport and political revelations, was an ideal medium through which to reach millions of working-class pubgoers and promote its individual darts competition. The News of the World was directly linked with the brewers via membership of the executive of the NDA, whose rules the newspaper used in its championship and the staff of which co-ordinated the competition. However, although by the late 1930s coverage of football occupied 10 per cent of the sports pages of the News of the World (and indeed The People), darts rarely featured on the back pages, most often found inside the newspaper and, outside the period of their competition, consisted of short reports of less than 300 words. Nevertheless, this was sufficient to ensure that interest in the News of the World Individual Darts Championship ran into many thousands. In 1930 the News of the World competition was in its third year and, although it was still restricted to the London area, the number of entrants and overall interest in the competition were growing year on year. The first detailed report of a News of the World final appeared in May 1930. Sceptical reporters – who had previously reported on other sports – wrote of being pleasantly surprised by the ‘uncanny accuracy’ of the players and marvelled at the ‘wholehearted enjoyment and keenness of the spectators’. They noted too that partisanship ran high and admitted that there was ‘more in the game of darts than would appear at first sight’66. This report adjudges that there was little difference between darts and any other sport in terms of its general appeal, the skill and enthusiasm of the exponents or the behaviour of the supporters. There was no attempt to link darts solely with the working class or to deride the game in any way, the reporters admiring the skill of the ‘practised artists’. However, as the News of the World was, at that time, the only national newspaper regularly reporting on darts the report could be seen as self-promoting, a report designed to elevate the importance of darts from a common pub pastime to a sport, to promote the game, the newspaper’s individual darts competition (which in 1927, as has been noted, was the latest in a line of sporting ‘tests’ or competitions supported by the newspaper) and thus further increase the circulation of the News of the World. The News of the World Individual Darts Championship remained restricted to the London area for eight years but gradually expanded as

The darts craze of the 1930s

interest in darts, and in the individual championship, grew. For the 1935/36 season the London Area was expanded to embrace the Home Counties, becoming ‘London and the Home Counties’, only to be expanded again in the following season to include the southern counties and be known as ‘London and the South. In 1936/37 a new and separate regional competition for Wales was introduced and in the following season the Lancashire region was added. The growth of interest and participation in the championship was phenomenal and by the start of the 1938/39 competition there were six regional competitions, indicating the swift geographical spread of the game. The six regions in 1938 were London and the South, Wales, Lancashire and Cheshire, Yorkshire, the North of England and the Midland Counties.67 The News of the World also introduced new technology into the presentation of darts at the grand finals which enabled improved accessibility by large audiences to the progress of the competition. Viewing the 1939 final between Jim Pike and Marmaduke Brecon was facilitated by the employment for the first time of a huge electric scoreboard. An operator sat in front of an electronic console, able to see every throw, then ‘made finger contact with the appropriate representative segment on the console which instantaneously illuminated that segment on the scoreboard overhead’.68 Although by 1939 there were six separate regional championships in the News of the World competition, there was no recognised national champion. The News of the World had not promoted a national competition because the varying conditions and rules under which darts was being played in different parts of the country made organisation difficult, an indication that the executive of the NDA still had some way to go in their programme of standardisation. Some players, including John Ross, who was a News of the World London Area finalist in 1939, delayed entering the News of the World competition as they were unfamiliar with the clock board. Ross had until then played all his competition darts on the London ‘fives’ board.69 Towards the end of the 1930s the organisers of the News of the World competition met to consider how to move forward with the concept of a national competition. However, the war intervened and ‘the challenge of unification’ had to be abandoned.70 In 1948, when the News of the World Individual Darts Championship of England and Wales finals were being held for the first time since the war, ‘The Champ’ looked back at the early days of the competition and remarked, ‘it brought into the limelight the ordinary little man of sport’ – a man who otherwise would never have had the opportunity of hitting the headlines.71 This, in essence, was the spirit of

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the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, giving the working man an opportunity of achieving the status of champion. For many years, and extending beyond the period of this book, in thousands of pubs and working men’s clubs throughout England, it was simply the only darts tournament that mattered and was a time when every average pub player dreamed of standing on the stage … in London … accepting the applause of the cheering multitude who always turned up to watch.72 A brief review of some of the News of the World competitions during the 1930s shows that the winners were almost exclusively manual workers. Sammy Stone, the inaugural winner of the News of the World, was a slater. The 1929/30 winner, Charlie Bowley, was an asphalter, the 1930/31 champion, Tommy Nye, an engineers assistant and Harry Enever, the winner in 1932/33, was a horticultural labourer.73 Importantly, the cost of entry was negligible and the darts equipment cheap to buy, maintain or replace. Travel and associated costs were minimal, too, as all the preliminary rounds took place in the entrants’ local pub or, at worse, a recognised ‘Area house’ a short distance away. Darts was an affordable pastime for the ordinary working-class pubgoer and the competition was open to all. By the end of the 1930s hundreds of thousands of darts-playing men and women had entered the competition in the hope of becoming champion. The News of the World championship became the ‘highlight of each darts season’.74 Although the outbreak of war prevented the News of the World from completing its plans to make its competition national, one of its major competitors succeeded. In 1938 The People newspaper launched the National Darts Teams Championship. This consisted of teams of twelve darts players from all over the country competing for the Lord Lonsdale Challenge Trophy. Undoubtedly noting the growing success of the News of the World Individual Championship, The People first ran the competition in the 1938/39 season. Shortly afterwards, when war broke out, the competition was abandoned for the duration.75 Also in 1938 the Sunday Pictorial announced the introduction of a Pairs Championship of England, Scotland and Wales. Ladies were welcome ‘either in pairs or mixed doubles’ and, linking into charitable works, all proceeds from entry fees would be given to the Pirates’ Spring Holiday Home for Blind Children, managed by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB).76 As has been previously noted, darts received infrequent and patchy coverage in other national newspapers, and reports in local and provincial newspapers were few and far between, thus reinforcing further the vital role played by the News of the World in helping shape darts as a national pastime.

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12 Charlie Bowley (right) of the Shakespeare’s Head, Finsbury, London, winner of the News of the World Individual Darts Championship, 1929/30

Darts and broadcasting In addition to the popular press, other mass media assisted in the promotion of darts during the latter part of the period. By the early 1920s the wireless had become one of the most important forms of mass communication in the country and, as Arthur Marwick argued, ‘played a decisive part in shaping contemporary British society’.77

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Established in 1922 under the stewardship of Director General Sir John Reith, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was an independent national institution dedicated to the raising of public taste, and played a significant part in standardising British culture.78 During the General Strike of 1926 the BBC provided a regular and steady supply of news and announcements across the whole of the country, greatly assisting the government of the day. Without this provision, Asa Briggs argues, the ‘national course of events might well have been different’.79 In 1927 the BBC made the transformation to ‘Corporation’ and this action made accessible for the first time many public events from which the BBC had until then been effectively barred. In particular sport was increasingly broadcast, with live coverage of a rugby match at Twickenham, the Grand National at Aintree and the FA Cup at Wembley being broadcast in quick succession that year.80 Radio had arrived when consumer strength was improving, when most workers had established regular spare time in which to indulge their hobbies, sports or other recreational interests.81 The majority of working-class families, often with the assistance of hire-purchase arrangements, were able to afford the price of a radio.82 By 1932 43 per cent of British households – approximately 20 million people – had a radio and by 1939 the figures had risen to 75 per cent and 34 million.83 It was not until 1936 that darts, which was becoming popularised through the press and gaining the attention of all classes, was first broadcast by the BBC. As Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff have argued, much of the material broadcast by the BBC held little appeal for the working class, many tuning into the ‘lighter’ programming of the commercial radio station Radio Luxembourg after its inauguration in 1933 to escape the ‘drear Sunday’ and the ‘rigid attitude to humour’ of the ‘rather staid’ BBC.84 It was only in the regional programmes that the ‘stuffed shirt persona’ of the BBC was removed and working-class listeners attracted.85 On Tursday 28 May 1936, at 8.15 p.m., the BBC Regional Service broadcast darts for the first time. A ‘descriptive commentary’ was featured from The Horns public house, Kennington on the finals of the ‘Team Championship of London’.86 Neither the Radio Times nor The Listener published a detailed announcement of this broadcasting ‘first’.87 Scheduled between the BBC Dance Orchestra, directed by Henry Hall, and the performance of selections from the works of Mendelssohn, Wagner and Berlioz by the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra, it is clear that this fifteen-minute inaugural darts broadcast, although produced by the regional service ostensibly for the local listener, was not targeted at the working class but the middle and upper classes; either that or the

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programme schedulers at the BBC believed that by placing darts between two orchestral performances some of the ‘culture’ might rub off on the working-class listener. Following the May 1936 broadcast, darts became an occasional feature on the BBC regional network. The first ‘local derby’ was broadcast on 25 November 1937 between the Hanbury Arms and the Caledonian Arms, Islington, and held at the former.88 On 9 March 1938 darts was broadcast for the first time on West of England radio: coverage of the West of England Championship.89 Indicative of the increasing interest in the ladies’ game, the regional network featured a commentary from Charles Garner on 19 April 1938 of the finals of the Ladies’ Individual Darts Championship from the Adam and Eve public house, Homerton.90 Describing such items as ladies’ darts on the radio as ‘esoteric’, Dennis Brailsford has argued that commentaries remained a ‘minor element’ of sports broadcasting at this time.91 In November 1938 F. H. Wallis, the winner of the 1936/37 News of the World London and Home Counties Individual Darts Competition, played ‘All Listeners’ in a novel broadcast from the Alexander Arms, Eastbourne, in which Wallis threw three darts; there was a pause while the listeners threw their three darts at home, registering their scores against the champion.92 On Friday 5 May 1939 the first broadcast ‘international’ match was played on the wireless between a team from Torquay, Devon, and a team from Londonderry, Torquay winning by three points to two.93 In June that same year playwright and broadcaster Ben Travers and writer and broadcaster A. G. Street commentated on a ‘live’ darts match played over the air between their two local pub teams.94 Short talks were the staple sporting fare on radio at this time, often of regional interest.95 On 5 February 1938 Gilbert Hoare spoke on the Northern network about darts. The Northern service included darts in its ‘Spotlight on Sport’ series on 5 February 1938 and on 4 January 1939 the Welsh service featured P. Lewis talking about darts in the programme ‘A word about indoor games’.96 Between the outbreak of war in September 1939 and the end of December 1939 the BBC Home Service broadcast three darts matches featuring the ‘services’ in their widest sense. On 11 October a team match between wardens and firemen was featured, on 24 October one between the Royal Air Force (Balloon Barrage Squadron) and the Royal Artillery (an anti-aircraft battery) and, on 18 December, a ‘challenge match between the City of London Police War Reserves and the London County Council Auxiliary Ambulance Drivers.97 The broadcasting of darts on radio on a regional basis reflected the areas in which darts’ popularity was at its highest, often centred on the

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progress of the News of the World competition and the NDA’s Charles Garner or the more novel versions such as the ‘live’ darts match played over the air cited above. The presence of darts on early television cannot be so easily explained. Television had been introduced by the BBC in August 1936, transmitting test programmes from its London Television Station at Alexandra Palace until the formal launch on 2 November.98 However, as Jeffrey Hill observed, this ‘public service’ reached ‘only a handful of rich households in the London area’.99 Surprisingly, darts was included on these limited early television schedules. At 9.25 p.m., on Saturday 29 May 1937, the BBC ‘London Television’ broadcast the first televised darts programme from Alexandra Palace. Entitled ‘Darts and shove ha’penny’, the programme featured a ‘competition between two rival teams of two well known hostelries’.100 On 5 February 1938 the BBC televised darts once more: a commentary by Charles Garner of the NDA on a match between the News of the World champions and a BBC team.101 On 30 April a match between a BBC four and a team from the Press Club was televised, again with Garner’s commentary, a return match being broadcast on 13 January 1939.102 The BBC televised the first ‘local derby’ on 15 October 1938 between teams from Islington and Lambeth and a darts match between two teams of four featured again on 22 July 1939.103 Given the novelty status of the game among those most likely to be viewing – those most able to afford a television set, that is, the middle and upper classes, it may be assumed that the BBC believed that darts was of sufficient interest to warrant inclusion in the schedule of programmes. Another factor for consideration may have been the comparative technological simplicity of broadcasting darts, and that darts was an indoor game. Although no contemporary records exist, photographic evidence of the televising of a darts match in the late 1940s between the St Dunstan Four and the Eye Hospital Four shows that two cameras were required, ‘one trained on the player as he throws, and the other on the board’, with a minimum number of sound and lighting technicians and a commentator in attendance.104 For those who could not and would not be able to afford to purchase a television set for many years to come there was, of course, the cinema. Darts, the cinema and cabaret For the entire inter-war period the cinema and the public house were in conflict, each looking to encourage people, especially the working class, to spend their limited leisure funds in their establishments by building bigger

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and ever more impressive establishments to attract custom. Over and above the on-going remodelling and redesign or construction of what is known as the improved public house, David Gutzke has examined what he describes as ‘super-pubs’; improved public houses known to have cost at least £20,000 which were lavishly decorated and furnished.105 Primarily found in Lancashire, Cheshire, in and around London and in suburban Birmingham, super-pubs often engaged in fierce rivalry with the ‘supercinemas’ over the same areas, often the building of one resulting in the appearance of the other.106 Those who were responsible for England’s cinemas seem to have been perturbed by the increase in popularity of darts. E. J. Higgins, vice-president of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association, was reported as stating that darts was a ‘particu lar menace’. This led the editor of Darts and Sports Review to comment, ‘It would seem that our game is more important than even we realised!’107 During the 1930s darts, although competing with the entertainment industry, occasionally interacted with the theatre, cinema and cabaret. In August 1937 the Darts Weekly News enthusiastically reported that Zelma O’Neal, ‘the popular film and musical comedy star’, always played darts in her dressing room, whilst later that same year its successor, Darts and Sports Weekly News, reported that John Mills had learnt his darts in the ‘novice side’ at the Guinea Inn, Mayfair, and that an interdepartmental darts league had been established at Pinewood Studios.108 In October 1937 Fox Photos of London captured opera singer Tudor Davies participating as a member of the Vic–Wells darts team in a match against a team from the BBC.109 However, despite the popularity of the game, darts appears to have been featured in only one major film in the 1930s: Son of Frankenstein (1939), which starred Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill.110 In a bizarre scene Baron Frankenstein challenges Atwill (Police Officer Krogh) to a game of darts. Despite possessing only one hand, Krogh accepts the challenge, casually sticking the darts in his wooden arm before his throw.111 Although Rathbone and Atwill were both British actors the film was American, and it must be assumed that the director and producer, Rowland Lee, believed that, even in its Transyl-vanian setting, the darts match would be recognised by all who watched the film. But there is a contradiction here in as much as darts was not at the time regularly played by adults in the United States, darts not becoming popular in that country until the early 1970s.112 Indeed, Bernard Mason wrote in 1937 that ‘Darts [in the US] fulfil no serious life purpose today, but their appeal to children is perennial … Dart throwing is an excellent activity for

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summer camps, for gymnasiums, for children’s club rooms, and for playgrounds.’113 However, it may have been the novelty and common appeal in the UK of this essentially English game, one of the peculiarities of British experience, and the eccentricity of the characters played by Rathbone and Atwill, that appealed to the producers and persuaded them to include the scene.114 In August 1937 John Specterman, ‘a films trade exploitation and publicity man’, announced that he was turning his attention to darts. Sponsored by the Nodor company, booking managers of major cine-variety circuits in Britain were invited to attend the Trocette Cinema in London to witness a demonstration of Specterman’s latest idea, a darts tournament, with money prizes, to be featured on variety stages and in cinemas between the ‘B’ and ‘A’ Certificate features.115 Although Specterman ran ‘a successful week of darts’, theatrical booking agents failed to book the tournament for any future engagements. Later, in February 1939, B&J Theatres featured the 1933/34 News of the World individual darts champion Fred Metson in a darts variety act at the Lewisham Hippodrome, where he played two blind players from St Dunstan’s – a charity supporting the war-blinded – and an armless player.116 It can only be assumed that the purpose of the show was to demonstrate that darts could be played at a high level by blind and disabled persons rather than provide a quirky sideshow for the theatre-going public. Whatever the motive, and despite the fact that the performance ‘seemed to please the public’, no further darts shows of this kind were booked.117 Darts champion Fred Metson was also one of only a few darts players recorded as appearing in cabaret. Charles Garner of the NDA was instrumental in arranging the appearance at J. Lyons’s Trocadero Restaurant in Shaft-esbury Avenue, London, in September 1938. The process was a simple one. With Garner acting as master of ceremonies, his son Ronald and Fred Metson challenged the audience to a game. Unfortunately, on this occasion the ‘stars’ were well beaten by the volunteers from the audience and the exhibition of trick shots which followed was regarded as ‘not particularly successful’.118 Such disappointing performances by the experts did little to encourage many further bookings but this particular example does indicate the level of skill at the game being achieved by the middle and upper-class members of the audience who participated. Thus, while the cinema continued throughout the 1930s to pose a threat to the public house, it played a very small role in the development of darts, and, as we have seen, the few efforts to bring darts to cinema, theatre and cabaret audiences were isolated and, it appears, ineffective and probably unprofitable.

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Darts in print As shown in Chapter 2, unlike other sports, such as football and cricket, there was not a plethora of books published on the subject of darts during the 1930s. In response to the increased popularity of the game, the first book entirely devoted to darts was published in December 1936, demand being such that a month later, in January 1937, it was reprinted.119 It was clear from the beginning that this book, priced at 2s 6d, was aimed at the middle and upper classes who had recently taken to the game and the publisher, Geoffrey Bles, managed to effect reviews in a number of prestigious publications. Croft-Cooke’s volume received an encouraging review in the Times Literary Supplement on 2 January 1937 and in order to further promote the book to bring it to the attention of the middle and upper classes an advertisement for ‘The only book on this noble sport’ appeared on the front page of The Times in March and April 1937.120 Furthermore, Bernard Darwin in Country Life replaced his regular golf column with a discussion of the merits of Croft-Cooke’s book, which doubtless further aided its promotion amongst an essentially upper-class readership. 121 As John Young stated at the time, darts, it seemed, was no longer ‘a plebeian pastime’ played to ‘the accompaniment of oaths’ but was becoming totally respectable, which prompted Young to write that darts was an ‘everincreasing … delightful game’ no longer looked down upon ‘by those who would condemn anything associated with the public house’.122 In 1938 a humorous darts book by Alan and Geoffrey D’Egville was published on behalf of the London-based charity the ‘£oyal [sic] Society of Dartsmen’ (the ‘£.s.d.’) which sought to raise funds for voluntary hospitals in general and the London Fever Hospital in particular.123 At the time the financial health of the voluntary hospitals was in a poor condition. Funded primarily by philanthropy or patients’ contributions, their staff were honorary and unpaid and their management committees were made up principally of volunteers; historians have endorsed the view that, prior to the Second World War, the hospitals faced ‘severe financial problems’.124 The Appeal Committee of the London Fever Hospital, comprising such notaries as the Duke of Atholl, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes and A. P. Herbert, MP, had devised this fund-raising idea based on the nationwide interest in darts but owing much of its structure and constitution to another charitable organisation set up earlier in the 1920s, the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers.125 On 10 March 1938 the committee launched the £oyal Society of Dartsmen.126 Supported nationally by The People newspaper, and in November 1938 boasting the Duke of Kent as its

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13 The Duke of Kent is made the hundred thousandth member of the £oyal Society of Dartsmen (£ s. d.) in November 1938

hundred thousandth member, the society raised in excess of £4,000 for voluntary hospitals in less than two years (Figure 13). It was eventually wound up in August 1940.127 Darts was occasionally featured in mainstream literature during the late 1930s, especially in crime novels. Crime writer Leo Bruce introduced his character Sergeant Beef to the reading public in 1937 as ‘a passionate dartplayer’.128 In 1939 Ngaio Marsh employed darts as a method of murder as the central theme of her latest Inspector Alleyn mystery, Death at the Bar: murder is occasioned during an exhibition of trick shots in a public house where the victim’s hand is pierced by a dart which is subsequently discovered to have been dipped in poison.129 Trick shots and exhibition play rarely featured in the national press at the time, which indicates that Marsh had undertaken significant research into the methods and nature of darts-playing for the book.

Darts and advertising Within other developing mass media during the inter-war period darts was also gaining respectability and acceptability in the commercial world of middle-class advertising, and examples are to be found in the tobacco, confectionery and brewing trades.

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14 ‘Darts’ cigarettes, introduced by Gallaher Ltd in May 1939

The incidence of smoking showed a remarkable increase during the inter-war years, with expenditure on tobacco rising from £42 million in 1914 to £204 million in 1939, and annual tobacco consumption per head of population increasing from 2.19 lb in 1914 to 4.0 lb in 1938.130 Along with the cinema, the pub, the dance hall and the annual trip to the seaside, cigarette smoking had become a staple of working-class culture.131 On 18 May 1939 Gallaher launched a new brand of cigarettes called ‘Darts’ (Figure 14).132 As Matthew Hilton has argued, class was a crucial means of categorisation of cigarettes during the inter-war years. The middle-priced brands, such as Craven A and Gold Leaf, were labelled as mass-based middle-class, since their price (6d for ten) carried few of the connotations of the cheaper ‘gaspers’ such as Woodbine, Weights and Tenners, which were targeted at the working class and retailed at 2d for five.133 Darts retailed at 2d for five.134

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Another example of a tobacco company incorporating darts into its advertising is evidenced in a promotion for the middle-priced Kensitas cigarettes in 1937. ‘The man who coughed at the village darts match is reprimanded for not smoking the Kensitas brand. ‘The mild cigarette would have saved him …’ from the embarrassment of interrupting play.135 In this highly competitive market many tobacco companies had earlier introduced free pictorial card inserts to promote their brands and encourage brand loyalty. The companies left ‘no field of popular human knowledge … unexplored’, cigarette cards becoming known colloquially as ‘the working man’s encyclopaedia’.136 Whilst most popular sports such as football, cricket and tennis were featured, the only evidence of darts is from Gallaher, which produced a series of forty-eight cards in the Channel Islands in 1938 entitled ‘Island Sporting Personalities’. At least two darts players, H. St Clair Dean (card No. 11) and G. S. Hughes (No. 31), were included.137 Isolated incidents of darts being featured to promote other goods also appeared during the 1930s. The attraction of darts for the middle class is shown in an advertisement for Dairy Box chocolates which appeared in the Daily Mail in 1938. A smart young middle-class couple are shown, with the man about to throw a dart but distracted by the young woman who is sitting watching, a box of chocolates open on her lap. The caption reads: ‘Jack throws a lovely dart,’ they say – They must mean Cupid’s dart, For when he brings her dairy box He scores right in her heart!138

Darts, it would appear, had become classless. Brewers too were using darts in their advertising. Even though the game was banned in Liverpool throughout the 1930s, W. Harvey Steel & Co., brewers, based in that city, produced an advertisement showing two gentlemen in suits sitting at a table in the bar with another suited man in the background playing darts with a man in a cloth cap.139 Despite extensive research, only one example has been found of the involvement of a champion darts player in advertising or product endorsement. After Tommy Nye had won the 1930/31 News of the World championship he was approached by a paper dart flight manufacturer and asked to endorse their product, the ‘Truflit’. Nye agreed, and the packaging of the flights for a while thereafter bore a quote from Nye which read, ‘I consider they are the best Flights I have ever used, they last longer, can be thrown closer, and cannot spread.’140 Although a single example, Nye’s

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(and darts’) involvement with product placement was way ahead of any such promotion in any other sport. Darts was growing in respectability through advertising and, as a result, the middle class sought out the game in substantial numbers, often utilising the mass-produced motor car for the purpose.

Darts and mobility During the inter-war period the mass-produced motor car transformed the way people worked, lived and spent their leisure, those years witnessing ‘the arrival of Britain’s first era of mass motoring’.141 The number of cars on the roads increased twentyfold, from 109,715 in 1919 to 2,034,000 in 1939,

15 ‘A tyro who insists on playing with the yokels must expect to be regarded as fair game’ (Ralph Wotherspoon and L. N. Jackson, Some Sports and Pastimes of the English, London: Herbert Jenkins, n.d. but c. 1937)

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representing one car per twenty-four people. By 1939 the car was no longer considered a luxury but was still very much a middle-class amenity; the cost of buying and maintaining a car confining its ownership to the top third of income tax payers. Improved roads outside the cities, and improved amenities, such as wayside petrol pumps, public houses, roadhouses and hotels, proliferated and a new and pleasant mobility became part of middle-class life and leisure where journeying by car to visit friends, the theatre, the golf club or merely to ‘go for a spin’ were commonplace.142 The mass-produced motor car meant that the middle class could seek out and experience more widely the amusements of the rural public house. Maurice Gorham saw the middle class accessing such working-class spaces as ‘a terrible thing’ – quiet, ordinary pubs being discovered by ‘bright young people’, who came to dominate the saloon bar; the ‘craze for darts’ bringing them ‘swarming into the cheap side’, thereby displacing the locals (Figure 15).143 However, the locals were not always ‘displaced’ by the unwelcome intrusion. As Wotherspoon and Jackson warned, ‘A tyro [a beginner or novice] who insists on playing with the yokels must expect to be regarded as fair game.’144 John Showers, licensee of the Stanhope Hotel, Rodley in Yorkshire, witnessed first-hand visitors attracted to the dartboard where ‘clever local dartsmen would inveigle the unsuspecting young innocents’ by playing a ‘playful first match and then, when stakes were agreed, proceeding to ‘trounce their hapless victims’.145 Provision of darts was not restricted to ordinary, established public houses or improved houses but, as shown in Chapter 4, was also included in the more fashionable roadhouses which were developed by the brewers on main arterial roads during the decade to improve licensed provision and to meet the demands of the newly mobile middle classes.146 The roadhouse was a place of refreshment where the visitor would find no ‘tosspot tinkers with their ale’, where ‘smart young people with their gin-and-its’ suffered no threat from skilled locals but could gratify their desire for amusement by ‘opportunities to throw the democratic dart and shoving, with manicured hands, the democratic halfpenny’.147 Visitors would find there well appointed restaurants (often open all night), dance bands, swimming pools, gardens, golf, squash and polo.148 Outside the attractions of the public house and roadhouse, darts was also becoming popular among the upper classes.

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Darts and the elite Whilst darts-playing during the first two decades of the twentieth century was, in the main, restricted to working-class pubgoing males, this situation significantly changed from the mid-1950s when the upper classes, particularly in the London area, were attracted by the novelty of the game. Whilst never actually engaging in formal tournament or competition play, the moneyed class were simply fascinated by the game and for a few years darts was a popular amusement. In 1935 Miss Esme de Little ran a darts stall at a British Empire Union garden party in Roehampton, south London, the Countess of Jersey, formerly Miss Virginia Chevrill, was photographed in 1937 playing darts with her husband the Earl of Jersey, and the Bishop of Kensington demonstrated his skill at the game at a charity fair that same year, having ‘fallen lure to the dart’, whilst at a ball at Lullingstone Castle, Eynsford, Kent, in February 1938, Lady Hart Dyke had her photograph taken with the ubiquitous honorary secretary of the NDA, Charles Garner, ‘proudly presenting] three darts in the board’.149 At the Publicists’ Club of London gala dinner-dance at Grosvenor House, London, in September 1937 darts was played as part of the programmed entertainment for the evening.150 The Seager Dart School, established in London in 1936, aimed at providing darts lessons for those who wished to become more proficient at the game, school members also being present at a bazaar at Claridge’s in November 1936 inviting beginners and experts to try their skill.151 During December 1936 the Duke of Kent attended a gala première of the film Ladies in Love at the Piccadilly Teatre, London. The performance was followed by supper served on the stage. For this meal the stage was arranged as an eighteenth-century country inn with games of darts and skittles being played while the guests ate their ‘simple fare of the period’.152 It mattered little to those present that the game of darts depicted on stage was not played in eighteenth-century inns. On 10 November 1936 a ‘darts parlour’ was opened at Tames House, London, to enable employees to enjoy a pastime which ‘originated in the Garden of Eden and has changed but little since’, with instructors from the NDA on hand ‘to help the people … in their new pastime’.153 However, darts parlours, although attractive to the upper classes, did little more than sanitise the game. All the participants had to do was throw their darts. Even the action of taking the darts out of the board was facilitated by an attendant, players having to wait until an attendant was free to do so. Darts parlours, whilst reconstructing the game for the benefit of the upper class, could not

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replicate the atmosphere of the public bar and also lacked two essential elements of pub darts – alcohol and atmosphere. In early 1937 there is crucial evidence that darts was encroaching upon the social calendar of the upper classes. Partygoers were advised not to be surprised ‘when you receive a printed invitation marked “Darts and Dancing”’, as it was merely that their hostess was a ‘modern’, keeping abreast of the times and in touch with all the latest novelties.154Author Rupert Croft-Cooke revealed his own distaste for what he perceived as upper-class interference with ‘the game of games’, being ‘disgusted to hear, [that] London hostesses have discovered the game as a means of preventing their guests from boring one another’.155 Even the select Essex seaside resort of Frinton-on-Sea, which enjoyed its halcyon days during the inter-war years when for the best part of the summer season it became the ‘social centre for anyone who was anyone’, did not escape the influence of darts as a new pastime for the upper classes.156 In October 1937 the committee of the town’s prestigious and exclusive golf club agreed to allow a dartboard to be hung on the wall of its clubhouse.157 However, one of the most significant elite darts events occurred on 17 December 1937 when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the Slough Social Centre and, whilst there, played a game of darts. Since the end of the Great War the town’s population had increased from 16,000 to 50,000. In 1937 the factories on the Slough Trading Estate employed no fewer than 20,000 workers and it was estimated that 11,000 people from the ‘Special Areas’ had migrated to Slough in search of employment. Up to the mid-1930s few or no facilities for recreation had been provided for the workers. By 1936 the chairman of Slough Estates, Noel Mobbs, had recognised the problem and by 1937 a social centre, which could seat 1,200 people, was completed. The facilities provided accommodation and rooms for dancing, drama, badminton, roller skating, plus a community hall, a swimming pool and a separate youth centre building.158 Regarded as pioneering work for the social and recreational needs of the area, the centre attracted the attention of social workers and administrators from all over the country who visited the facility ‘to study the methods adopted and results achieved’.159 Eventually Mobbs extended a formal invitation to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to pay a visit. Ross McKibbin argued that the working class during the 1930s were rarely exposed to society news, except when a member of the royal family was involved, and maybe not even then. Weeklies such as the News of the World fed the working class with society scandal but that was normally as close as they were exposed to royalty.160 So it was not surprising that the

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people of Slough and the surrounding area responded in great numbers when the news broke that the royal couple would be visiting the community centre (or ‘the Centre’ as it was popularly known). However, the number of members attending the Centre that day had to be restricted to 1,500 to ensure that ‘the usual programmes might be carried through without fear of overcrowding.161 Although invited guests and Centre officials included Colonel Horlick, Mr C. M. Garcia, chairman of Aspro Ltd, and Mr J. Jakobi, chairman of International Alloys, there is no suggestion that these consumer-oriented firms were in any way commercially exploiting the visit. However, David Cannadine is clear that, especially on the more prestigious royal occasions, commercial exploitation was becoming more and more the norm.162 It is therefore significant to note that Edward Leggatt, of Nodor, not only supplied the bristle dartboard that their Majesties played on at Slough but had also provided a dartboard for the Men’s Club at Sandringham and, just before Christmas 1937, had sent a bristle dartboard to Buckingham Palace.163 On 17 December 1937 the King and Queen undertook an extensive tour of the Centre which included the games room where bar billiards, table tennis and darts were being played. Unexpectedly, the Queen asked one of the darts players if she could try. The Queen threw first, scoring a single seven, a single thirteen and a single one, a total of twenty-one points. The King then took the darts and scored nineteen points, announcing that the Queen had won by two points. This, albeit brief, involvement of the royal couple with darts was reported in the national daily newspapers, reference being made to a ‘Royal visit to workers’ club’ and ‘The King and Queen play “darts”.’164 Surprisingly, the News of the World, which was building a reputation as a massive supporter of the game through its Individual Darts Championship, underplayed the visit, merely summarising that which had been written by other national newspapers and adding, ‘if further evidence were required of the growing popularity of darts’ this was surely it.165 The editor of Darts and Sports Weekly News predicted that, by throwing only three darts, the Queen would encourage thousands more women to follow her example and begin playing ‘the world’s most fascinating game’.166 Another newspaper report indicated that the Queen’s act had changed the country’s overall perception of darts and made everyone, especially women, ‘darts-conscious’. Tousands of women had approached the British Darts Council (BDC) asking where they could obtain tuition. R. B. Tillcock, honorary secretary of the BDC, reported that his organisation had been ‘snowed under with inquiries’ from women.167

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Brewers seized upon the potential of the royal darts match and a number issued an instruction to their houses to install dartboards in saloon bars to cope with increased demand from the middle classes. For example, John G. Showers, landlord of the Stanhope Hotel, Rodley, Yorkshire, came under pressure from his brewer to extend the game into his cocktail bar by providing a ‘super dart-board’. Reluctantly Showers hung a dartboard in the cocktail bar – describing the new attraction as ‘a nightmare’ – but it took him only a short while ‘to close the doors on the board and use the tray, meant only to catch darts, for flowers’. The landlord instinctively knew where darts belonged and actively encouraged the game in the public bar of the Stanhope, where darts matches between locals and chance visitors became very popular.168 In contrast, during 1937 the demand for darts in fashionable Bayswater was such that Kent brewer Style & Winch opened a ‘beautifully designed, tastefully decorated lounge, built especially for the convenience and comfort of dart players’ at the Chepstow Tavern which was an immediate success.169 The development of the modern monarchy – ‘non-partisan … partly magical, partly domestic, and very public … ’ – was largely a product of the inter-war years.170 So was the visit to Slough Social Centre and the participation in a brief game of darts a deliberate act on the part of the royal couple, calculated to bring the monarchy closer to the people? King George VI’s father, George V, had firmly established himself both as ‘a father-figure to the whole Empire’ and ‘the head of a family with which all could identify’. However, this modern form of domesticity suffered a severe blow during the brief period of Edward VIII’s reign, a king who cared not for ceremony and led a private life described as ‘eventful’ and ‘indiscreet’. After the abdication in 1936 the new King, George VI, deliberately took his father’s name as indicating a return to the style of George V.171 The abdication of Edward VIII had occurred a few months before, the King and Queen had been on the throne only since 12 May, and George VI was anxious to regain the popular respect of the people that his father had earned. Certainly the way in which the royal couple circulated among the Centre members at Slough and were taken to all areas of the building would indicate an openness and desire to be with the people. Indeed, the Queen appeared reluctant to leave the room where the darts players were in action, and this hesitation could be interpreted as indicating a genuine interest in the game.172 Derek Brown suggests that the King and Queen playing the game at Slough was ‘a milestone of respectability’ for darts.173 Although the

The darts craze of the 1930s

involvement of the King and Queen in a single, short match is an important episode in the social history of the game, linking royal family with worker and portraying the royal couple as close to and of the people, respectability had already been achieved via the acceptance of darts by the middle and upper classes two or more years earlier. There was no widespread debate about the event and no discussion in leading national newspapers about the appropriateness of the King and Queen playing a working man’s game or making it respectable. However, at the close of the year the Daily Sketch reprinted a photograph of the Queen playing darts at Slough with the caption: Amid all the pomp and pageantry of Coronation year the warm friendliness of the Royal family was never obscured. In the most crowded times there were little acts of informality that endeared the King and Queen yet more to their subjects. Typical of this spirit was the visit to a social centre in Slough, where the Queen played darts … and won.174

There is no evidence to suggest that the royal couples participation in the game was a contrived action designed to forge improved links between the ruling elite and the working class. Although the royal match did nothing to bring the classes together, the mere suggestion that darts had gained royal approval did bring a sense of respectability to the game and, as Richard Holt observed, ‘inadvertently gave the game a further boost’.175 This certainly appears to have been the case. A short pause in a royal tour of a social club produced a momentary boost to an already popular pastime: the King and Queen engaging for a very short period of time – not even a complete game – in a working-class activity, enabling darts, as Dennis Brailsford has argued, to make a ‘temporary move up market’.176 This did not necessarily mean that darts had either reached a point at which it could no longer be regarded as a pub game or that royal participation had legitimised darts. Brailsford acknowledged that the appeal of darts was extended after the King and Queen were pictured playing, a dartboard then becoming ‘an essential piece of sporting equipment in every home’.177 A. P. Herbert suggested that, as darts had been ‘proclaimed as a Royal game’, dartboards were ‘hanging on the walls of Belgravia, and the sons of dukes, they say, are not ashamed to throw a pretty dart at the pub’.178 However, darts was already popular before the royal darts were thrown. What the couple had occasioned was a temporary change of emphasis. The King and Queen’s darts game did not suddenly bring darts

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to the attention of the elite. The working-class darts player continued to play his or her game in the local pub for fun, for half a pint of beer, for small financial stakes or sometimes even other prizes such as a copper kettle, a clock or poultry, but for some of the elite new to the game the stakes were much higher. In January 1938, in a house in Berkeley Square, the inherent gaming element of the public bar game highlighted by the NDA over a decade before was turned into a sophisticated ritual ‘rip-off, triggered by the royal match and targeting the upper classes. Restricting the event to ‘By invitation only’ the organisers reinforced the exclusivity of the evening but also eliminated any chance of the evening being infiltrated by anyone expert at the game. Although roulette was much in evidence, the primary focus of the party was on the ‘new’ game of darts. The darts game played on this occasion was not darts as played in the public house – 301 or 501 up or Round the Board – but darts as the Queen herself had played it, that is, three darts, highest score wins. It was this opportunity to emulate the Queen that drew people to the event. The smallest stake for any single game of darts was £5. The prize of £100 for obtaining the highest score of the evening was won by the wife of a Harley Street surgeon with a score of 153. During the whole of the evening of ‘glorified mug-catching’ only fourteen players scored more than eighty points in three darts.179 However, the participants were not concerned with such statistics, but with the opportunity of experiencing the game of darts as played by the royal couple. The fact that hundreds of pounds had been lost on the night was immaterial. Darts sporting heroes At the other end of the social spectrum, working-class men began to become recognised for their darting skills. From within that portal of masculinity, the pub, unlikely local heroes were produced in the form of skilled exponents who travelled widely to play against champions from other areas and to play money matches. The 1930s created a number of national heroes and heroines in sport. In tennis, thousands of spectators crammed into Wimbledon to watch Bunny Austin and Betty Nuthall do their best against the challenge of the Americans. Jack Hobbs retired from cricket in 1934, having accumulated 61,221 runs in a career spanning twenty-nine years, and the national idol of the sport of football was Stanley Matthews.180 Within darts, the sporting hero was only beginning to emerge during the 1930s. It was these local heroes, ordinary people with a talent or skill to

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do one thing extraordinarily well, who are often ignored by historians.181 As Tony Mason argued in relation to pre-1914 footballers, it is not just generals and Prime Ministers or other ‘great men’ but sportsmen too who provide ‘examples to be followed, people to believe in, [and] inspiration to contemporaries’. Before 1914 ‘football heroes were essentially local and their loyalty, reliability and “steadiness” were prized qualities’. They were an urban phenomenon, representing their local community against all comers, ‘part of a local, largely working-class subculture’.182 Developing much later than the sport of football, it was not until the early 1930s that darts’ local heroes began to emerge from a primarily urban working-class subculture of the English public house. However, they represented not only their local pub but also the wider community in challenge matches against experts from other areas. Skilled darts players built a reputation by defeating other local champions and by being successful in money matches where many pounds would change hands in side bets on spectators’ favourites. Growing support and reputations encouraged such players to move farther afield to take on other local champions and play more money matches. Harold Barker, of Bradford, provides an example of the darting ‘local hero’.183 Harold Barker was born in Undercliffe, Bradford, in 1908 and, a stonemason by trade, learned to play darts, dominoes and cribbage from an early age in the tap rooms of his local pubs. By the 1930s Barker had made a name for himself locally as a skilled darts player, sometimes playing for fun, sometimes for pints and often for money. Barker also made his own darts, flights and dartboards, which he either used himself or sold to individuals or pub landlords. His reputation came to the attention of Lawrence Boyden, landlord of the Prince of Wales, Eccleshill, who encouraged Barker to join the Prince of Wales darts team. It was through Barker’s association with the pub team and the promotional skills of Boyden that Barker became the recognised champion of the Bradford area. Boyden, who was also a bookmaker, arranged money matches for Barker. Barker always bet on himself and invariably won. As the number of matches increased, with Barker seldom suffering a defeat, his fame spread to other parts of Yorkshire and then across the country.184 Barker was described as ‘a fine man of 6 ft 3 ins’, who never took his cloth cap, his coat or his scarf off during his exhibition matches.185 Barker’s darting prowess eventually came to the attention of J. Hey & Co., of the Northbrook Brewery, Manningham, the brewery which, as previously noted, had originally supported the Dick Kerr ladies’ football team.186 The brewery management agreed a contract with Barker to travel

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around their houses undertaking exhibitions, Barker playing the best darts players in each public house and then performing trick shots, usually with darts but often with 6 in. nails. Trick shots would include, for example, knocking cigarettes out of a stooge s mouth or shirt buttons off his nose with a dart or nail. As a gauge of Barker’s popularity, in 1936 an estimated 2,000 people watched him play Jack Butterfield from Methley, West Riding, in a series of three games at venues at Yeadon, Fagley and Horsforth.187 Barker’s reputation grew to such an extent that, in 1937/38, he was offered a job demonstrating darts and dartboards at Gamage’s department store in London. Sports demonstrators, leaders in their fields, had been well established by the mid-1950s by such stores as Selfridge’s, which had employed major sports stars, including golfer Walter Hagen, cricketer Jack Hobbs, world heavyweight boxing champion Primo Carnera, tennis star Suzanne Lenglen and the ‘greatest footballer living’, Alex James of Arsenal. Although Alex James was paid £250 per year he does not appear to have enjoyed his work as a sports demonstrator at Selfridge’s. ‘I had to be there in the afternoons and leave at night like any other office clerk. My hand ached with signing autographs all day and I began to think that I had been crazy to take on the position.’188 Barker’s contract with Gamage’s would have tied him down to similar working hours, and one of the clauses required him to wear a collar and tie at all times. This caused him considerable discomfort, as he was used to playing in a scarf and flat cap. Although the salary was good, he could not adjust to the conditions and within six months had returned to Bradford, to his exhibitions and money matches.189 Barker’s darts skills were also broadcast on the radio. The first running commentary on a darts match on the Northern network of the BBC was broadcast on 23 December 1937, when Richard North commentated on a match played at the Royal Hotel, Fagley, between Barker and his local rival Andy Brennan, from Sunderland.190 Brennan was something of a local hero himself and is cited in a report in 1938 relating to a challenge match between Gateshead and South Shields. In a match billed as ‘the big attraction of the evening’ Brennan is described as ‘the North East champion’, but on this occasion at the Palm Court of the Half Moon Hotel, Gateshead, in front of 200 darts enthusiasts, Brennan was defeated at the hands of Gateshead’s own local hero, J. Wilson.191 Like Barker, other champion dart players found occasional work supplementing their income by undertaking demonstrations of their skills in sports sections of department stores. Tommy Hares, of Ashford,

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Middlesex, runner-up to Stan Outten in the 1936/37 News of the World Individual Darts London and Home Counties final, and Sutton darts champion Bill Franklin performed at Selfridge’s during ‘Indoor Darts Week’ at the store in October 1937.192 The following month they demonstrated their skills at Bentall’s in Kingston.193 In 1990 Barker was described in Darts World magazine as ‘the first professional darts player in England’ – the first of a new breed of professional-cum-exhibition dart players.194 Because of the nature of darts, and the small number of players making a living from the game, it developed free from the hypocrisy of amateurism common in other sports. Amateurism was never an issue in darts, as there were so few being paid for their services, and thus to all intents and purposes darts players, more or less to a man, were amateur, only one or two being occasionally paid for their services. It was only towards the end of the inter-war period when J. T. Gerrard wrote in the Darts and Sports Weekly News, ‘The sooner “Darts Professionalism” is recognised the better it will be for the game,’ adding, ‘If a man, or woman, is sufficiently skilful to attract the public to watch them do their “stuff” why should they not reap some financial reward for their efforts?’ Gerrard was ‘all out for it’, provided it did not develop ‘along the same lines as county cricket, i.e. “Amateurs” v. “Professionals” – “Gentlemen” using the saloon entrance while “Players” enter via the “public bar”’.195 No subsequent record has been found of the amateurprofessional debate. Indeed, the first full-time professional darts players would not emerge until the 1970s. Although never to be described formally as ‘sportsmen’ during the period, players like Barker retained their fame in their own locality for many years. Research undertaken in the early 1990s revealed Barker still being hailed as a ‘darts player supreme’, ‘the best darts thrower’ and ‘a legend of his time’.196 Such was the popularity of local sporting heroes that they clearly represented the values of the working-class communities that idolised them. Conclusion As Stuart Hall has argued, over a period of time individual forms of popular culture ‘become enhanced in cultural value’ and ascend the ‘cultural escalator’.197 During the 1930s darts ascended the cultural escalator in the south of England at an astonishing rate. A game already popular with hundreds of thousands of working class pubgoers by the beginning of the decade also became a dominant part of popular culture of the English middle and upper classes by the middle of the 1930s.

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Building upon the highly successful promotion of darts and darts leagues by the brewers and the National Darts Association in the late 1920s – discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 – the involvement of the mass media, particularly Sunday newspapers (and especially the News of the World) during the 1930s raised the public profile of the game considerably, so that by mid-decade it was estimated that there were more than 300 darts clubs in the country with 300,000 registered players and hundreds of thousands of other darts enthusiasts playing on a casual or occasional basis.198 Darts also embraced all classes. For so long an essential part of the village inn, and a growing feature of the urban pub landscape and of improved public houses and, to a lesser extent, new roadhouses, darts was to be found in private houses in Mayfair, in specially built darts parlours in the West End of London, where lessons in how to throw could be procured, in prestigious golf clubs and in cabaret in exclusive hotels. Even the monarchy showed a keen, if fleeting, interest in the game. By 1939 darts was allegedly ‘the most popular game in Great Britain’.199 However, this is not to imply that the game of darts in the 1930s brought classes together. An occasional game between a ‘local’ and a newly mobile middle class ‘young thing’ for a pint of ale is not evidence of the collapse of class barriers. The darts match played by the King and Queen in 1937 further raised awareness of the game amongst the middle and upper classes, and women in particular, but little more; nothing permanent. The King and Queen were seen ‘at once like us, and not like us’, playing a working-class game, but at the same time they were the monarchy, ‘the rulers of the nation’.200 Participation of women in darts during the 1930s was significantly greater than any scholar has previously thought, especially within the confines of the English pub. Some recognition of their role was found in the establishment of ladies’ leagues and championships but the resistance to their participation has also been clearly evidenced. The sanctity of the public bar as a ‘men only’ space ensured that darts during the 1930s remained a predominantly male-dominated pastime. But it must not to be assumed that all working-class men participated. Although more leisure time was available, often low wages or temporary or permanent unemployment meant that choices had to be made, and the best choice was often simply to stay at home. Darts was important to the male pubgoer as it was above all participative and affordable, fitted in well with the gregarious nature of the common drinking man and required no on-going commitment in terms of time. But, for a small number of skilled working class dart players, the game occasioned a degree of fame. For the majority, whether it was as News of the

The darts craze of the 1930s

World champion, as exhibition or money match player, or as a novelty cabaret act, such fame or notoriety was short-lived, whilst the local fame of players like Harold Barker would endure in the long term. Darts exponents never experienced all the trappings of success like other sportsmen. In sharp contrast to the national popularity experienced by successful players in other leisure fields such as football, cricket and golf during the inter-war period, fame in darts remained mainly parochial. Thus, during the 1930s, the interaction of a range of complex cultural forms raised the profile of darts over and above the expectations of both the drinks trade and the NDA. The significance of this interaction was that it widened the appeal of the game beyond the original targeted social group, the working-class, essentially male, pubgoer. The result was the darts craze: a cross-class demand for darts which, as we have seen, manifested itself in many different ways. By 1939 darts was at the height of its popularity in London and the south-east of England and its influence was steadily expanding into other parts of Britain. Everyone, it seemed, was, or very soon would be, playing darts. Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7

Brewer and Wine Merchant, October 1939, p. 54. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend – A Social History of Great Britain 1918–1939 (London: Faber & Faber, 1941), p. 385. Maurice Gorham, Back to the Local (London: Percival Marshall & Co., 1949), p. 77; Graves and Hodge, The Long Weekend, pp. 384–5. Andrew Thorpe, Britain in the 1930s – The Deceptive Decade (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p. 86. For alternative views of the 1930s by social commentators see Rene Cutforth, Later than we Thought (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1976), Collin Brooks, Devil’s Decade – Portraits of the Nineteen-thirties (London: Macdonald & Co., 1948), Malcolm Muggeridge, The Tirties (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1940), and Julian Symons, The Tirties – A Dream Revolved (London: Faber & Faber, 1975; originally published 1960). Asa Briggs, A Social History of England (London: Book Club Associates, 1984), p. 390. John Stevenson and Chris Cook, The Slump – Society and Politics during the Depression (London: Quartet Books, 1979; originally published 1977), pp. 1 and 3. When a revised edition of Stevenson and Cook’s work was published in 1994 the authors commented that no major challenge to the position they set out in 1977 had emerged to cause a rewriting of their stated position. (Britain in the Depression -Society and Politics 1929–1939, London: Addison Wesley Longman, 1997, p. 7.)

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8 9 10 11 12 13

14

15 16

17 18

19

20

21 22 23

Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures – England 1918–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 151. A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 317. Peter Bailey, "The politics and poetics of modern British leisure’, Rethinking History 3:2 (1999), p. 135. Thorpe, Britain in the 1930s, p. 103. Keith Laybourn, Britain on the Breadline – A Social and Political History of Britain between the Wars (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1990), pp. 1 and 210. Noreen Branson and Margot Heinemann, Britain in the Nineteen-thirties (St Albans: Panther Books, 1973), p. 270. (Originally published London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971.) Dennis Brailsford, British Sport – A Social History (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1992), pp. 116-17. See also Mike Huggins, ‘Going to the dogs’, History Today, May 2006, pp. 31-5. Jack Williams, "A wild orgy of speed” – responses to speedway in Britain before the Second World War’, Sports Historian, 19:1 (May 1999), p. 3. For an overview of amateurism in sport see Brailsford, British Sport – A Social History, pp. 96-100 and 105-6, for amateurism in rugby see Tony Collins, Rugby’s Great Split – Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 49-61, and for cricket see Derek Birley, The Willow Wand – Some Cricket Myths Explored (London: Queen Anne Press, 1979), pp. 55-6 and 73-4. Hermann Levy, Drink – An Economic and Social Study (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), p. 116. Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace – Cinema and Society in Britain 1930 –1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 13. See also Claire Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England 1920–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 58-63. Selina Todd, ‘Young women, work, and leisure in inter-war England’, Historical Journal, 48:3 (2005), pp. 803-4; David Fowler, The First Teenagers – The Lifestyle of Young Wage-earners in Inter-war Britain (London: Woburn Press, 1995), p. 93. John Stevenson, Social Conditions in Britain between the Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 44. See also McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, pp. 393-7. James J. Nott, Music for the People – Popular Music and Dance in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 235. See Dennis Brailsford, Sport, Time, and Society – The British at Play (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 24-5. In 1921 private car ownership in the United Kingdom was 77,707; by 1934 this had risen to 1,333,590 and by 1938 to 1,984,430. (Kenneth Richardson, The British Motor Industry 1896–1939, London: Macmillan Press, 1977, pp.

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24

25 26

27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

171-2.) For a detailed discussion of the car and the rural idyll see Sean O’Connell, The Car in British Society – Class, Gender and Motoring 1896–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), chapter 5, pp. 150-79. Stephen G. Jones, Workers at Play – A Social and Economic History of Leisure 1918–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 21. For the history of the bicycle see Roger Lloyd-Jones, Raleigh and the British Bicycle Industry – An Economic and Business History 1870–1960 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2000). John Stevenson, British Society 1914–1945 (London: Penguin Books, 1990), p. 402. Nott, Music for the People, p. 235. Nott also argues that the inter-war years were ‘crucial in the development of popular music’ (p. 2). Darts’ only contribution to this cultural form appears to have been variety artist and songwriter Leslie Sarony’s 1937 composition, ‘The Dart Song’, specially commissioned by the News of the World, which he recorded with the Jack Hylton Orchestra in London and which was released on His Master’s Voice records on 23 April. (Information downloaded from the Jack Hylton Orchestra official web site www.petefaint.co.uk/jackhylton/ DISCOG3.HTM, 30 January 2006.) The song was also recorded by Billy Cotton and his Band on Rex Records the same year. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty – Working-class Culture in Salford and Manchester 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992), pp. 1, 30 and 55. Jones, Workers at Play, pp. 58–9. Nott, Music for the People, p. 235. Jones, Workers at Play, p. 60, and Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace, p. 6. Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, p. 55. Ibid., p. 54. Claire Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England, p. 154. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People – A Worktown Study (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943), pp. 134–5 and 144. Valerie Hey, Patriarchy and Pub Culture (London: Tavistock Publications, 1986), pp. 41, 43 and 46. Shirley Ardener, ‘The nature of women in society’ in Shirley Ardener (ed.), Defining Females (Oxford: Berg, 1997), p. 18. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, p. 144. A. Wellington, The Various Games of Darts and How to Play Tem (London: Universal Publications, 1937), p. 9. News of the World, 5 April 1936, p. 23. Ibid., 10 May 1936, p. 21; Essex Chronicle, 15 May 1936, p. 8. News of the World, 21 March 1937, p. 21. Ibid.

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43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58

59

Hampshire Observer, 10 April 1937, p. 9. News of the World, 2 May 1937, p. 19. Ibid., 27 June 1937, p. 20. No other woman ever made it to the final of the News of the World until the 1989/90 season, when a separate championship was established for the ladies. In the final at the London Arena, Docklands, on 3 June 1990 Lynne Ormond, representing the George, Alfreton, beat Jane Stubbs (Roebuck Hotel, Northwich) 2–0. (Darts World, July 1990, p. 21.) The programme for the event acclaimed that those present were to ‘witness history in the making’. (News of the World Grand Finals Programme dated 3 June 1990, p. 3) Subsequently the News of the World competition as a whole was then suspended, returning for one more year in 1996/97 when again a separate ladies’ championship was held, this time with Linda Jones (Seven Stars, Chorley) beating Melanie Saunders (Railway Inn, Abergavenny) 2–0. (Darts World, July 1997, p. 7.) Once again the entire competition was then suspended, and at the time of writing there are no proposals to return the competition to the darts calendar in the foreseeable future. Essex Chronicle, 15 May 1936, p. 8, and Kelly’s Directory, Essex 1937, p. 843. News of the World, 23 May 1937, p. 17. Telephone conversation between Peter Lock, Secretary of the Twickenham and District Darts League, 12 February 2002. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 30 October 1937, p. 32, 6 November 1937, p. 13, and 27 November 1937, p. 33. Brewers’ Journal, 15 April 1938, p. 173. Daily Sketch, 13 November 1937, p. 11. Michael Gilmore, ‘The Birth of Darts in South Shields’, unpublished manuscript, 2001, p. 7. Stevenson, Social Conditions in Britain between the Wars, p. 259. Michael Gilmore, ‘The Birth of Darts in South Shields’, p. 7, and Michael Gilmore, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 7 August 2002. Dave Russell, Football and the English – A Social History of Association Football in England1863–1995 (Preston: Carnegie Publishing, 1997), pp. 96–8. For women’s cricket during this period see Jack Williams, Cricket and England – A Cultural and Social History of the Inter-war Years (London: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 94–8, and for women’s tennis see Karen Christensen, Allen Guttman and Gertrud Pfister (eds), International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2001), III, pp. 1168–9. Joyce Chaplin (née King), personal diary for 1939 in the possession of the author. The Beacon (house magazine of the Boot’s company), 18:2 (May 1939), p. 58. I am indebted to Dr Simon Phillips for bringing this reference to my attention. Robert Gathorne-Hardy, Tree Acres and a Mill (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1939), p. 120.

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60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

Adrian Bingham, Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-war Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), p. 25. Aled Jones, Powers of the Press – Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth Century England (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996), pp. 2–3. Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: Sage, 2002), p. 80. Stevenson, British Society 1914–1945, p. 403. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 504. Cyril Bainbridge and Ray Stockdill, The News of the World Story –150 Years of the World’s Bestselling Newspaper (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 160. News of the World, 11 May 1930, p. 15. John Morris (ed.), News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89 (London: Invincible Press, 1988), p. 23. Jim Pike, ‘Darts’, in James Rivers (ed.), The Sports Book (London: Macdonald & Co., 1946), p. 95. Mike Bender (ed.), ‘John Ross: Memoirs of a Darts-playing Man’, unpublished manuscript (December 1983), p. 16. News of the World Individual Darts Championship of England and Wales – Western Counties Division Programme, 12 May 1948, p. 2. News of the World Individual Darts Championship of England and Wales – Match Programme of the Championship Games, 9 June 1948, p. 2. Bainbridge and Stockdill, The News of the World Story, p. 161. News of the World, 6 May 1928, p. 15, 24 May 1931, p. 16, 28 May 1931, p. 18; Darts World, August 1994, p. 58. Barrett, Darts, p. 29. Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981), p. 86. Darts and Sports Review, 22 October 1938, p. 5. Arthur Marwick, The Explosion of British Society 1914–1970 (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 16 Stevenson, British Society 1914–1945, p. 440; Russell, Football and the English, p. 106. Asa Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 360. Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, I, 1922–1939 – Serving the Nation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 282. Mark Pegg, Broadcasting and Society 1918–1939 (London: Croom Helm, 1983), pp. 195–6. James Walvin, Leisure and Society 1830–1950 (London: Longman, 1978), p. 139. Andrew Torne, Britain in the 1930s – The Deceptive Decade (Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1992), p. 108. Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, p. 376; Marwick, The Explosion of British Society, p. 84. See also McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 463.

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85 Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, p. 376. 86 Radio Times, 22 May 1936, p. 56, and The Times, 28 May 1936, p. 22. The eight-a-side team championship was between the Duke of Gloucester (Croydon) and the York, Battersea, which the former won by two legs to nil. (Rupert Croft-Cooke, Darts, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936, p. 83.) 87 Compare this with the full-page article in Radio Times publicising a similar broadcast one year later, on 18 June 1937. (Radio Times, 18 June 1937, p. 8.) 88 The Times, 25 November 1937, p. 10. 89 Ibid., 5 February and 9 March 1938. 90 Ibid., 19 April 1938, p. 8, and Brailsford, Sport, Time and Society, p. 150. 91 Brailsford, Sport, Time and Society, p. 150. 92 The Times, 3 November 1938, p. 20, and Darts and Sports Review, 29 October 1938, p. 2. 93 (Torquay) Herald Express, 6 May 1939. The following year, on 24 May 1939, a marbles championship was broadcast by the BBC from the Bricklayers’ Arms, Ladymoor, near Bilston. (Radio Times, 12 May 1939, p. 4.) 94 The Times, 17 June 1939, and Burnham-on-Sea Gazette, 24 June 1939. 95 Brailsford, Sport, Time, and Society, p. 150. 96 The Times, 5 February 1938, p. 3, Radio Times 28 January 1938, p. 80, and The Times, 4 January 1939, p. 21, and 30 December 1938, p. 43. The programme ‘A Word about Indoor Games’ also included S. D. Rees talking about skittles. 97 The Times, 11 October 1939, p. 6, 24 October 1939, p. 13, and 18 December 1939, p. 15. 98 BBC Handbook 1938 (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1938), p. 40. 99 Jeffrey Hill, Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 103. 100 The Times, 29 May 1937, p. 10, and Radio Times, 21 May 1937, Television Supplement, p. 4. 101 The Times, 5 February 1938, p. 3, and Radio Times, 28 January 1937, p. 18. 102 The Times, 30 April 1938, p. 25, Radio Times, 22 April 1938, p. 16, The Times, 13 January 1939, p. 10, and Radio Times, 6 January 1939, p. 16. 103 The Times, 15 October 1938, p. 4, and 22 July 1939, p. 10. 104 Frank Wolfe, 1949 Darts Players Annual (Feltham: Darts Publications & Supplies, 1948), p. 25. This simplicity of provision and presentation – linked four decades later with advanced split-screen technology – was also a factor in the rise in prominence of darts on television in the 1970s. See Dave Lanning (ed.), Leighton Rees on Darts (London: Cassell & Co., 1979), pp. 93–4 105 David W Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives – Reinventing the Public House in England 1896–1960 (De Kalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006), p. 215.

The darts craze of the 1930s

106 ‘The super cinema in Britain’, Film Review 1908–1981, pp. 95–101, cited by Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives, p. 215. 107 Darts and Sports Review, 24 September 1938, p. 1. 108 Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 8, and Darts and Sports Weekly News, 11 September 1937, p. 10, and 20 November 1937, p. 4. 109 Fox Photos, Tudor Street, London, photograph captioned ‘What BBC announcers do in spare time’, dated 28 October 1937, in the author’s private collection. 110 Keith Turner, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980), p. 108. 111 Ibid., p. 108; Phil Hardy, The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction Movies (London: Octopus Books, 1986), p. 103. The darts scene was later parodied in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein in 1974. 112 Jack McClintock, The Book of Darts (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 58–9. 113 Bernard S. Mason, Primitive and Pioneer Sports for Recreation Today (New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1937), p. 325. 114 Compare a US serviceman’s reaction during the Second World War to being asked if darts was played in his country, to which he replied, ‘No, we don’t throw nothing at walls!’ (Edie Beed, Seventy Years behind Bars (Bradninch: published by the author, 1984), pp. 16–17. 115 Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 10. 116 Darts and Sports Review, 11 February 1939, p. 1. 117 Ibid., 10 September 1938, p. 7. 118 Ibid. 119 Croft-Cooke, Darts. 120 Times Literary Supplement, 1822 (2 January 1937), p. 15; Rupert CroftCooke, The Wild Hills (London: W H. Allen, 1966), p. 134; The Times, 18 March 1937, p. 1, and 7 April 1937, p. 1. 121 Country Life, 91:2085 (2 January 1937), p. 23. 122 John Young, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dartboard (London: W Foulsham & Co., 1938), p. 7. 123 Alan and Geoffrey D’Egville, Darts with the Lid Off (London: Cassell & Co., 1938). 124 Martin Gorsky, John Mohan and Martin Powell, ‘The financial health of voluntary hospitals in inter-war Britain’, Economic History Review, 55:3 (2002), p. 533. 125 Pub History Society Newsletter, spring 2005, pp. 3–5. For further information about the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers, Sir Alfred Fripps’s spoof fraternity set up in 1924 to raise money for the poor children of London’s East End, see David L. Woodhead, Of Fripp and Froth Blowers (Sutton Coldfield: published by the author, 2005). 126 137th Annual Report of the London Fever Hospital (1938), p. ii.

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127 The People, 20 November 1938; The Times, 8 August 1940, p. 9. 128 Leo Bruce, Case without a Corpse (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1937), p. 5. It is not perhaps surprising that Leo Bruce’s hero, ‘Sergeant Beef, was an enthusiastic darts player. ‘Leo Bruce’ was a pen name of Rupert Croft-Cooke. 129 Ngaio Marsh, Death at the Bar (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1939). For a review of the book see Times Literary Supplement, 6 January 1940, p. 5. 130 Stevenson, British Society 1914–1945, pp. 383–4. 131 Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800–2000 – Perfect Pleasures (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 117. 132 Linda Tabb, Administration Manager, Public Affairs, Gallaher Tobacco Ltd, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 9 February 1993, and Gallaher Ltd, launch letter dated May 1939. 133 Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture, p. 127. 134 Gallaher, launch letter dated May 1939. 135 Darts Weekly News, 11 September 1937, p. 2. 136 Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture, p. 16; This England, winter 1993, p. 30. 137 Gallaher Ltd, trade cards in the series ‘Island Sporting Celebrities’, introduced in 1938, examples of which are in the personal possession of the author. It is also known that cigarette trade cards were used to make paper dart flights. Even though paper flights in 1938 cost 6d per gross (Young, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dart Board p. 22), working-class darts players saved money by making do with cigarette cards folded and cut to shape. 138 Daily Mail, 23 September 1938, p. 19. 139 Brewers’ Journal, 15 November 1938, p. 54. 140 Legend extracted from Butterfly Brand ‘Truflit’ dart flights pack in the author’s private collection. 141 Sean O’Connell, The Car in British Society – Class, Gender and Motoring 189 6–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 19. 142 Harold Perkin, The Age of the Automobile (London: Quartet Books, 1976), pp. 129 and 136–7. 143 Maurice Gorham, The Local (London: Cassell & Co., 1939), p. 22. 144 Ralph Wotherspoon and L. N. Jackson, Some Sports and Pastimes of the English (London: Herbert Jenkins, n.d. but c. 1937), p. 58. 145 John Showers, The Welcome Inn (Derby: Pilgrim Press, 1952), p. 43. 146 George Long, English Inns and Road Houses (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1937), p. 177. 147 Ivor Brown, ‘The inn’ in C. B. Ford (ed.), The Legacy of England (London: B. T. Batsford, 1935), p. 190. 148 Long, English Inns and Road Houses, p. 177. 149 Darts Weekly News, 28 August 1937, p. 8; Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts, pp. 13 and 21.

The darts craze of the 1930s

150 151 152 153

154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180

Darts and Sports Weekly News, 4 September 1937, p. 26. The Times, 26 November 1936, p. 19. Ibid, 12 November 1936, p. 12. Ibid, 11 November 1936, p. 17. For photographic evidence of a ‘darts saloon’ opened in London in 1938 see Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts, p. 17. For a brief overview of the history of darts in London see Patrick Chaplin, ‘Flights of fancy’ in Time Out – London, 10–17 May 2006, p. 23. Wellington, The Various Dart Games and How To Play Tem, p. 9. Croft-Cooke, Darts, p. 9. Norman Jacobs, Frinton and Walton – A Pictorial History (Chichester: Phillimore & Co., 1995), p. 3. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 6 November 1937, p. 24. Michael Cassell, Long Lease! The Story of Slough Estates 1920–1991 (London: Pencorp Books, 1991), pp. 75–82. The Times, 18 December 1937, p. 9. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 34. The Times, 18 December 1937, p. 9. David Cannadine, ‘The context, performance and meaning of ritual – the British monarchy and the “invention of tradition” c. 1820–1977’ in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 137. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 1 January 1938, p. 3. The Times, 18 December 1937, pp. 1 and 9. News of the World, 19 December 1937, p. 17. Darts Weekly News, 25 December 1937, p. 16. Sunday Chronicle, 26 December 1937, cited in Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, p. 300. Showers, The Welcome Inn, pp. 42–3. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 25 September 1937, p. 4. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 3. Cannadine, ‘The context, performance and meaning of ritual’, p. 140. The Times, 18 December 1937, p. 9. Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts, p. 11. Brown quotes the year of the visit erroneously as 1939. Daily Sketch, 31 December 1937, p. 26. Richard Holt, Sport and the British – A Modern History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 192. Brailsford, British Sport – A Social History, p. 117. Ibid. A. P. Herbert, ‘Darts just as pure and fair’, Punch, 29 December 1937, p. 704. Darts and Sports Weekly News, 8 January 1938, p. 5. Cutforth, Later than we Thought, p. 85.

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181 See statements by Dr Nicholas Tate, the government’s Chief Adviser to the National Curriculum, and Raphael Samuel, The Guardian, 23 September 1995. 182 Tony Mason, ‘“Our Stephen and our Harold”: Edwardian footballers as local heroes’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 13:1 (March 1996), pp. 71–2 and 84. 183 Although there were examples of local darts heroes to be found in the southeast of England at the time, such as Jim Pike, more research material on Harold Barker of Bradford has been found than for any other pre-war darts player. I am grateful to the late Frank Radforth of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for bringing the life of Barker to my attention. 184 Harold Chambers, letter to Patrick Chaplin received 16 July 1992. 185 Darts World, 209 (April 1990), p. 14. 186 Russell, Football and the English, p. 96. The ‘Bradford Brewery’ was J. Hey & Co. 187 Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 13 June 1936, p. 6. 188 John Hardy, Alex James – Life of a Football Legend (London: Robson, 1988), pp. 127 and 132. 189 Harold Chambers, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 4 September 1992. 190 The Times, 23 December 1937, p. 4. 191 Darts Weekly News, 26 February 1938, p. 12. 192 Ibid., 9 October 1937, p. 7. 193 Ibid., 6 November 1937, p. 7. 194 Darts World, 209 (April 1990), p. 14. 195 Darts and Sports Weekly News, 22 January 1938, p. 17. Gerrard’s reference to ‘or woman’ was ahead of its time in terms of gender language in sport. This may have been a genuine wish to embrace women in darts but may equally have been recognition of Mrs Morgan’s success in making the News of the World grand finals the previous year. To date no evidence has been found of any woman darts player during this period being paid to play. 196 C. Moore, of Bradford, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 9 July 1992, W. F. Thomas, of East Bowling, Bradford, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 9 July 1992, and Reg Agar, of Wibsey, Bradford, letter to Patrick Chaplin dated 10 July 1992. 197 Stuart Hall, ‘Notes on deconstructing “the popular”’ in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 234. 198 Daily Herald 6 February 1937, p. 8. 199 Brewer and Wine Merchant, October 1939, p. 54. 200 Judith Williamson, Consuming Passions – The Dynamics of Popular Culture (London: Marion Boyars, 1985), pp. 75–6.

Conclusion

[A]nd for the first time the all-conquering Darts … [has] been included … [and] Hoyle’s Games Modernized would today fail to live up to its title were a guide to its play not included.1

E

dmund Hoyle published his first games book in 1742, a short treatise on whist, and by 1748 it had reached its eighth edition and been expanded to include the card games of quadrille and piquet, and backgammon. Just under 200 years later, darts was included in Hoyle’s Games Modernized, for the first time, at the end of the Second World War. In the 1923 edition there had been no mention of darts, which not only suggests that darts at that time was not considered popular enough to warrant inclusion but also indicates that much happened thereafter to take darts from a recreational non-entity in 1920 to an ‘all-conquering’ pastime by the outbreak of the Second World War.2 Indeed, when war broke out in September 1939 darts was at the peak of its popularity in England. From its two identifiable sets of origins (first, puff -and-dart being played in pubs by adults and at home and in the street by children and, second, the successful importation of ‘French darts’ which built on the existing popularity of puff -and-dart), darts was transformed during the period 1918 to 1939 into one of the most popular forms of recreation in the country. This book has identified the forces which governed and controlled the rapid development of darts. Unlike other leisure providers during the interwar years, the brewers were under considerable threat from a number of sources. This had been the case before 1914 but it was only after 1918 that the brewers were rocked out of their complacency by the rapidly increasing commercialisation of existing, developing and new forms of mass leisure which the majority of brewers had, it seems, chosen to ignore. The brewers had always been perceived by temperance activists as a danger to the

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people, especially the working class. They were purveyors of liquor and the hand that guided the poor into degeneracy via the demon drink. Prior to 1914 drink had been the greatest menace to society, but much had changed and, with more time on their hands and more money to spare, working-class people had before them many more alternative leisure options. The brewers had to act. Consolidation of the industry through mergers was all well and good but counted for little if the public house was no longer the hub of working-class life. The brewers had to change and the English public house had to be changed and this was achieved through a process of improvement – a process which included darts. The improvement was born not of any sense of moral duty or responsibility on the part of the brewers to their customer base, but purely of necessity: the necessity of responding to the changing face of leisure – the profit motive being foremost – so they improved many of their premises (large and small), provided recreations and thereby stemmed the haemorrhage of customers, many of whom had transferred their social allegiance to the cinema, the dance hall and other more family-oriented leisure choices. New roadhouses with bright lights and dance bands had indicated a nodding acknowledgement on the part of the brewers to the increasing Americanisation of popular culture. However, darts was not part of the Americanisation of mass culture in England. Darts contributed to the process of improvement of public houses during the inter-war period. This is an aspect of the social history of the English pub which, to date, has escaped the attention of scholars, including David W. Gutzke, whose work on the history and development of the public house and has greatly informed this book.3 It is hoped that this work fills a gap in this body of research. Although the brewers introduced darts into their public houses, it was not a conscious, deliberate attempt on the part of the drinks trade to control the working class but part of a broader strategy to encourage people to visit the pub to engage in social activity and to encourage existing customers to stay. Alternative leisure options were legion; pub customers always had a choice, which included the choice to simply stay at home. Any control that the brewers and licensees may have had through darts was not imposed but was rather more of a ‘soft’ control. The darts players who participated in league or other competitions accepted and adhered to the rules and regulations of the NDA whilst others took the option of playing the game in a casual, informal way and, increasingly so, to the same rules and regulations. It is also impossible to determine whether or not the working class, especially working-class pubgoing males, would have become more radical

Conclusion

without regular participation in darts. No correlation has been found between darts and any specific patterns of political or trade union activity. However, darts may be viewed as a kind of complementary suppressant which, like football, remained a constant during a changing industrial and political landscape. Darts had become a fixed feature of mass culture during the 1930s and, as Dave Russell suggests for football, had much potential as a ‘social balm’ for the working class although ‘not necessarily consciously manipulated by social elites’.4 The National Darts Association standardised the game in the 1920s, establishing rules for league and competition play which remain basically unchanged to this day. Working with the News of the World, the NDA established an enduring, and eventually national, individual darts competition and its organisers, in particular its honorary secretary, Charles Garner, raised the profile of the game enormously across all classes. However, the power of the NDA was not all-conquering, and the resistance of players in the north to the imposition of rules from the south (that is, London) and the internal wrangling among its executive committee towards the end of the period, which led to the establishment of the British Darts Council (BDC) in August 1937, resulted in instability and failure to make darts truly national. In addition to setting out rules that would remain basically unchanged for decades, one other long-term success of the NDA was that it achieved its aim of freeing darts from the ‘taint of gambling’. Court cases involving darts and gaming became rare during the 1930s, and only one recorded incident has been discovered thus far (a bookmaker on the south coast of England trying to promote the wider potential for darts gambling by introducing ‘dart pools’).5 No major sport can endure without a material base and, as has been shown, a formative darts industry emerged during the inter-war years. Unlike other sports industries, an independent darts sector began to emerge only after 1920, with key players in the development of the industry establishing close and profitable working relations with the NDA. The working class could afford to play darts, although class distinctions were reinforced in 1938 when Frank Lowy introduced the ‘Silver Comet’ targeted directly at the middle and upper classes and their new-found enthusiasm for the game.6 Darts became a craze of the late 1930s, and fragmentary evidence culled from disparate sources helped determine the overall picture, focused mainly but not exclusively on London and the south-east of England. Darts was embraced by all classes, particularly in the south, and, as Maurice Gorham argued, threatened to knock sideways the longestablished social stratification of the English pub.7 T. E. B. Clarke feared

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that, due to the increasing popularity of the game, darts was ‘in real danger of becoming a science’.8 Regardless of class, age, sex or location, darts could be played by all; they had access to the game and played either at home, at work (through company leagues, sports clubs, canteens or dart parlours), at the fairground, at local fêtes and in clubs and pubs. Whilst some of the alternative locations have been touched upon, there is much more work to be undertaken in this respect and it is hoped that this book will encourage others to pursue such important lines of enquiry.9 This book has also shown that, surprisingly perhaps, women were afforded more opportunity to play darts and were more successful in competitions than any previous studies of women’s leisure have indicated. However, the evidence shows clearly that their participation was never sufficient to threaten power relations between women and the male occupants of the public bar or the male domination of what was perceived to be their space. We have also seen that, in some public houses, darts moved from the public bar into the saloon bar to appease the middle-class desire for the game. What was witnessed from the mid-1950s onwards was a ‘boom’ in darts brought about by an amalgam of the actions of the brewers, the enthusiastic promotional zeal of the NDA and members of the darts industry, the business acumen and organisational skills of licensees, the sponsorship and publicity provided by the News of the World (and latterly other popular Sunday newspapers, including The People), middle-class curiosity and the endless upper-class craving for novelty. The convergence of all these elements not only firmly established darts as a crucial part of the expansion of mass culture of late 1930s England but also set down the rules and laid the foundations of a recreation that would continue during and after the Second World War as an important element of working-class pub culture.10 In addition, this work has also shown darts to have been a greater part of the social life of working-class men in the 1930s than many of the recognised sports, and more than research up to now has suggested. Indeed, this book has been an extended argument about the enduring nature of the pub in inter-war popular culture. However, despite the work of David Gutzke, key areas of research into the public house remain, including the role of the publican/ landlord/landlady and the barmaid, and there is a need for more sustained enquiry into the continuing importance of the pub and the drink interest in English society. Whilst this book is centred upon darts – one of the small pleasures of everyday life during the inter-war years – there are other, larger pub-related issues which remain underexplored, and there is much more to discover concerning darts post-1945.

Conclusion

As we have seen in previous chapters, by 1939 darts was an established part of everyday life and popular culture in the south of England and had made some headway in the north and in Wales and Scotland. To the middle and upper classes in the south, darts had been ephemeral, a shortlived, transitory distraction, which ceased on the outbreak of the Second World War. All sport was affected by the war, with major football and cricket fixtures and competitions, among others, being cancelled or suspended.11 In terms of darts, the News of the World Individual Competition was suspended for the duration.12 However, the newspaper maintained the high profile of the game by setting up a ‘team of darts champions’, which included John Ross and Jim Pike, who played team matches in order to raise funds for the Red Cross, by the end of the war having raised £202,681, more than any other sport.13 Darts also played a crucial role in maintaining the morale of the people both at home and abroad. Darts player Jim Pike later wrote: Perhaps the war was partly responsible for its [darts’] growing popularity since it helped many of us to withstand the nightly terror from the skies and offered comfort and recreation to those of us who were ‘on the fire watch’ day by day, night after night.14

The game was taken into all theatres of war by English servicemen (including prisoner-of-war camps in Europe and the Far East) and thus many allies, particularly the Americans, Australian and New Zealanders, learned about the game. This acted as a catalyst for interest in darts which they took home with them when the war ended and assisted the gradual post-war worldwide expansion of the game.15 In addition darts were included in NAAFI sports packs in the latter part of the war.16 The extent to which the outbreak of the Second World War curtailed the potential longevity of the novelty of darts among the middle and upper classes will never be known. However, unlike earlier novelties which had faded without trace, darts simply returned to being a working-class pub pastime, played by the working-class pubgoers for whom it had originally been formally introduced, among whom its enduring appeal lay. The NDA did not survive the war but its rules remained in place through the News of the World competition and the numerous brewery and pub leagues which continued to spread across the country. Subsequent organisations which sought to control the game left the NDA rules relatively unchanged and this remained the case even when the sport was taken over by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) in the 1970s. From

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September 1954 until the 1970s darts was controlled by the National Darts Association of Great Britain (NDAGB), an organisation formed by The People and London-based darts organisers ‘on a pyramidal basis, with its county associations at the base, the areas in the middle, and the executive council at the apex’.17 In addition to organising the People darts team competition, the NDAGB also secured support from Guinness, who sponsored a national pairs competition, and the Nodor company for a four-a-side championship. Future sponsors of NDAGB events included Delta Metals, Hayward’s Pickles and Captain Morgan’s Rum, the latter of which later sponsored the News of the World individual championship.18 During the NDAGB s period of control, darts remained very much a lowprofile pub game of little or no national significance in terms of media coverage, except for the People team competition and the News of the World individual championship, the latter helping to create the first ‘name’ players of the 1960s, including Tom Barrett, of Hanworth, Middlesex, who won the championship in 1963/64 and then, whilst sponsored by Unicorn Products, became the first person to defend his title successfully when he retained it in the 1964/65 season.19 Men continued to dominate darts at all levels, yet, as Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew argue, ‘women’s darts became possibly the most popular participation sport in the years following the end of the Second World War’. For many women darts provided one of those rare occasions when they could go to a public house unaccompanied by a man; women’s darts established a bridgehead into the ‘masculine republic’ and helping undermine the pub’s traditional status as an exclusively male domain.20 In this sense darts helped to revive the sense of community of the public house and strengthened it against the threats from continually expanding leisure forms, particularly television. When the British Darts Organisation was established in 1973 the NDAGB found itself caught out by its own complacency. John Ross, president of the NDAGB, recalled in 1983, ‘I suppose it’s true that the NDA[GB] didn’t take the opportunities when it had the chance. We didn’t have the ‘go-ahead’ people on the Council … I used to discuss it [the BDO] with the Council members, the Executive and after that they used to turn a deaf ear. They didn’t want to be bothered.’21 As the NDAGB slowly disintegrated, the BDO, led by managing director Olly Croft, found the sponsors, attracted massive television coverage and turned darts into an international, professional sport. In February 1979 the Evening News declared that Croft ‘had been responsible for everything that has happened to darts’ and that the BDO had ‘brought the game out of the

Conclusion

Middle Ages and into the glare of television lights as the twentieth century’s newest spectator sport’.22 At the time it was estimated that 2 million people in Britain played darts competitively three or four times a week, with another 3 million playing it ‘fairly regularly’, plus at least another 2 million who threw darts ‘at least once a year’, and that, in January 1979, 8 million BBC Television viewers had watched John Lowe, of Chesterfield, win the Embassy World Professional Darts Championship at Jollees Club, Stoke-on-Trent, defeating the previous year’s champion, Leighton Rees, of Wales, 5–0 in the final.23 In a bid to achieve worldwide dominance of the sport of darts Olly Croft established the World Darts Federation (WDF) in 1976, with initially fifteen nations joining.24 By 1979 the figure had increased to fortynine member countries, and today membership comprises in excess of sixty nations, one of the more recent to join being Iran in 2006.25 Through the WDF darts became a global organised sport. Raising the profile of darts to a national obsession in Britain created the first darts professionals, many of whom, including Eric Bristow, John Lowe, Leighton Rees (Wales) and Jocky Wilson (Scotland), became household names.26 Four decades earlier, players like Harold Barker had been in fulltime employment but utilised their skill playing in money matches and organised competitions to supplement their income. Bristow, Lowe, Rees and Wilson also found themselves thrust into the limelight but, unlike Barker, were able to earn sufficient income from the game to enable them to play darts full-time. The second ‘boom’ in darts had arrived, but this time it was different from the inter-war obsession with the sport. However, despite the increasing popularity of the sport, there have been very few full-time professional female darts players.27 Darts was big business yet depended on the on-going support of the television companies to maintain its high profile. By the mid to late 1980s the boom had turned to bust. In 1988 television networks turned away from darts and the sport fell into decline. Greg Dyke, Director of Programmes at London Weekend Television, stated that ‘audiences for darts have declined sharply in recent years and we have decided that the time has come to spend our money in other directions and provide different programmes for the viewers’.28 As television spurned darts the professional players found their opportunities for work drastically reduced. In 1993, with the BDO failing to find more sponsors, and with the number of competitions reducing, the majority of the ‘stars’, their managers and darts manufacturers severed connections with the BDO and formed the World Darts Council.29 The organisation, now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), serves the interests of the professionals and has successfully promoted the game,

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increasing darts’ coverage on satellite television and creating new ‘names’, including Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor.30 The result is that today there are two governing bodies of the sport, and two separate world championships – a situation not dissimilar to that extant in the sport of boxing – the PDC representing the professional darts player whilst the BDO continues to support the grass roots of the game, organise the Lakeside (previously the Embassy) World Professional Darts Championship and the Winmau World Masters, run the county league championships and support and encourage young people to enter the sport – and sport it undoubtedly is. As for the long-term future, electronic ‘soft tip’ darts – utilising machines which register and subtract the score as each dart penetrates the board – is becoming increasingly popular in the United States and Europe.31 At the moment, British dart players are rejecting the electronic version of the game, based mainly on two premises, first, that it is a distortion of the traditional game and, second, the British have never had to pay to play, unless it was for half a pint of beer or a money match. However, as a columnist in Darts World stated, ‘If you think that soft-tip will never invade the UK, think again. It will eventually come like a thief in the night and gradually edge out our traditional game.’32 Like the middle and upper classes of the 1930s, in this electronic, computerised age, it is the young people of the twenty-first century who are continually in search of novelty. For this reason, and because young people tend to be less defensive of tradition, electronic darts will eventually become the future of darts. Thus, despite the Daily Herald claiming in 1937 that darts was ‘as nicely expert a sport as golf or fishing’, throughout the inter-war years it was but a small part of the sporting revolution, the term ‘sport’ being rarely applied to darts.33 Indeed, the categorisation of darts as a national sport was never extensively discussed in the media during the inter-war years. It would not be until the mid-1980s, when National Lottery funding for sports initiatives was introduced, that the first steps were taken by the BDO to get darts formally recognised as a sport – something that was not achieved until June 2005.34 However, if it had not been for the successful interaction between the drinks trade, the NDA and the mass media during the inter-war years, darts would have remained an insignificant local pub game and not become the worldwide cultural phenomenon it is today.

Conclusion

Notes 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8

9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Lawrence H. Dawson (ed.), Hoyle’s Games Modernized (London: George Routledge & Sons, ‘entirely new edition’, n.d. but c. 1945), p. iv. Ibid., pp. iii, iv and 453–66. In 2007 John K. Walton was critical of Gutzke’s work Pubs and Progressives Reinventing the Public House in England1896–1960 (De Kalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006) on the grounds that, among other things, Gutzke ‘proceeds on the assumption that all existing pubs were either “boozers” or exploitative “gin palaces” that somehow lived by promoting drunkenness through excessive beer consumption’. (John K. Walton, ‘Review of books’, American Historical Review, April 2007, pp. 592–3.) It is also true that, in this particular work, Gutzke ignored the role played by the smaller pub in the reinvention of the English public house and thus almost entirely overlooked the role played by darts and other pub games in the reinvention of the public house and in sustaining the popularity of pubs during the period covered by this book. Dave Russell, Football and the English – A Social History of Association Football in England1863–1995 (Preston: Carnegie Publishing, 1997), p. 114. Daily Sketch, 21 December 1937, p. 27. Darts World, August 1987, p. 24. Maurice Gorham, The Local (London: Cassell & Co., 1939), pp. 25–6. T. E. B. Clarke, What’s Yours? The Students’ Guide to Publand (London: Peter Davies, 1938), p. 74. However, post-war, Maurice Gorham was relieved to report that, of ‘the darts craze’ which had threatened to change the very character of the pub, ‘its worst dangers seem to have passed away’. (Maurice Gorham, Back to the Local, London: Percival Marshall & Co., 1949, p. 74.) It is also hoped that this book will encourage research into the social history of darts in other countries. For a consideration of darts in the Second World War both in England and in other theatres of war and including prisoner-of-war camps in Europe and the Far East see Patrick Chaplin, ‘The Social History of Darts during the Second World War’, unpublished manuscript (October 1999). The War Illustrated, 2:27 (8 March 1940), p. ii. John Morris (ed.), News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89 (London: Invincible Press, 1988), p. 28. Red Cross Society (no author cited), Red Cross and St John War History (London: Red Cross Society, 1949), p. 556. Jim Pike, ‘Darts’ in James Rivers (ed.), The Sports Book (London: Macdonald & Co., 1946), p. 94. Darts World, April 1996, p. 22. Harry Miller, Service to the Services – The Story of NAAFI (London: Newman Neame, 1971), p. 72. Derek Brown, The Guinness Book of Darts (rev. edn, Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1982), p. 14. See also Derek Brown, ‘The “splendid binge” that launched the NDA, Darts World, December 1981, p. 46.

225

226

Darts in England

18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27

28 29 30

31 32 33 34

Mike Bender, ‘John Ross: Memoirs of a Darts-playing Man’, unpublished manuscript (December 1983), p. 83. Morris, News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89, pp. 29 and 34–7. Barrett was also the first darts player to write his autobiography. See Tom Barrett, Darts (London: Pan Books, 1973). Tony Collins and Wray Vamplew, Mud, Sweat and Beers – A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (Oxford: Berg, 2002), pp. 32–3. Bender, ‘John Ross: Memoirs of a Darts-playing Man’, p. 88. Evening News, 22 February 1979, p. 23. Ibid.; Darts World, March 1979, p. 4. World Darts Federation web site www.dartswdf.com. (Information downloaded 6 October 2006.) Evening News, 22 February 1979, p. 23; Darts World, June 2006, p. 49. For Eric Bristow see Deryk Brown, The Crafty Cockney – The Official Biography of Eric Bristow (London: Queen Anne Press, 1985); for John Lowe see John Lowe (with Patrick Chaplin), Old Stoneface – The Autobiography of Britain’s Greatest Darts Player (London: John Blake, 2005); for Leighton Rees see Dave Lanning (ed.), Leighton Rees on Darts (London: Cassell & Co., 1979), and for Jocky Wilson see Jocky Wilson, Jocky – Jocky Wilson’s own Story (London: Arthur Barker, 1983)._ For a brief history of women’s darts see Patrick Chaplin, ‘Darts’ in Karen Chris-tensen, Allen Guttmann and Gertrud Pfister (eds), International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2001), pp. 311–14. For the only autobiography ever published of a women’s world darts champion see Trina Gulliver (with Patrick Chaplin), Golden Girl – The Autobiography of the Greatest Ever Ladies’ Darts Champion (London: John Blake, 2008) Greg Dyke, Director of Programmes, London Weekend Television, letter to Patrick Chaplin, 21 July 1988. For details of the ‘split’ see Lowe, Old Stoneface, chapter 12, ‘The five year war’, pp. 155–66. For more information concerning Phil Taylor see Phil Taylor (with Sid Waddell), The Power – My Autobiography (London: CollinsWillow, 2003). For a detailed personal account of the development of darts in the last three decades of the twentieth century see Sid Waddell, Bellies and Bullseyes – The Outrageous True Story of Darts (London: Ebury Press, 2007). Timothy R Bucci, A Quiver of Tree (Bloomington IN: AuthorHouse, 2005), pp. 1–3. Darts World, July 2006, p. 45. Daily Herald, 6 February 1937, p. 8. ‘British Darts Organisation Gains Sports Recognition for Darts’, BDO press release dated 3 June 2005.

Appendix A The declared aims of the National Darts Association as agreed at the meeting held on 21 February 19251 1 To protect the game of darts, as played in accordance with the associations rules, from the attacks of fanatics, and to further its interests by the legitimate means in its power. 2 To suppress all forms of gambling on the game and immediately suspend any club or player guilty of such an act. 3 To sanction and control competitions, and to act as a final court of appeal in case of a dispute between a club and its competition management. 4 To put up cups for inter-league, inter-club and individual competitions. 5 To examine, through the medium of secretary or other duly authorised official, any make of board, and if in accordance with the associations specifications (both sides), to issue certificates and to permit the maker to use the words ‘pattern approved by the National Darts Association’. 6 To assist to promote the social side of the game and generally to aim at a standard of sportsmanship worthy of the founders. 7 To establish county or district associations to lighten the work of headquarters, and to obviate too much travelling and expense to delegates.2 Notes 1 2

Morning Advertiser, 21 February 1925, p. 10. ‘Headquarters’ at this time was Peel’s home in Westfield Road, Surbiton.

Appendix B The official rules of darts as published in the Morning Advertiser Licensees’ Charity Cup (Individual competition)1 1 The game will be 301 up, finish only on a double. 2 That all matches under the jurisdiction of the NDA be played on a standard [i.e. Clock] dart board… 3 That the board be 5 ft 8 in. high from the floor to the centre, and the throw 9 ft in a plumb line from the centre of the board. 4 That the throw-off line (or hockey) be permanently shown in some distinctive manner. 5 That all competition matches be started by the toss of a coin, the gentleman winning to throw first in the first, and, if played, third games, but his opponent shall throw first in the second game. 6 That all competition matches finish on a double. ‘50’ shall count as double ‘25’. 7 The onus of forwarding the result, win or lose, rests with the home licensee. League and Cup competition (Team events)2 1 That any properly constituted league or cup competition may be affiliated to the National Darts Association on payment of a fee of 5s [five shillings] for the league, and Is [one shilling] for each competing club, and play under their own rules, providing that if they enter for the association’s cups they must comply with the undermentioned in those competitions only. 2 That matches in the NDA Challenge Cup be played on a standard [i.e. Clock] dart board… 3 That the board be 5 ft 8 in. high from the floor to the centre, and the throw 9 ft in a plumb line from the centre of the board. 4 That the throw-off line (or hockey) be permanently shown in some distinctive manner.

Appendix B

5

6 7 8

9

10

11

12 13 14

That matches be started by the toss of a coin, the side winning to throw first in the first, and, if played, third games, but their opponents shall throw first in the second game. That matches finish on a double. ‘50’ shall count as double ‘25’. That a team shall comprise of eight players, such players throwing alternatively [sic] with their competitors. Contests to be three games of 1,001, finish on the double, one point to count for a win. The exact number must be obtained, and any player obtaining more than the requisite number, the throw shall not count, and the next player shall throw for the original number required. Players in all competitions must sign a league form approved by the council. Times of play shall be settled by each league, and all matters concerning the players, subject to those already provided for in these rules, shall be determined by the league council concerned. Unless special permission has been obtained from the NDA, no player to play for more than one club in a league competition in any one season. Any club affiliated to the NDA to have the right to appeal to the council on depositing a fee of 10s 6d, which deposit may be forfeited in the event of the appeal failing. Any club may use their own darts. Gambling shall be strictly prohibited, and any player violating this rule shall be liable to suspension. No game shall be played for money or money’s worth. Notes

1 2

Morning Advertiser, 19 January 1926, p. 11. Ibid., 22 April 1926, p. 10.

229

Bibliography Primary sources Archival sources Brewers and Licensed Retailers’ Association (BALRA) archive, Portman Square, London Non-catalogued collection of newspaper cuttings in folder entitled ‘Pub Games and Sports’. London Metropolitan Archives Associations: London Transport to Municipal Reform: Manchester Unity Friendly Society [Darts Team] Accounts and Balance Sheets (LMA/4254/A/03/003) Rules and Fixture Cards (LMA/4254/A/03/005). Barclay Perkins & Co. Ltd, Minute Books 1918-36 (Acc/2305/1/14 to Acc/2305/1/25/1). Hodgson’s (Kingston) Brewery, Board minute books 1921-40 (Ace 2305/15/16 to Ace 2305/15/29). Taylor Walker & Co. Ltd, Directors’ Meetings, Minute Book, Vol. I, 193A– A2 (LMA/4433/C/01/001). The Anchor Magazine January-December 1922 to January-September 1939 (Ace 2305/1/750 to Ace 2305/1/760). Truman Hanbury & Buxton, Board meetings July 1932-May 1937 (B/THB/A/115), Monthly Reports October 1908-February 1938 (B/THA/A/122), Black Eagle magazine 1929-33, Vol. I, Nos 1-5 (B/THB/PMT/1) and Vol. II, Nos 6-10, 1933-38 (B/THB/PMT/2). Watney Combe Reid, Directors’ Minute Books 1917-18 to 1939/40 (Ace 2979/6 to Ace 2979/42). Watney Mann, Minutes 1898-1973 GB/NNAF/B6242, reference 2979. Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London Non-catalogued but chronological collection of toys and games catalogues 1900-40. National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield Microfilm collection of World’s Fair.

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Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna England Korrespondez, Karton 5, Berichte 1532, fol. 3r, Report of Ernest Chapuys, the Austrian emperor’s ambassador to England, dated 4 January 1532. Royal Free Hospital (Hampstead) Archive Annual Reports of the London Fever Hospital 1938–1940.

Diaries, memoirs and autobiographical works Beed, Edie, Seventy Years behind Bars, Bradninch, Devon: published by the author, 1984. Bender, Mike, ‘John Ross – Memoirs of a Dart-playing Man’, unpublished biography, dated December 1983, copy in possession of the author. Chaplin (née King), Joyce, Maldon, Essex, personal diary for 1939, original in possession of the author. Chapman, Kit, An Innkeeper’s Diary, September 1996–September 1997, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. East, George, A Year behind Bars ( The Publican’s Tale), Portsmouth: La Puce Publications, 2001. Eckersley, Roger, The BBC and All That, London: Sampson Low Marston & Co., 1946. Fothergill, John, An Innkeeper’s Diary, London: Chatto & Windus, 1931. Fothergill, John, Confessions of an Innkeeper, London: Chatto & Windus, 1938. Gilmore, Michael, ‘The Birth of Darts in South Shields’, typed document dated September 2001, copy in the possession of the author. Girtin, Tom, Come, Landlord!, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1957. Green, Martin, A Year in the Drink, London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1982. Hood, Sally, untitled memoirs, New Zealand 2003–05, obtained via e-mail, in the possession of the author. Leggatt, Amelia, untitled family memoir, New York 1968, copy in the possession of the author. Reynolds, Margaret, Prisoner in the Bar, London: Phoenix House, 1958. Sanger, ‘Lord’ George, Seventy Years a Showman, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1935. Showers, J. G., The Welcome Inn, Derby: Pilgrim Press, 1952. Treacey, Sean, The Smell of Broken Glass, London: Tom Stacey, 1973. Williamson, Tim, We Ran a Cornish Pub, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967.

Parliamentary Papers and official publications Betting and Gaming Act 1960. Gaming Act 1845. Gaming Act 1968. Huddersfield Improvement Act, 1871. Licensing Act 1872. Output of Beer (Restriction) Act 1916 and Output of Beer (Restriction) Amendment Act.

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Jones, Aled, Powers of the Press – Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth Century England, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996. Jones, Michael, Time, Gentlemen, Please! Kew: PRO Publications, 1997. Jones, Stephen G., Workers at Play – A Social and Economic History of Leisure 1918–1939, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. Jones, Stephen G., The British Labour Movement and Film 1918–1939, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Jones, Stephen G., Sport, Politics and the Working Class – Organised Labour and Sport in Inter-war Britain, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988. Kennett, George B. (ed.), Stone’s Justices’ Manual, being the Justices’ Yearly Practice 1897, London: Shaw & Sons, 1897. Kirkham, Pat, Mace, Rodney, and Porter, Julia, Furnishing the World – The East End Furniture Trade 1830–1980, London: Journeyman, 1987. Lake, Fred, with Hal Wright, A Bibliography of Archery, Manchester: Simon Archery Foundation, 1974. Lancaster, Bill, The Department Store – A Social History, London: Leicester University Press, 1995. Langhamer, Claire, Women’s Leisure in England 1920–1960, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Larrabee, Eric, and Meyersohn, Rolf, Mass Leisure, Glencoe IL: Free Press, 1958. Laybourn, Keith, Britain on the Breadline – A Social and Political History of Britain between the Wars, Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1990 Levy, Herman, Drink – An Economic and Social Study, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951. London School of Economics, New Survey of London Life and Labour, I, London: LSE, 1930. Lowerson, John, Sport and the English Middle Classes 1870–1914, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Lowerson, John, and Myerscough, John, Time to Spare in Victorian England, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1977. Macdonald, Lyn, 1915 – The Death of Innocence, London: Headline, 1993. MacQueen Pope, W., Give me Yesterday, London: Hutchinson, 1957. Magee, Rob, A History of Crompton and Shaw Pubs, Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1988. Malcolmson, Robert W., Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Martin, Brian P., Tales from the Country Pub, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1998. Marwick, Arthur, The Deluge – British Society and the First World War, London: Pelican Books, 1967. Marwick, Arthur, The Explosion of British Society 1914–1970, London: Macmillan, 1971. Mason, Tony, Association Football and English Society 1863–1915, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980.

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Opie, Iona and Peter, Children’s Games with Tings, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Oppenheim, Michael, A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy and of Merchant Shipping in relation to the Navy, I, 1509–1660, London: John Lane, 1896. Orwell, George, Inside the Whale and other Essays, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957. Orwell, George, The Lion and the Unicorn – Socialism and the English Genius, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986. (Originally published London: Secker & Warburg, 1941.) Palmer, Alan, The East End – Four Centuries of London Life, rev. edn, London: John Murray, 2000. Part, Alexander F., The Art and Practice of Innkeeping, London: William Heinemann, 1922. Pearsall, Ronald, Edwardian Life and Leisure, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973. Pimlott, John A. R., The Englishman’s Holiday – A Social History, London: Faber & Faber, 1947. Prest, A. R, Consumers’ Expenditure in the United Kingdom 1900–1919, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954. Protz, Roger (ed.), CAMRA 1981 Good Beer Guide, St Albans: Campaign for Real Ale, 1981. Quennell, Peter (ed.), London’s Underworld, London: Spring Books, n.d. Quennell, Peter (ed.), Mayhew’s Characters, London: Spring Books, n.d. Quinn, Arthur H., and O’Neill, Edward H., The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992. Red Cross Society (no author cited), Red Cross and St John War History, London: Red Cross Society, 1949. Richards, Jeffrey, The Age of the Dream Palace – Cinema and Society in Britain 1930–1939, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984. Richardson, Kenneth, The British Motor Industry 1896–1939 – A Social and Economic History, London: Macmillan, 1977. Ritchie, Andrew, King of the Road – An Illustrated History of Cycling, London:Wildwood House, 1975. Robb, George, British Culture and the First World War, London: Palgrave, 2002. Roberts, Elizabeth, A Woman’s Place – An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890–1940, London: Basil Blackwell, 1985. Roberts, Robert, The Classic Slum, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1971. Robertson, Patrick, The Shell Book of Firsts, London: Ebury Press and Michael Joseph, 1974. Roebuck, Janet, The Making of Modern English Society from 1850, Newton Abbot: Readers’ Union, 1974. Rogers, Barbara, Men Only – An Investigation into Men’s Organisations, London: Pandora Press, 1988. Roper, Michael, and Tosh, John, Manful Assertions – Masculinities in Britain since 1800, London: Routledge, 1991.

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Rowntree, Benjamin Seebohm (ed.), Betting and Gambling – A National Evil, London: Macmillan & Co., 1905. Russell, Dave, Football and the English – A Social History of Association Football in England 1863–1995, Preston: Carnegie Publishing, 1997. Sandiford, Keith, Cricket and the Victorians, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1994. Schwarz, Helmut, and Faber, Marion, Games we Play – The History of J. W. Spear & Sons, Ware: Spear Charitable Trust in association with Spear’s Games Archive Trust, 1997. Seaman, L. C. B., Life in Britain between the Wars, London: B. T. Batsford, 1970. Serocold, Walter Pearce (ed.), The Story of Watney’s, London: Watney Combe Reid & Co., 1949. Shadwell, A., Drink in 1914–1922– A Lesson in Control, London: Longmans Green & Co., 1923. Sheppard, Francis, Brakspear’s Brewery, Henley on Tames 1779–1979, Henleyon-Tames: W. H. Brakspear & Sons, 1979. Stevenson, John, Social Conditions in Britain between the Wars, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977. Stevenson, John, British Society 1914–1945, London: Penguin Books, 1990. Stevenson, John, and Cook, Chris, Britain and the Depression – Society and Politics 1929–1939, 2nd edn, London: Longman, 1998. Storey, John, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture – An Introduction, 4th edn, Harlow: Pearson Education, 2006. Strachey, R. (ed.), Our Freedom and its Results, London: Hogarth Press, 1936. Strutt, Joseph, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, new edn ed. William Hone, London: Thomas Tegg, 1831. (Originally published London: Thomas Tegg, 1801.) Symonds, Julian, The Thirties – A Dream Revolved, rev. edn, London: Faber & Faber, 1975. Tarassuk, Leonid, and Blair, Claude, The Complete Encyclopaedia of Arms and Weapons, London: B. T. Batsford, 1982. Taylor, A. J. P., English History 1914–1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, London: Victor Gollancz, 1963. Thompson, E. P., and Yeo, Eileen, The Unknown Mayhew, London: Mayhew Press, 1971. Thompson, F. M. L. (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750–1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Thompson, Paul, The Voice of the Past – Oral History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1988. Thompson, Paul, The Edwardians – The Remaking of British Society, 2nd edn, London: Routledge, 1992. Thomson, David, England in the Twentieth Century, Pelican History of England, 9, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965. Thorpe, Andrew, Britain in the 1930s – The Deceptive Decade, Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1992.

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Tosh, John, The Pursuit of History, rev. 3rd edn, Harlow: Pearson Education, 2002. Toulmin, Vanessa, Pleasurelands, Sheffield: National Fairground Archive, 2003. Tranter, Neil, Sport, Economy and Society in Britain 1750–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Tremlett, George, Clubmen – The History of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union, London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1987. Trevelyan, G. M., English Social History, London: Reprint Society, 1948. Vamplew, Wray, Pay up and Play the Game – Professional Sport in Britain 1875–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Vasey, Daniel E, The Pub and English Social Change, New York: AMS Press, 1990. Walby, Sylvia, Patriarchy at Work, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986. Walton, John K., The Blackpool Landlady – A Social History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978. Walton, John K., The English Seaside Resort – A Social History 1750–1914, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1983. Walton, John K., Fish and Chips and the British Working Class 1870–1940, London: Leicester University Press, 1992. Walton, John K., The British Seaside – Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Walvin, James, The People’s Game – A Social History of British Football, London: Allen Lane, 1975. Walvin, James, Beside the Seaside – A Social History of the Popular Seaside Holiday, London: Allen Lane, 1978. Walvin, James, Leisure and Society 1830–1950, London: Longman, 1978. Walvin, James, The People’s Game – The History of Football Revisited, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1994. Waters, Chris, British Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture 1894–1914, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. Weir, Alison, Henry VIII and his Court, London: Pimlico, 2002. Williams, Jack, Cricket and England – A Cultural and Social History of the Interwar Years, London: Frank Cass, 2003. Williams, Raymond, The Long Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965. (Originally published London: Chatto & Windus, 1961.) Williams, Raymond, Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Williams, Raymond, Keywords – A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Glasgow: Fontana and London: Croom Helm, 1979. Williams, Thomas, Life in England from Victoria to Elizabeth, Lewes: Book Guild, 1987. Williamson, Judith, Consuming Passions – The Dynamics of Popular Culture, London: Marion Boyars, 1985. Wilson, R. G., Greene King – A Business and Family History, London: Bodley Head and Jonathan Cape, 1983. Winter, J. M., The Great War and the British People, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985.

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Wood, Rev. J. G., The Boy’s Modern Playmate – A Book of Sports, Games and Pastimes, London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1895. [Woodforde, James] A Country Parson – James Woodforde’s Diary 1759–1802, foreword by John Julius Norwich, introduction by Ronald Blythe, London: Tiger Books International, 1991. Wotherspoon, Ralph, and Jackson, L. N., Some Sports and Pastimes of the English, London: Herbert Jenkins, n.d. but c. 1937. Wrigley, Chris, Lloyd George, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992. Yorke, Francis W B., FRIBA, The Planning and Equipment of Public Houses, London: Architectural Press, 1949.

Books: darts and pub games Arnold, Peter, Darts, London: Deans International Publishing, 1984. Barrett, Tom, Darts, London: Pan Books, 1973. Bills, Peter, Sportsviewers Guide – Darts, Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, 1983. Bristow, Eric, Darts – A Complete Guide to the Game, London: Orbis Publishing, 1985. Brown, Derek, Darts 78, London: Mirror Books, 1977. Brown, Derek, The Guinness Book of Darts, Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1981. Brown, Derek, The Guinness Book of Darts, rev. edn, Enfield: Guinness Superlatives, 1982. Brown, Deryk, The Crafty Cockney – The Official Biography of Eric Bristow, London: Queen Anne Press, 1985. Bucci, Timothy R., A Quiver of Tree, Bloomington IN: AuthorHouse, 2005. Burgess, Len, Darts – The Rules of Play – A Guide for Playing and Games, Croydon, Australia: published by the author, n.d., but c. 1980. Caley, George, How to Improve Your Darts, London: Photo Instruction Books, n.d. but c. 1950. Coutts, Don, Play Better Darts, Croydon: World Magazines, n.d. but c. 1978. Croft-Cooke, Rupert, Darts, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936. Croft-Cooke, Rupert, Darts (with a special chapter by Frank Wolfe, editor of The Dart), London: Findon Publications, n.d. but c. 1947. D’Egville, Alan and Geoffrey, Darts With the Lid Off, London: Cassell & Company, 1938. Finn, Timothy, The Watney Book of Pub Games, London: Queen Anne Press, 1966. Finn, Timothy, Pub Games of England, London: Queen Anne Press, 1975. Gulliver, Trina (with Patrick Chaplin), Golden Girl – The Autobiography of the Greatest Ever Ladies Darts Player, London, John Blake, 2008. Hady, Edmund Carl, American and English Dart Game Including Tournament Rules, Ashlet, Pennsylvania: Mayflower Graphics, 1973. Hakin, George, The Darts Players’ Handbook, London: Seeley Service & Co., 1977.

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Lanning, Dave (ed.), Leighton Rees On Darts, London: Cassell, 1979. Licensed Victuallers Gazette Office, Lawful Games on Licensed Premises and Their Grounds and Outhouses, London: Licensed Victuallers Gazette Office, 1903. Lowe, John (with Patrick Chaplin), Old Stoneface – The Autobiography of Britain’s Greatest Darts Player, London: John Blake, 2005. McClintock, Jack, The Book of Darts, New York: Random House, 1977. McLeod, Bob and Cohen, Jay, Darts Unlimited, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1977. Morris, John (ed.), News of the World Darts Annual 1988/89, London: Invincible Press, 1988. Peek, Dan William, To the Point – The Story of Darts in America, Columbia, Missouri: Totem Pointe, 2001. Taylor, Arthur R., Pub Games, Frogmore: Mayflower Books Ltd, 1976. Taylor, Arthur R., The Guinness Book of Traditional Pub Games, Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Publishing, 1992. Taylor, Phil (with Sid Waddell), The Power – My Autobiography, London: CollinsWillow, 2003. Turner, Keith, Darts – The Complete Book of the Game, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1980. Waddell, Sid (compiler), The BBC Book of World Darts, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1979. Waddell, Sid, Bedside Darts, London, Stanley Paul, 1985. Waddell, Sid, Bellies and Bullseyes – The Outrageous True Story of Darts, London, Ebury Press, 2007. Waddell, Sid, and Meade, John, Indoor League, London: Pan Books, 1975. Wellington, A., The Various Dart Games and How to Play Them, London: Universal Publications, 1937. Whannel, Paddy and Hodgdon, Dana, The Book of Darts, Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1978. Whitcombe, Dave, How to Play Darts, London: Hamlyn, 1981. Williamson, Noel E., Darts, Kingswood: Elliot Right Way Books, 1968. Wilson, Jocky (with Sid Waddell), Jocky – Jocky Wilsons Own Story, London: Arthur Barker, 1983. Wolfe, Frank (ed.), 1949 Darts Players Annual, Feltham: Darts Publications & Supplies, 1948. Young, John, How to Play Darts and New Games for the Dart Board, London: W Foulsham & Co., 1938. Young, John, Winning Darts (ed. Geoff Martin), London: W Foulsham & Co., 1981.

Articles in edited academic collections Cannadine, David, ‘The context, performance and meaning of ritual – the British monarchy and the “invention of tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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Dodd, Philip, ‘Englishness and the national culture’ in Robert Colls and Philip Dodd (eds), Englishness – Politics and Culture 1880–1920, London: Croom Helm, 1986. Hall, Stuart, ‘Notes on deconstructing “the popular”’ in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. Lewis, Jane, ‘In search of a real equality – women between the wars’ in Frank Gloversmith (ed.), Class, Culture and Social Change – A New View of the 1930s, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980. Lowerson, John, Angling’ in Tony Mason (ed.), Sport in Britain – A Social History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 McKibbin, Ross, ‘Work and hobbies in Britain 1880–1950’ in Jay Winter (ed.), The Working Class in Modern British History – Essays in Honour of Henry Pelling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Morris, R. J., ‘Clubs, societies and associations’ in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750–1950, III, Social Agencies and Institutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Trentman, Frank, ‘Leisure and recreation’ in David Loades (ed.), Reader’s Guide to British History, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003. Vamplew, Wray, ‘The sport of kings and commoners – the commercialization of British horse-racing in the nineteenth century’ in R. Cashman and M. McKernan (eds), Sport in History – The Making of Modern Sporting History, Brisbane: Queensland University Press, 1979. Wilson, Richard, ‘The British brewing industry since 1750’ in Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton (eds), The Brewing Industry – A Guide to Historical Records, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. Winter, Jay, ‘Popular culture in wartime Britain’ in Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites (eds), European Culture in the Great War – The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Articles in other collections Brown, Ivor, ‘The inn’ in C. B. Ford (ed.), The Legacy of England, London: B. T. Batsford, 1935. Mass Observation file report 3192, ‘Man and his cigarette’, 1949, Mass Observation Archive, University of Brighton. Pike, Jim, ‘Darts’ in James Rivers (ed.) The Sports Book, London: Macdonald & Co., 1946.

Journal articles: scholarly journals Aslet, Clive, ‘Beer and skittles in the improved public house’, Tirties Society Journal (st), 1984. Bailey, Peter, ‘Leisure, culture and the historian: reviewing the first generation of leisure historiography’, Leisure Studies, 8 (1989).

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Bailey, Peter, ‘The politics and poetics of modern British leisure – a late twentieth century review’, Rethinking History, 3:2 (1999). Bennison, Brien, ‘The scramble for licensed houses: some evidence from Newcastle upon Tyne’, Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 15:2 (1995). Collins, Tony, and Vamplew, Wray, ‘The pub, the drinks trade and the early years of modern football’, Sports Historian, 20:1 (May 2000). Eiselt, H. A., and Laporte, Gilbert, A combinational optimization problem arising in dartboard design’, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 42:2 (1991). Fahey, David M., ‘Brewers, publicans, and working-class drinkers: pressure group politics in late Victorian and Edwardian England’, Histoire sociale – Social History, 13 (1980). Godley, Andrew, ‘Immigrant entrepreneurs and the emergence of London’s East End as an industrial district’, London Journal, 21:1 (1996). Godley, Andrew, Kershen, Anne J., and Schapiro, Raphael, ‘Fashion and its impact on the economic development of London’s East End womenswear Industry, 1929–1962: the case of Ellis & Goldstein’, Textile History, 34:2 (2003). Gorsky, Martin, Mohan, John, and Powell, Martin, ‘The financial health of voluntary hospitals in interwar Britain’, Economic History Review, 55:3 (2002). Griffin, Emma, ‘Popular culture in industrializing England’, Historical Journal, 45:3 (2002). Gutzke, David W., ‘Gentrifying the British public house 1896–1914’, International Labor and Working Class History, 45 (spring 1994). Hall, P. G., ‘The east London footwear industry: an industrial quarter in decline’, East London Papers, 5 (1962). Holt, Richard, ‘Sport and history: the state of the subject in Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, 7:2 (1996). Holt, Richard, ‘“No ideas but in things”: Tony Mason’s Association Football and English Society , Sports Historian, 22:1 (May 2002). Howkins, Alun, Whitsun in Nineteenth Century Oxfordshire, History Workshop pamphlet No. 8, 1973. Huggins, Mike, ‘Going to the dogs’, History Today, May 2006. Inwood, Stephen, ‘London’s industries before the First World War’, Centre for Local History Studies (Kingston University, London), 10 (summer 2005). Johnes, Martin, ‘Sports history on the internet’, British Society of Sports History Newsletter, 15 (spring 2002). Johnes, Martin, ‘Pigeon racing and working-class culture in Britain c. 1870– 1950’, Cultural and Social History, 4:3 (2007). Jones, Stephen G., ‘The leisure industry in Britain 1918–1939’, Services Industry Journal, 5 (March 1985). Jones, Stephen G., ‘Sports, politics and the Labour movement: the British Workers’ Sports Federation, 1923–1935’, British Journal of Sports History, 2:2 (September 1985). Leigh., J. G., ‘What do the masses read?’, Economic Review, 14:2 (1904). Lonsdale, Gillian, ‘The changing character of the east London industry’, East London Papers, 5:2 (1962).

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Lowerson, John, ‘Stoolball: conflicting values in the revivals of a “Traditional Sussex Game”’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 133 (1995). Mutch, Alistair, ‘Magistrates and public house managers 1840–1914: another case of Liverpool exceptionalism?’ Northern History, 40:2 (September 2003). Rubenstein, David, ‘Sport and the sociologist 1890–1914’, British Journal of Sports History, 1 (May 1984). Simons, John, ‘The “Englishness” of cricket’, Journal of Popular Culture, 29:4 (spring 1996). Taylor, Miles, ‘The beginning of modern British social history?’ History Workshop Journal, A3 (spring 1997). Walton, John K., ‘David W Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives – Reinventing the Public House in England 1896–1960’ (book review), American Historical Review, April 2007. Walvin, James, ‘Sport, social history and the historian’, British Journal of Sports History, 1:1 (May 1984). Woollcombe, H. S., ‘Social clubs for working men’, Economic Review, 12 (1903). Woollcombe, H. S., ‘The value of social clubs for working men’, Economic Review, 13 (1903).

Journal articles: non-scholarly journals Bugler, Doris, ‘The dartboard legacy’, Bull’s-eye News, November 1995. Chaplin, Patrick, ‘Darts below decks’, Darts World, October 1995. Chaplin, Patrick, ‘Darts in the war’, Darts World, April 1996. Chaplin, Patrick, ‘Flights of fancy’, Time Out – London, 10–17 May 2006. Herbert, A. P., ‘Darts just as pure and fair’, Punch or The London Charivari, 29 December 1937. Taylor, Arthur R., ‘The awful truth: darts is French!’ What’s Brewing, June 1994. Turner, Keith, ‘Just why should it be 301?’ Darts World, October 1982.

Theses and unpublished papers Chaplin, Patrick, ‘The Language of Darts’, unpublished manuscript, July 1999. Chaplin, Patrick, ‘The Social History of Darts during the Second World War’, unpublished manuscript, October 1999. Chaplin, Patrick, ‘Game on! Darts in the interwar Years’, paper presented at the British Society of Sports History conference held at the University of Glamorgan, 3 September 2005. Davies, Andrew, ‘Leisure and Poverty in Salford and Manchester’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1989.

Bibliography

Griffin, Emma, ‘Popular Sports and Celebrations in England 1660–1850’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2001. Horrall, Andrew James, ‘Music-hall, Transportation and Sport – Up-todateness in London Popular Culture’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1998. Lipscomb, Thomas James, ‘Pubs fit for Heroes – The Improved Licensed Refreshment House as built on London County Council Housing Estates 1918–1939’, MA. dissertation, Royal College of Art, 2001. Ollivier, Françoise, ‘The History of Darts’, unpublished undergraduate thesis, University of Rennes II, 1985. Shafer, S., ‘“Enter the Dream House” – The British Film Industry and the Working Classes in Depression England 1929–1939’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, 1982.

Press release British Darts Organisation, ‘British Darts Organisation Gains Sports Recognition for Darts’, 3 June 2005.

Author’s publications The following is a selection of the author’s work that has appeared in the form of magazine articles, sports encyclopaedia, booklets and a questionnaire. (a) Articles ‘Banned!’ Darts World, November 1989. ‘Charles Bowley – News of the World champion 1930’, Darts World, August 1994. ‘Child’s play?’ Darts Player 89. ‘Darts at war’, Darts World, April 1996. ‘Darts … the truth?’, ewe ‘r’ baa … red, house magazine of the Black Sheep Brewery, Masham, Yorkshire, December 1998. ‘Flights of fancy – the history of darts in London’, Time Out – London, 1864 (10–17 May 2006). ‘“He supplies knowledge, whips up our interest and gives us everything in the right proportions” – an appreciation of the works of Thomas Burke 1887–1945’, Pub History – The Journal of the Pub History Society, 3 (2005). ‘Local heroes’, Darts World, August 1997. ‘Target archery and that Mr Gamlin’, Darts World, October 1990. ‘The Plasticine® Dartboard’, Darts World, July 1992. ‘Thomas Buckle – the father of darts?’ Darts World, May 1992. ‘Those regional boards just won’t go away’, Darts Player 97. ‘You can take the darts out of the pub … ’ Darts World, May 1998. (b) Contributions to sports encyclopaedias ‘Darts’ in Richard Cox, Grant Jarvie and Wray Vamplew (eds), Encyclopaedia of British Sport, Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2000.

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Bibliography

‘Darts’, in Karen Christensen, Allen Guttmann and Gertrud Pfister (eds), International Encyclopedia of Women and Sport, I, New York: Macmillan Reference, 2001. ‘Darts’ in Tony Collins, John Martin and Wray Vamplew (eds), Encyclopaedia of Traditional British Rural Sports, London: Routledge, 2005. (c) Booklet The Story of Pub Games, London: Brewers’ and Licensed Retailers’ Association, 1996. (d) Unpublished manuscript ‘The Social History of Darts during the Second World War’, unpublished manuscript, October 1999. (e) Questionnaire Patrick Chaplin, The Brewing Industry and Darts Survey 1985.

Reference works Cases – Volume 25. Gaming. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 14th Edition, 1973. General Household Survey 1977. Oxford English Dictionary 1933 Supplement, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933. Statistical Abstract of UK, 1930 and 1954. Stone’s Justice Manual, 1954.

Radio broadcast Wainwright, Martin, ‘Hitting the Bullseye’ (concerning the Annakin case), written and presented by Martin Wainwright and transmitted on BBC Radio 4, 4 July 1996, at 8.45 p.m.

Internet link Hood, Sally, untitled memoirs published on home page http://homepages. paradise. net.nz/sallyhoo/ (downloaded 20 August 2004).

Web site World Darts Federation, www.dartswdf.com/

Darts history web site www.patrickchaplin.com

Index

Note: ‘n.’ after a page number indicates the number of a note on that page. Abbey Sports 21, 155–6 advertising 151, 192–5 aerial/aeroplane darts 74n.91 alcohol consumption 54, 96 All-England Darts Association (AEDA) 129 Annakin, William 19, 58–60 archery 38–9 Bailey, Peter 12, 15, 171 Barker, Harold 27, 203–5 Beed, Hugh and Edie 60–1 Bingham, Adrian 24–5 Booth, Charles 149 boys’ clubs 94–5 Boys’ Own Book (1870) 43–4 Brailsford, Dennis 17 breweries reduction in number of 76 under threat 75–7 brewers and sport 84–6 brewery companies Barclay, Perkins 85–90 Greene, King 77–8 J. Hey & Co. 203 Watney Combe Reid 78, 84, 91 Whitbread 85, 90 brewery companies (other) 61, 78–9, 84–5, 90, 93 brewery house magazines 85–6 Briggs, Asa 186

bristle dartboard 157–9 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 186–8 British Darts Council (BDC) 127–8, 199, 219 British Darts Organisation (BDO) 129, 131, 221–3 Brown, Kenneth D. 138, 149 Buckle, Thomas William 144–5 Burke, Thomas 22, 34n.l00 Burns, C. Delisle 10 cabaret 190 Campagnac, E. T. 55 charitable organisations Ancient Order of Froth Blowers (AOFB) 191 the £oyal Society of Dartsmen (£.s.d.) 191–2 cinema 54, 80, 172–3, 188–9 Son of Frankenstein (1939) 189 Clapson, Mark 116 Clark, Peter 12, 38 clock dartboard, as standard 111 Collins, Tony 17, 38, 105 commercialisation of sport and leisure 137–9 Cook, Chris 77, 170 Croft-Cooke, Rupert 19, 113, 198 dance halls 173

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Index

darts amusement arcades 62 as a missile weapon 39-41 as a pub game 5-9 as a societal nuisance 91-5 at home 68 darts history website 25, 35n.ll darts in other locations 62-3 enthusiasts, numbers of 1, 91 fêtes/flower shows 64-5, 68 historiography of 17-19 origins of 37-50 Davies, Andrew 15, 53-4, 56-7, 92, 174 Delporte, Luc 46 De Nie, Michael 23 disposable income 81 drinking as the basis of leisure among the working class 53-4 drunkenness 52, 77 temperance and the growth of alternative leisure pursuits 53–4 Durant, Henry 10 East End 138-9, 149-50 élite darts saloons 197-8 participation 65, 169,197-202 provision for darts playing in pubs 196 publications for 191 ‘ritual rip-off 202 Englishness 113 fairgrounds and showmen 16, 44-5, 64-5, 142-3 flechettes 2, 37, 45-6 Fothergill, John 22 French darts 44-6, 72n.70 friendly darts matches 52, 60-2 gaming and gambling 54-7, 115-17 Gamlin, Brian 143-4, 164n.39 Gorham, Maurice 27, 219-20

Graves, Robert and Alan Hodge 9, 19, 169 Great War 66-7 Griffin, Emma 38, 41-2 Gutzke, David 79, 89, 218, 220, 225n.3 Hackwood, Frederick 57 Hall, Stuart 205 Harrison, Brian 12 Harvey, Adrian 11-12, 138 Heaton, Richard 56-7 Herbert, J. P., M. P. 1-2, 201 Hey, Valerie 120-2 Hill, Jeffrey 137 Hill, John 21, 155-6 Hilton, Matthew 110 hobbyists 145-6 Hobsbawm, Eric J. 13, 20, 114 Hoggart, Richard 10-11 Holt, Richard 15, 17, 38, 42, 59, 122 Hood, Jack 25, 27, 154-7, 168n.l21 Howkins, Alun 9-10 Huddersfield, darts banned in 96, 101n.92 internet, as a resource 25 javelot 45-6 Jones, Stephen G. 13, 85, 138 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth 198-202, 206 King Henry VIII 40-1, 43 landlords 34n.99, 55-7 Langhamer, Claire 15 language (of darts) 72-3n.71 Lanning, Dave 58 Leggatt, Edward 27, 118, 126-8, 147-53 legislation 1467 Leicester Borough Ordinances 42-3 1845 Gaming Act 43–4 1872 Licensing Act 44, 55

Index

1914 Defence of the Realm Act 76 1921 Licensing Bill 81 1960 Betting and Gaming Act 59, 71n.43 1968 Gaming Act 71n.43 leisure historiography of 9-17 Lindop, William 142 Liverpool convictions for drunkenness 91-2 darts banned in 90, 92-3 London Brewers Amateur Sports Association (LBASA) 85-6 Lowerson, John 9-10, 17 Lowy, Ferenc (Frank) 160-1 Malcolmson, Robert W. 11 Manchester (or log-end) dartboard 46, 157 Marsh, Ngaio Death at the Bar 192 Mary Rose 40-1 masculinity 121, 174-81 Mason, Tony 16, 124, 203 mass culture of the 1930s 171-4 Mass Observation 10, 19, 91-2, 110, 126, 159, 175 McKibbin, Ross 14-15, 55, 170, 198 Morgan, Mrs A. 177-8 Morning Advertiser 103, 107-8 motoring car ownership 195-6 middle class ‘bright young people’ 196 music hall 54 Mycroft, W. 108-9 National Darts Association (NDA) 26-7, 90, 103-31, 219, 220-1 National Darts Association of Great Britain (NDAGB) 129, 222 nationalism 114, 123 News of the World circulation of 24, 181 cultural impact of 23, 117, 181-2 individual darts championship

1, 4, 118-19,130-1,182-5, 187-8, 220, 221-2 liaison with NDA 118, 130 women’s participation 176-8, 209-10n.46 Nodor 126, 147-53, 157-9, 168n.l21, 190 Nott, James J. 14, 173 Ollivier, Françoise 45 Orwell, George 9, 28n.l3 Part, Alexander F 82 patriarchy of the pub 120-2 Peel, John 106-8 Perrigo, Henri 157 Pike, Jim 114 Pilgrim Fathers 33n.81 Plasticine® 147-8 popular culture darts and 5-7 popular press 181-5 Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) 223-4 professionalism 205 pub games (excluding darts) alleys (marbles) 38 backgammon 38 bagatelle 88 cards 38, 70n.33 cribbage 38, 51, 85, 87-8 dice 38, 43 displacement by darts 126 dominoes 51, 56, 59, 67, 70n.33, 85 draughts 51, 67, 85, 87 indoor bowls 38, 43, 87-8 quoits 41, 51, 87-8, 95, 102n.l03, 117,126 shove-halfpenny 38, 51, 85, 878, 95 skittles 43, 51, 70n.33, 87-8, 95, 126, 197 skittle-pool 70n.33 table tennis 51, 67 whist 87

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Index

public houses architecture 82–3 counter-attractions 54, 80–1 improvement of 77–80, 82–97 increased provision of pub recreations 81–3 provision for darts 83–4 puff and dart 37, 42–4, 70n.33 radio see wireless Radio Times 1 Richards, Jeffrey 13 Roberts, Elizabeth 21 Roberts, Robert 22 Ross, John 21, 72n.56, 183 Rowntree, Benjamin Seebohm 55 Royal Commission on Licensing (1931) 81, 92, 132 n.29 Russell, C. E. B. 55 Salter, Thomas 146–7 Sanger, ‘Lord’ George 45 Schofield, Harry 145–6 Scotland darts banned in Glasgow 93– incidence of darts 2, 93 Selley, Ernest 79 Showers, John 200 showmen see fairgrounds smoking cigarettes and cigarette cards 194 social control 122–3 South Shields banning of women players 178– 80 darts league 125 standardisation, the need for 105–7 State Management Scheme – Carlisle 78–9, 81 Stevenson, John 77, 170 Stone, Sammy 119 Strutt, Joseph 41–2 Sunday Pictorial 119–20, 184

Surbiton and Dittons Darts League 106 Taylor, A. J. P. 170 Taylor, Arthur R 19, 45–6 television 188, 223 Temple Turston, E The Flower of Gloster 63–4 theatre 190, 197 The Lancet 44, 49n.57 The People 18, 24, 119, 129, 181–2, 184, 191, 220, 222 Thompson. F. M. L. 11 Tosh, John 20–1, 23 toxophily see archery toy industry 139–42 Travis, E. 88–9, 111 Trust Houses and Public Refreshment Houses 78, 82 Turner, Keith 38–9, 67 Unicorn Products 21, 160–1, 168n.l21 Vamplew, Wray 17, 38 voluntarism 104 Waddell, Sid 58, 60 Walton, John K. 13 Walvin, James 15, 54 Wells, H. G. Mr. Britling Sees it Through 64– 5 White, T. H. 19 Willughby, Francis 49n.44 wireless 80, 173, 186–8 Wisden, John & Co. 160–1 women participation 65, 121–2, 174– 81, 216n.l95 workingmen’s clubs 62–3 World Darts Federation (WDF) 131, 223 World’s Fair 66