John Bell - BOWLS: Skills, Techniques, Tactics

The author, John Bell.

It is contended by certain chronicles that bowling is the oldest outdoor sport in the world some form of bowling, that is, because the term has embraced games that are more allied to skittles than lawn bowls. Nevertheless, it is known that as early as 5200 BC the Chinese rolled stones to a hole in the ground with the object of getting as near to the lip as possible. There is also a picture of bowls being played in Egypt around 300 BC , from where the sport spread to Greece and Rome. It made its way to Northern Europe around the tenth century and onward into Britain. Could it be that our term bowls is derived from the Latin word bulla, used for ball games in general? The Aztecs too indulged in a similar game.

The date of its introduction remains unknown, but a bowling green is mentioned in the records of Chichester Castle soon after 1066. Christchurch claims its bowling origins date back to 1100 and Bedford Priory to 1220, whilst Southampton Bowling Club was founded in 1299. We can be certain that a type of bowls as we know it, depicted in the earliest known drawing of bowls in the Royal Library at Windsor, was played in England during the thirteenth century.

Edward I (12721307) was the first English monarch to play bowls. Royalty and landed gentry had greens built on their own estates, but at large the game was played on areas of turf associated with taverns and inns. It became very popular, in fact too popular, and attracted severe criticism for creating serious social problems. One report describes the game as attracting dissolute persons, betting, drunkenness, quarrelling and even duelling. It was even seen to be undermining the countrys security as players were spending too much time bowling and not enough improving their archery skills, which were required for national defence. The monarchy was therefore called upon to suppress the game: Edward III, and later Richard II in 1388, passed laws forbidding bowls and other sports. Anyone caught in the act was liable to two years in prison and a fine of 10.

Henry VIII gave the sport a little respite in 1541 by signing a statute, which stayed on the books until 1845, allowing artificers, labourers, apprentices and servants to play bowls at Christmas but only in their masters house and presence. The wealthier gentry could play within their own gardens and orchards but only under licence; if they played outside their own premises they were liable to a fine of six shillings and eight pence.

Henry himself enjoyed a game of bowls and had his own green at Hampton Court, where records show that large gambling bets were placed. This practice became so popular that a clause was added to the statute of 1541 to stop greens being established for gain. By that time he would probably have been playing with biased bowls, following an incident at Goole on 31 March 1522 that was to change the face of bowls and literally shape it to the game we know today. The Duke of Suffolk delivered his bowl with such force that it shattered into tiny pieces. Determined to continue, he went inside and espied a large wooden ornamental knob at the bottom of his banisters. He took a saw, removed it and returned to his game.

The new bowl, needless to say, took a curved line reflecting its sawn shape. The day of the biased bowl had dawned.

The more liberal attitude of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI was quickly replaced by a less tolerant Queen Mary in 1553. Two years after her succession she withdrew all bowling licences, deeming the game an excuse for unlawful assemblies, conventions, seditions and conspiracies. Indeed the game was considered to be of questionable repute for the rest of the sixteenth century, although things must have relaxed somewhat by 1588 when Drake played his much celebrated, and published, game on Plymouth Hoe.

The seventeenth century saw the game receive much greater royal patronage. Charles I enjoyed the sport and gambled heavily on his games. He even had a green laid for him while he was a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle. His son Charles II was an even bigger bowling devotee, and the games first royal administrator. Together with his brother James, Duke of York, and the Duke of Birmingham he drew up a new set of rules in 1670 for the regulation and standardization of the game. Before his time the rules of play varied from green to green. Interestingly, one of these new laws was always keep your temper.

Early settlers to the new colonies also took their bowls with them. Bowling was a popular pastime in New York in the eighteenth century, where there is still a park in Manhattan called Bowling Green and a stained-glass window in a nearby building vividly depicts the art of bowls. Boston, too, was a popular venue for bowls, though the Boston Tea Party and the subsequent war of independence ensured that the British game lost favour overnight. The game was also taken to Australia with the early fleets and the first reported bowls match was at Sandy Bay, Hobart, in 1845.

Nearer to home the game had been thriving in Scotland since early in the seventeenth century. It was the Scots who continued where Charles II had left off and produced the most comprehensive set of rules to date, courtesy of a Glasgow solicitor called William Mitchell. These were to come into general use and were adopted in many countries. By 1888 there were 364 clubs in Scotland and in 1892 the Scottish Bowling Association was formed.