Pre-1850s in sports

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See also: Sports clubs established before 1850, 1850 in sports and the list of 'years in sports', and the History of sport article.


Contents

[edit] Archery

  • 1781 - the Toxophilite Society is founded in Leicester Square, London. It later becomes the Royal Toxophilite Society in 1787 and then the Grand National Archery Society.

[edit] Baseball

  • 1791 - The broken window by-law in Pittsfield, Massachusetts prohibits "baseball" and other ballgames within 80 yards of the new meetinghouse, the earliest known reference to "baseball" in North America
  • 1796 - "Ball mit Freystaten (oder das Englische Base-ball)" covered by German physical education instructor Johann C.F. Gutsmuths as one chapter in Spiele zur Uebung
  • 1825 - "A baseball club, numbering nearly fifty members, met every afternoon during the ball playing season" in Rochester, New York, wrote Thurlow Weed in 1883 (Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. 1)
  • 1833 - merger of the Olympic and Camden town ball clubs from Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, constituting the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia, often called the "Philadelphia Olympics". The constitution will be revised in 1837 and published in 1838. (Protoball #266)
  • 1839 - legendary date of the invention of baseball by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York
  • 1843 - semi-organized "New York Club" begins playing baseball at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, in place of Madison Square in Manhattan
  • 1845 September 23 - formal organization of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club or New York Knickerbockers, initiated by Alexander Joy Cartwright, including adoption of twenty rules, fourteen of which are the earliest known written rules of for playing baseball
  • 1845 October 22 - New York Morning News publishes the first known box score for a base ball game, played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken
  • 1846 June 19 - First match certainly played by the Knickerbocker rules, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken
  • 1847 - Army of occupation plays baseball in Santa Barbara, California, alienating the local people (Protoball #377)
  • 1848 - First publication of the Knickerbocker rules (Protoball #376)

[edit] Boxing

[edit] Cricket

  • 1183 - First written account of a game resembling cricket, by Joseph of Exeter, but this is generally believed to be a spurious reference
  • 1300 March 10 - The Prince of Wales, age 15 or 16, played the unknown game creag at Newington in Kent[1]
  • 1597 - First known written use of the word kreckett in English, referring to a game "played on a certain plot of land in Guildford around 1550"[1]
  • 1610 - "Teams from the Weald and the Downs" played a game at Chevining in Kent[1]
  • 1611-1637 - Eight various court cases concern cricket[1]
  • 1660 - Start date for first-class cricket and a database of match results, under consideration by the Association of Cricket Statisticians & Historians[2]
  • 1697 July 7 - Foreign Post reports a "A Great Match in Sussex" played for fifty guineas, the first known proclamation of high status for a match and another milestone in first-class cricket.[1]
  • 1709 June 29 - Kent v Surrey, the first match played between teams named for English counties
  • 1721 - Mariners of the "John Company" reported playing at Cambay, India[1]
  • 1744 - First codification of the Laws of Cricket, by the Star and Garter club of Pall Mall (London)
  • c.1765 - Believed to be the founding date of Hambledon Cricket Club
  • 1772 - Detailed scorecards become commonplace by this time[3]
  • 1787 May 21 - Opening of Lord's Cricket Ground at Dorset Fields in Marylebone (London) for the White Conduit Club v Middlesex[4]
  • 1787 - Marylebone Cricket Club established near Lord's, chiefly by WCC members[4]
  • 1788 - Marylebone Cricket Club publishes its Laws of Cricket, revising the Star and Garter Laws of 1744
  • 1789 - John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset organises an international tour of English cricketers to France, but it is abandoned due to the French Revolution
  • 1794 - "The New York Cricket Club was meeting regularly" according to W.R. Wister's reminisces after 1861 (Protoball #135)
  • 1799 - New York Commercial Advertiser, June 18, announcement of the next date for the "members of the Cricket Club" to meet and play. "Wickets will be pitched at 3 o’clock exactly." (Protoball #150)
  • 1820 - "June 16, 1820, eleven expert English players matched eleven New Yorkers at Brooklyn, the contest lasting two days." --Jennie Holliman citing that day's New York Evening Post (Protoball #204)
  • 1828 - The MCC modified Rule 10 to permit the bowler’s hand to be raised as high as the elbow
  • 1835 - Shoulder-height bowling is legalised
  • 1838 - Melbourne Cricket Club is formed.
  • 1844 - First ever international cricket match played between stars from Canada and the United States --St George's Cricket Club of New York (Protoball #345)

[edit] Croquet

  • 1830s - Croquet is believed to have been invented in Ireland

[edit] Football

[edit] Golf

Main article: Timeline of golf history (1353-1850)

[edit] Horse racing

[edit] Lacrosse

[edit] Olympic Games and others

Main article: Ancient Olympic Games

[edit] Polo

[edit] Rowing

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Leach (2005a) is a heavily annotated chronology of cricket 1300-1730 and the source for numerous entries here.
  2. ^ ACS Match Classification Working Parties have been set up, including one on "classification of pre-1801 matches." Somewhere the society says that CricketArchive is on board. Leach (2005a) concludes on 1660, "it must be so that this was the point of origin of first-class cricket."
  3. ^ according to the Wikipedia article Underarm bowling
  4. ^ a b Leach (2005b) explains the crucial role of bowler-entrepreneur Thomas Lord and his White Conduit Club between Hambledon and Marylebone
  5. ^ no copy of the 1848 rules has survived, the earliest written version dating from 1856; the 1863 revision of the rules played a significant part in developing the rules that became association football

[edit] References

[edit] Births

[edit] Pre-16th century

[edit] 1500s-1600s

[edit] 1700s

[edit] 1800s-1810s

[edit] 1820s-1830s

[edit] 1840s

[edit] Deaths

Languages