A Brief Badminton History Lesson

A Brief Badminton History Lesson

The History of Badminton

Badminton House and Estate lies in the heart of the Gloucestershire countryside and is the private home of the 12th Duke and Duchess of Beaufort and the Somerset family. The House is not normally open to the general public, it dates from the 17th century and is set in a beautiful deer park which hosts the world-famous Badminton Horse Trials.

The Great Hall at Badminton House is famous for an incident on a rainy day in 1863 when the game of badminton was said to have been invented by friends of the 8th Duke of Beaufort. We know the game of Battledore and Shuttlecock was being played at Badminton House as well as other country houses as far back as the early 1800’s. Battledore or Shuttlecock as it was sometimes called was a game where two players would hit the shuttlecock backwards and forwards to each other, counting how many times they could do this without it falling on the floor. The Battledore bats had fine leather covered shafts, almost circular heads and instead of having strings the heads are covered in vellum.

Shuttlecocks at this time would almost certainly have been made of chicken feathers pushed into cork and would have been twice the size and weight as we know them today.

On that rainy day in 1863 one of the guests had the idea of putting some string across from the door to the fireplace in the Great Hall and hitting the shuttle over the string to each other.

The Great Hall at Badminton House is the same size as the badminton court as we know it today, 44 feet (13.4m) by 20 feet (6.09m).

In 1903 the first international badminton match was played in Dublin between Ireland and England. England won 5-2.

Only four countries have won the Thomas Cup (world men’s team championships) since its inception in 1948: Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Denmark. Only four countries have won the Uber Cup (world women’s team championships) since its inception in 1956: USA, Japan, China and Indonesia.

The Start of the Badminton Association

Founded originally as the “Badminton Association”. In August, 1893 Major, later Colonel, S.S.C. Dolby, Hon Secretary of the Southsea Badminton Club, wrote to all the known badminton clubs, and also put a notice in “The Field” paper, that “A meeting is to be held at Dunbar, Waverley Grove, Southsea near Portsmouth at 2-00 p.m. on September 13th 1893 for the purpose of forming a “Badminton Association”.

The nine clubs at the meeting unanimously resolved to form a Badminton Association, and 14 mostly from Hampshire, Sussex and Devon area, joined the Association in the first year. The meeting framed and approved rules for both for the Association and for the game of badminton.

The Badminton Association was founded and it would be the first Badminton Association in the world. Col Dolby was elected both Hon. Secretary and Hon. Treasurer until he resigned in 1899 and was also the first President from 1893 – 1898, the committee comprised mostly of military gentlemen.

Prior to the formation of the Badminton Association in 1893 clubs were playing the game in various forms, without any generally recognised code of laws. There was certainly a printed code, which, with occasional modifications, was observed at some of the bigger clubs; but in most places, local rules were quite different to those observed elsewhere. Even such essential details as size of the court and height of the net varied enormously. Most clubs used the space available for their courts which meant that some courts were almost twice the size as we know them today. Under such conditions, it was impossible for the game to develop to any extent as players moving from one club to another found themselves participating in practically a new game, while interclub matches were hampered by the difficulty of recognising the diverse rules of the opposing teams. Bringing the clubs into line regarding the laws of the game was by no means easy, not unnaturally each club considered its own rules to be the best.

The Badminton Association was originally based on clubs in the Hampshire, Sussex and Devon area, but the game soon spread to other areas, especially London, another growth area was the North West. In the years up to the First World War, the number of clubs through various tournaments and competitions were authorised including the London league which was running successfully by 1901.

Ireland in 1899 and then Scotland in 1911 formed their own associations/unions then Wales in 1928. But they, like clubs worldwide, affiliated to the Badminton Association. The first foreign club to do so was that run by Baron von Maltzhan at Hamburg Spa. Then, as the games spread, individual clubs in Canada and Australia, New Zealand and USA, and later still overseas nations: France and New Zealand. Right up to 1934 the Badminton Association was responsible for writing and reviewing the laws of the game of badminton.

*Thank you to Badminton England for the historical information.