The very earliest ‘games’ with a ball were probably not just idle diversions but had either religious significance or were preparations for war. But the urge to hit, throw or catch a round object seems to have been part of the human psyche since ancient times. First came handball, fives (from the slang ‘bunch of fives’ i.e. a closed hand), jeu de paume or pelota as these games were variously known across the world. They were mostly played up against a wall or in an enclosed space or court that had almost certainly been built and used for other purposes. A Real Tennis court (for example the Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court Palace, the oldest place in the world where a ball game is still played, built in 1529 by Henry VIII) resembles a cloister; others were used as law courts or theatres, or for cock fighting or boxing. Originally these ball games were played with the hand and it is likely that the racquet evolved gradually from a glove, not worn as protection but as a means of propelling the ball more effectively. The glove developed into a binding of skins and cords and the first bats had short handles, like a table tennis bat today. Later a longer and more serviceable handle developed. A newspaper advertisement in 1742 illustrates the different types of game played in a single court:

‘To all Gentlemen that like the exercise of Tennis, Fives or Billiards. There is a complete Tennis-Court, with a Tambour and everything that makes it as good a Tennis-Court as any in England at 1s. a Set single or 6d. a Set double; with Fives-playing in the Tennis-Court and Billiards at the same place. Its near the Bull and Gate Inn, Holborn... next door to Adlam's Coffee-House, opposite Little Turnstile. It's kept by Thomas Higginson, Who keeps a Fives Court at the bottom of St Martin's Street... Its for Fives-playing only either with Racquets, Boards or at Hand-Fives at 2d., 3d. or 4d a Game.’

There is a public house called The Hand and Racquet in Orange Street, at the junction with St. Martin's Street in London, to this day.

There are no known references to the modern game of Rackets, the mother of Squash, before 1800. It merely evolved along with bat-fives and tennis just as, in the Basque Country, did chistera, cesta punta and more than a dozen other versions of pelota. However, its origins have been endowed with a certain mystique by a passage devoted to the game as played by the inmates of the debtors' prison in Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers:

‘The area formed by the wall in that part of the Fleet in which Mr. Pickwick stood was just wide enough to make a good racket-court; one side being formed, of course, by the wall itself and the other by that portion of the prison which looked (or rather would have looked, but for the wall) towards St. Paul's Cathedral...’

Meanwhile a similar game was being played in the School Yard at Harrow. John Armitage in his History of Ball Games writes: ‘It is supposed that Harrow was the first school to play Rackets, probably as early as 1822, at which date they possessed an open court.’ The meaning of the term ‘open court’ was that it comprised just a front wall. In 1850 two further courts, known as the Shell and Fifth Form Courts were constructed; both were uncovered and the Fifth Form Court had only one sidewall.

The real turning point for Rackets was the opening of the Old Prince's Club in Knightsbridge, London in 1853 and the creation of a closed (and covered) court that was to be the standard for all future courts. The covered court at Harrow was built in 1864 and a second added in 1965. The Public Schools Championships were first played in 1868 and have continued with breaks only for the two wars, ever since. Harrow pairs have won the main competition, the open doubles, more often than any other school.

With the undoubted advantage of standard covered courts came a great disadvantage: Rackets became an expensive game. The old courts in the taverns fell into decay and the game became one for an educated and wealthy minority - which it has largely remained to this day.

Squash Rackets originated at Harrow. In 1850, the only organised games available were Football, Cricket and Rackets and provision for the latter was woefully inadequate for a school of 450 boys and rising. Accordingly, the boys, ever resourceful, invented their own ‘mini-rackets’ in the yards that each boarding House possessed, adjacent to the building. A rackets ball, consisting of a core wound round with string and encased in a stitched leather cover, was quite unsuitable for this alternative game played in a much more confined space and a soft ‘India Rubber’ ball was found to be much more satisfactory. Hence the name, ‘squash’. In accordance with the school slang, current at the time: eccer = exercise, footer = (Harrow) football, soccer = association football, rackets became known as ‘harder’; squash was, for a time, ‘softer’.

In 1864 when the ‘new’ rackets court was built, two Eton Fives courts and four Rugby Fives courts were built on the site of the Fifth Form Court. While the boys took to Eton Fives, they preferred to play with racquets in the Rugby courts which hence became squash courts. Later the old Shell Court was converted into a further four squash courts. But there were no agreed dimensions for a squash court at this time and all the House yards are of different sizes. In 1897 the four original (Rugby Fives) courts were thought to be too small for squash and were remodelled into three larger courts. It was not until 1922 that a sub-committee of the Tennis and Rackets Association laid down some rules and agreed on uniformity of ball and court dimensions. In 1929 the Squash Rackets Association was formed, a long overdue governing body for the game.

At Harrow, two modern glass-backed courts were built as part of the Ryan Theatre development in 1995.

The absence of a governing body meant that Squash in the United States developed alongside but separate from the game in England. They therefore decided on their own specifications that were to differ in essential respects to such an extent as to make competition between the two countries hardly worthwhile. The American court was 2ft 6in narrower than the British and the ball solid and larger, and therefore faster. The scoring system was also different, playing up to 15 (as in Rackets) but points being scored by a player, in hand or out. However, in recent years an admirable spirit of reconciliation has prevailed and many of the East Coast schools now play according to the code approved by the International Squash Rackets Association, founded in 1967.

Extract from a letter to The Times, Jan 21, 1924

SQUASH RACKETS
Early History
From AG Murray, 1st Baron Dunedin, who entered Harrow School in 1863.

Sir,- There seems to be so much interest as to the early history of Squash Rackets that I feel impelled to trouble you with a letter, as I believe myself to be in a better position than any of your correspondents to throw light on the matter…

I went to Harrow in 1863; at that time the covered court did not exist. There were two regular racket courts, the Sixth Form, a huge open rectangle just below the milling ground and the Fifth Form just below it. Squash was played in the “Corner”.* …There were two hazards for which you could intentionally play – the buttress line to the great window which returned the ball straight down and the pipe which might send it anywhere. The “Corner” was better for “four” games than for singles. Squash had been played there for a very long time – ultra memoriam as far as I could discover. The origin of the game was undoubtedly there.

It naturally occurred to boys to utilize any space they could find in contiguity to their different Houses, taking the wall of the House as the battery wall; and most Houses (not all) had such a space. Most of them made very poor courts.

The best of these was indubitably Rendalls¹, commonly known as Monkey’s. The shape of the House formed a natural interior three sides of a square and it was full of hazards in the shape of windows, pipes, etc. The next best was at a Small House, little known and down the Hill, at that time held by Vanity Watson.²…After that I would put Young Vaughan’s³ … and then would come Butlers.⁴

But the point of it is that none of these House courts gave an enclosed rectangular with four walls – the present form of the court. That came about in this way. In 1864 the covered court was begun to be built. When it was finished I remember the opening match which was between Billy Dykes⁵, the amateur champion and a professional from Torquay whose name I forget. The covered court being opened, the old Sixth Form court became the Fifth Form court and the old Fifth Form court was cut up into four Eton fives courts and three Rugby fives courts…Eton fives took on fairly well…but the Rugby courts did not, I know, have more than half a dozen games of fives played in them. They obviously invited the familiar squash, and were immediately appropriated for that purpose. From that sprang the idea of the Harrow squash court and from there it spread elsewhere…At that time, as far as I know, squash was not played at any of the other great schools. Of course we played with the old squash hollow ball with a hole in it….

*An area in the north-west of the School Yard, bounded by the Old Schools, “Leith’s wall” and the Milling Ground wall.
¹Grove Hill, closed as a Small House in 1936, now Grove Hill House and The Foss.
² Byron House in Byron Hill Road, but no longer owned by the School.
³ West Acre, burnt down in 1908 and rebuilt.
⁴The Head Master’s, where the two Yards still exist.
⁵ Rt Hon Sir William Hart Dyke, Bart., (The Grove 1851³), the first champion not to have learnt his Rackets in the Debtors Prison at Fleet.

An extract from a letter of response from Sir William Hart Dyke on Jan 24, 1924

Sir, - …In 1863 I was responsible for forming a committee of Old Harrovians to collect subscriptions for building a closed racket court at Harrow School. Our efforts were so successful that we had a considerable balance over the estimate for building the court. I spent this surplus partly on fives courts and partly on what Lord Dunedin describes as Rugby fives courts. These, I can well remember, I intended for play with a racket and ‘India rubber’ ball…

Dale Vargas

Dale Vargas (Druries 1952-3) was a Master at Harrow from 1970-2001.

Created: 24th January 2008 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

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