Children's board games and jigsaws

'Dear Papa...I beg the favour of you...that you will desire my dear Mama to send me a little Tea and Sugar, as also a pair of Battledores & Shuttlecock...'
(Verney letters of the 18th century, Vol. 2)

Board game: Historical pastime or, A new game of the History of England...London, J. Harris 1803.
Hand coloured.  A very popular historical board game reprinted many times.  It is a race game played with dice or a teetotum and counters
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)

Dice and bat and ball games are mentioned in documents such as letters from the 16th century on.
For example the bills for little Lord Tavistock and his sister Lady Caroline Russell for 1751-53 include battledores and shuttlecocks, paint and prints, a box of drawings, fireworks, whips and tops, cups and balls; the game was to catch the ball in the cup.  Also peewits, a kind of bird, and a dormouse.  (Gladys Scott Thomson The Russells in Bloomsbury 1669-1771, 1940)

Children also enjoyed building bricks, the predecessors of Lego.  John Ruskin (1819-1900) had two magnificent sets with which it was possible to build something as complex as a replica of Waterloo Bridge, complete with steps down to the water. (Ruskin, Praeterita, Vol. 1.  1900) Games such as this were popular with educationalists because they taught children the principles of construction.

The Golden Bottom of Trade, c.1850.  A game intended to teach children
to value necessary trades and despise the unnecessary,
and to teach the names of occupations in French and German.
The delightful hand coloured figures are designed to stand upright.
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)

By 1800 large numbers of educational games were available.  Mrs. Trimmer, writing in 1802 gives the credit for this new development to the educational philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) :
'When the idea of uniting amusement with instruction was once started by such a writer as Mr. Locke, books for children were soon produced of various sorts; Fables, fairy tales, &c &c.  Every spelling book had now pictures and stories, as incitements to learning; and Infants were taught the alphabet by means of ivory letters and teetotums.' ( Mrs. Trimmer, Guardian of Education Vol. 1, 1802)  A teetotum is a four to eight sided spinning top with numbers or, I suppose, letters, round the sides. She is probably wrong to give all the credit for this idea to John Locke, although he was certainly extremely influential.

The New Parlour Spelling Game; or, Reading made Easy.  c.1870?
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)

Probably the most significant educational games to emerge in the 18th century were board or table race games and  jigsaws, originally known as dissected maps.

A selection of 19th wooden century jigsaw boxes and board game wallets
(Parker Collection, Library of Birmingham)

Children's board games were an offshoot of gambling games for adults such as the Game of Goose which had been popular in pubs for some time.   Gambling, once a quite acceptable pastime even in quite strict religious circles, was now frowned on in strict circles and  considered unsuitable for children, leading them into dishonest and extravagant habits, though, reading between the lines of the extract below many adults were quite happy to include children in on gambling games.  Says John Newbery's Master Telescope:
'...he started from his seat, and begged they would think of some more innocent amusement.  Playing at cards for money, says he, is so nearly allied to covetousness and cheating that I abhor it, and have often wondered, when I was at Bath wit my papa, how people seemingly of years of discretion, could so far mistake themselves, and abandon common sense, as to lead a young urchin just breeched, or a little doodle-my-lady in hanging sleeves (like leading reins) up to a gaming table, to play and bet for shillings, crowns and perhaps guineas, among a circle of sharpers.' John Newbery, (Tom Telescope). The Newtonian system of   philosophy, Newbery, 1761)  The use of board games as educational aids was first pioneered  in France and  a shopkeeper and printer, John Jeffery, introduced the idea to London.

Jigsaw. The Principal Events in English History, Wallis & Skinner, 1830
(Parker Collection, Library of Birmingham)

Children's board games were consequently often played not with dice like adult versions but with a teetotum, a six or eight sided top. Like the earliest jigsaws they were generally geographical or historical in content; beautifully hand coloured engraved paper pictures with the racing tracks, backed onto linen to strengthen them and sold, like maps, folded into small wallets.  Players moved counters or 'pillars' round the map of Europe or Britain with accounts of the chief manufactures and places of interest cunningly inserted into the rule book, or spiralled round and round a series of little pictures showing scenes from English history, ending at a central portrait of George III in a blaze of glory.

Or the games might be morally edifying.  A very well known one is the Game of Human Life c. 1790, which takes the player from babyhood to old age through the different stages of life and different characters; the Mischievous Boy, shown chasing hens, the Volunteer, in scarlet military uniform, the Trifler with a love-letter between his fingers.  Various careers are shown; the Tragic Author, the Geographer, the Thoughtful Man, the Ambitious Man, represented by the Prince Regent, the Orator, represented by William Pitt the politician.  The final square shows Heaven, with a blaze of light and the one word GLORY!

The New Game of Human Life, Wallis, London, c.1820, invented c. 1790
(Parker Collection, Library of Birmingham)

A moral board game which slightly resembles Snakes and Ladders is The Mount of Knowledge, c.1820 which starts with the Horn Book, for learning the alphabet and Lord's Payer, and has 'ladders' such as Application and Patience and pitfalls such as 'Truants' Corner, Pride, Rocks of Difficulty and Castle of Indolence, and a beautifully engraved Flowery Path of Pleasure. The rule book is full of the terrors of the schoolroom eg: 'No. 21, Truant's Corner.  Having been unfortunately seen by the Schoolmaster while peeping round the corner, you must be flogged back to Birch Wood, and there stay 2 turns to recover, and also pay 2 counters to the Pool, for having wasted your time.'

Board game: The New Game of the Mount of Knowledge, Greenwich, W. Richardson, c.1820.  Hand coloured game, rather like Snakes and Ladders with moral pitfalls instead of snakes.
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)

The value of these board games purely for amusement was soon recognised and in the 19th century many delightful variants were introduced. The Locomotive Game of Railroad Adventures, c., 1845, published by the firm of Wallis, celebrates the coming of railways.  It has delightful pictures of primitive engines, trucks and carriages all round the board.  The rule book illustrated the pleasure and pain of early rail-travel:
'Derby Terminus.  This is the largest station in the kingdom.'  'Train run away with the bride.  Alas poor Bridegroom! You had better have lost your luggage.  Stop while all draw, and mourn your misfortune.'  'Take in coke and water.  Receive one from each player.' (Examples from games in the Parker Collection, Library of Birmingham  see also F.R.B Whitehouse Table games of Georgian and Victorian days, 1951)

Wooden jigsaw, A New Map of the World, London, Wallis c.1800.
Cut round the countries.
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)

It is possible that it was the appearance of children's board games which stimulated John Spilsbury's invention, the jigsaw, for his shop in London was near John Jeffery's and they may have had other connections.  For whatever reason, in the 1760s John Spilsbury, who was a map-engraver, hit upon the idea of pasting down a map onto a sheet of wood and cutting round the outlines. He called the results dissected maps and they were sold as geographical aids, like many of the early board games.  As with the board games, their other possibilities were gradually realised and historical and religious subjects appeared. They were generally cut round each scene shown, with the caption separate, or cut round the edges of countries or counties, or even simply cut at random.  With historical and religious subjects a paper picture sheet was provided as a guide.  The firm of Peacock did a profitable line in 'double dissections', a map jigsaw with a historical one on the reverse side.  The earliest jigsaws came in plain wooden boxes until the attraction of a coloured picture on the lid was realised. By the mid 19th century they were associated as much with pure pleasure as with education, and numerous different designs were available. (Examples from the Parker Collection, see also Linda Hannas The English Jigsaw Puzzle, 1760-1890, 1972) 

Wooden jigsaw, Coming out of School, c.1820?  Hand coloured.
A very early example of a non-educational jigsaw
(Parker collection, Library of Birmingham)