History
There seems to have been a weapon called a dart in existence for many
hundreds of years as various mostly obscure literary references to the
term affirm. However, the existence of a dart is not the same as the existence
of the Game of Darts.
Strutt in 1800 postulated that the game of "Blow Point" which he found mentioned in a sixteenth century manuscript was "probably blowing an arrow through a trunk at certain numbers in the manner of a lottery" but this all seems highly uncertain.
The first clear references to any game like darts first appear as a nineteenth century parlour game. The first such game was called Puff and Dart which used a blowpipe to fire a dart at the target. It is said that in 1844, during a game of Puff and Dart at a London pub, a player made the unfortunate mistake of sucking rather than blowing. The dart disappeared into his digestive system whereupon the poor chap died a few days later. On this basis, it may not be too surprising that the game did not make it to modern times...
The other game is Dart and Target which is similar but without the blow-pipe i.e. the darts are thrown. Best guess for date of appearance of this is late 1870s. A book of the time gives instructions for making this game at home - "The dart is a straight peice of stick, about six inches long, with a pin stuck in at one end, and a paper guide at the other". "The target is best if made of a piece of soft wood board and should have painted on it three or four concentric circles of different colours, with a bull's eye in the centre". The game was manufactured and available in the shops, too, under the name of "Dartelle".
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Early forms of Darts started to grown in popularity in the 19th Century but it didn't become a serious pub game until the 20th century when it was known as Dart and Target according to 'Lawful Games on Licensed Premises', 1904. Dart and Target was played on a board of numbered coloured circles, on which doubles and trebles did not feature, the highest score being the bullseye and lowest at the edge. Brewers started to organise leagues from around 1925. It received a big boost in 1937,when the King and Queen toured a social club in Slough, Berkshire and casually threw darts at a dartboard. The Sunday Chronicle reported that "the Queen has made the women of Britain darts-conscious." According to the Mass-Observation researchers who studied pub life in Bolton during the 1930's the number of Dart playing pubs trebled over the next two years where it seemed to replace Quoits as the game of choice. Like other games, however, Darts suffered from laws prohibiting it in places such as Liverpool and Glasgow. |
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Although the standard or trebles or "London" board pictured is the primary darts board in use today, many different designs have existed over the years and non-London variants are still around. Still known to be used are the Yorkshire board, the Lancashire or Manchester board, the Staffordshire Board and East End Darts is also still popular being played on a boards with segments scoring multiples of five. A Mr. Yates wrote in to confirm that the areas of Abbey Hey, Clayton and Beswic in East Manchester have a lot of pubs that still use the traditional manchester /Lancashire board (or log end) board.
The London board's segmented numbering scheme is inherited from the old Yorkshire, Burton, Irish and Lincoln boards which have a similar arrangement. The origin of the strange numbering scheme that is common to many of the boards is lost in history but it appears that the distinctive arrangement of the numbers was invented sometime in the late 19th century, probably in the North of England. It isn't known why the numbers are placed as they are but it it is clear that some effort has been taken to ensure that consecutive numbers are mostly placed well away from each other.
The only picture that exists of any dartboard prior to 1920 is a picture of the Grimsby board from around 1890. The numbers go from 1 to 28, there's a single bullseye and no trebles. The board is big and black but the numbering follows the same rather pattern of high numbers adjacent to low numbers around the edge.
Today, Darts is played by 6 million people regularly and features on Satellite TV.
Where to Buy
Masters Traditional Games has a variety of Dartboards and Darts equipment
Pubs
Please see the separate page for Pubs that feature the more unusual dart boards.
Links
Patrick Chaplin, Darts Historian
British Darts
Organisation
Darts World Magazine
jm at tradgames.org.uk