Stoolball is a sport that dates back to at least the 15th century, originating in
Sussex
Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
, southern England. It is considered a "traditional striking and fielding sport" and may be an ancestor of
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
(a game it resembles in some respects),
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
,
softball
Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...
, and
rounders. The sport has been called "cricket in the air". There is evidence to suggest that it was played as a tradition by
milkmaids who used their milking
stools as a "
wicket
In the sport of cricket, the term wicket has several meanings:
* It is either of the two sets of three Stump (cricket), stumps and two Bail (cricket), bails at each end of the Cricket pitch, pitch. The Fielding (cricket), fielding team's playe ...
" and the bittle, or milk bowl as a bat, hence its archaic name of ''bittle-battle.''
The sport of stoolball is strongly associated with Sussex and has been referred to as Sussex's
'national' sport and a Sussex game or pastime.
The
National Stoolball Association was formed in 1979 to promote and expand stoolball.
The game was officially recognised as a sport by the
Sports Council in early 2008. The National Stoolball Association changed its name to
Stoolball England in 2010 on the advice of the Sports Council and was recognised as the national governing body for stoolball in England in 2011. The organisation is recognised by
Sport England
Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded partners, ...
.
The game's popularity has faded since the 1960s, but it continues to be played at a local league level in
Sussex
Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
,
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
and the
Midlands
The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefor ...
. Some variants are played in some schools. Teams can be ladies only or mixed. There are ladies' leagues in Sussex, Surrey and Kent and mixed leagues in Sussex.
History
Medieval and Tudor references

Stoolball is attested by name as early as 1450. Nearly all medieval references describe it as a game played during
Easter
Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...
celebrations, typically as a
courtship
Courtship is the period wherein some couples get to know each other prior to a possible marriage or committed romantic, ''de facto'' relationship. Courtship traditionally may begin after a betrothal and may conclude with the celebration of marri ...
pastime rather than a competitive game. The game's associations with romance remained strong into the modern period. Written by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and the Sussex-born playwright
John Fletcher, the comedy, ''
The Two Noble Kinsmen'' used the phrase "playing stool ball" as a euphemism for sexual behaviour.
Early competitions and establishment of codes
Stoolball makes an appearance in the dictionary of
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
, where it is defined as a game played by driving a ball from stool to stool.
Stoolball seems to have been one of the earliest
sports in which women participated. Activities for women before about 1870 were recreational rather than sport-specific in nature. They were typically non-competitive, informal, rule-less; they emphasised physical activity rather than competition. In contrast, stoolball allowed women to participate in competitive sport.
A "fine match of stoolball" is recorded as having been played in June 1747 by a total of 28 women at
Warbleton.
The first inter-county stoolball match took place between the women of Sussex and
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
in 1797 at Tunbridge Wells Common on the historic border between the two counties.
Sussex women wore blue ribbons to represent the county while the women of Kent wore pink ribbons.
Sussex historian Andrew Lusted has argued that between 1866 and 1887 the Glynde Butterflies stoolball team were the first women in England to be considered sports stars.
In 1866 the first recorded stoolball match took place between teams of named women representing villages as the Glynde Butterflies took on the Firle Blues. Other teams included the
Chailey Grasshoppers,
Selmeston Harvest Bugs,
Waldron Bees,
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...
Seagulls,
Danny Daisies and
Westmeston.
The sport's modern rules were codified at
Glynde in 1881 where the two slightly different sets of rules in the east and the west of Sussex were brought together. In 1867 the rules in the east of the county were compiled by the Rev
William de St Croix, the vicar of Glynde, and were the first rules to be established.
20th century revival
A Sussex Stoolball League was established in 1903.
Initially played by women only, men joined in shortly afterwards.
Modern stoolball is centred on Sussex where the game was revived in the early 20th century by
Major William Grantham. Grantham wore a traditional Sussex
round frock and
beaver hat to stoolball games.
In 1917,
Sussex County Cricket Ground in Hove hosted a match between young men who had lost one arm in
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
action at a temporary hospital in Brighton's
Royal Pavilion, "damaged by wounds", and a team of older lawyers, "damaged by age".
The soldiers won and were deemed to be 'heroes'.
In 1919 a demonstration match was held at
Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket List of Test cricket grounds, venue in St John's Wood, Westminster. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex C ...
and the game was also played near the trenches of the battlefields of the First World War.
First played in 1923, the League Championship Challenge Cup is open to the winning teams of the five leagues of the Sussex County Stoolball Association - North, East, West, Mid and Central. By the 1930s stoolball was being played in the Midlands and the north of England.
Since 1938 Sussex and Kent have competed annually for the Rose Bowl, which was presented to Sussex by Major William Grantham. This is sometimes a team representing Sussex and sometimes one of Sussex's five leagues may represent the county against Kent.
Grantham founded the Stoolball Association of Great Britain at Lord's in 1923.
By 1927 over 1,000 clubs were playing stoolball across England, however in 1942 the Stoolball Association of Great Britain ceased to function. The National Stoolball Association was founded on 3 October 1979 at Clair Hall in
Haywards Heath
Haywards Heath ( ) is a town in West Sussex, England, south of London, north of Brighton, south of Gatwick Airport and northeast of the county town, Chichester. Nearby towns include Burgess Hill to the southwest, Horsham to the northwest, ...
attended by 23 people from nine different leagues. On the advice of the Sports Council the governing body was renamed Stoolball England in 2010.
In the early 20th century stoolball was also played outside England, including in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
and
Ceylon
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
(now Sri Lanka).
Description and rules
Stoolball is played on grass with a diameter boundary, and the pitch is long. Each team consists of 11 players, with one team fielding and the other batting. Bowling is underarm from a bowling "crease" from the batter's wicket, with the ball reaching the batter on the full as in rounders or baseball rather than bouncing from the pitch as in cricket. Each over consists of 8 balls. The "wicket" itself is a square piece of wood at head or shoulder height fastened to a post. Traditionally this was the seat of a stool hung from a post or tree; some versions used a tall stool placed upright on the ground.
As it is played today, a bowler attempts to hit the wicket with the ball, and a batter defends it using a bat shaped like a frying pan. The batter scores "runs" by running between the wickets or hitting the ball beyond the boundary in a similar way to cricket. A ball hit over the boundary counts for 4 runs if it has hit the ground before reaching the boundary, or 6 runs if it landed beyond the boundary upon first contact with the ground. Fielders attempt to catch the ball or run out the batter by hitting the wicket with the ball before the batter returns from her or his run.
Originally the batter simply had to defend her or his stool from each ball with a hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit. The game later evolved to include runs and bats.
Confusion with the game of Stoball
According to
Alice Gomme, early records have shown that the game was called Stobball or Stoball and was a game peculiar to North Wiltshire, North Gloucestershire, and a little part of Somerset, near Bath. However, although the 17th century antiquarian
John Aubrey
John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England ...
described a game called "stobball" played in this area, his description of it does not appear to be stoolball. Another contemporary text from the same region characterises "stoball" as a game played mainly by men and boys.
The Oxford English Dictionary considers it unlikely that "stool ball" could have been corrupted into "stobball".
[It suggests instead an etymology of the latter word from "stob" + ball, where "stob" means a stump or stub of wood, and refers to the club used to play the game."† stow-ball, n.". OED Online. September 2012. Oxford University Press. 21 September 2012 .] Stobball could very well instead be the game
Willughby called "stow-ball," which resembled golf.
See also
*
Bat and trap
*
Cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
*
Origins of baseball
*
Pub games
A pub game is one which is traditionally played inside or outside a pub. Most pub games date back centuries and are rooted in village culture. Many derive from older outdoor sports.
Pub games can be loosely grouped into throwing games, dice game ...
*
Rounders
*
Trap-ball
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Stoolball England* (article by Martin Hoerchner for the Society for American Baseball Research)
{{Sussex
Ball and bat games
Sport in England
Team sports
Women's team sports