When was the game rounders invented

We review the NCSA. College Sports Scholarships. College Sports Scholarships Connect with Us. Rounders: Games are played between Two teams of between six and fifteen players. Although the exact history is unknown rounders is thought to have originated in Britain. Rounders has been around for many years and it dates back to the Tudor era.

It was then actually referred to as "Base-ball" by John Newbery. Although references to base-ball in England exist before the term rounders it is thought that rounders is older.

The formal rules of rounders were drawn up in Ireland in Following these rules being written associations formed for the game in Liverpool and Scotland. In the National Rounders Association was formed and this was designed to promote the game. This association also created the English set of rules for the game.

In fact, the earliest mention made was by the Reverend Thomas Wilson, a Puritan living in Maidstone, Kent who wrote a disapproving piece about games being played on Sunday in "I have seen Morris-dancing, cudgel-playing, baseball and cricketts and many other sports on the Lord's day". Base-ball continues to be mentioned in England - for instance by Jane Austen in "Northanger Abbey" which was written around But the earliest reference to the name 'Rounders' found by this author is in in the English Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine of as a children's game - so the term was in use by that time.

In America, where the national sport is Baseball, arguments raged for some time over whether the game was invented in North America or England. Discoveries of the above references put an end to most such discussion, especially as the rules for Baseball published in an American "Book of Sports" in were an exact copy of the rules of Rounders from the "Boys Own Book" published in London in The game was obviously being called by both names and being played in the same way in both America and England by the same rules in the early s The USA was certainly playing proto-baseball before this: In , one of George Washington's soldiers in the American war of Independence mentioned playing a game of "Base" in his diary.

The game really came to the fore in America around the mid-nineteeth century, when Alexander Cartwright of New York City initiated the first codification of the rules the "Knickerbocker Rules" , from which modern baseball developed. In the Liverpool and Scottish Rounders Association was formed.

The first official rules did away with the practice of putting a running batter out by hitting them with a thrown ball. The National Rounders Association was formed in and is still active today working particularly with schools promoting and encouraging play. These days, at competition level, Rounders tends to be played more by girls than boys.

Teams Rounders games are played between two teams. Each team has a maximum of 15 players and a minimum of 6 players. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Who Was Abner Doubleday? Recommended for you.