A Short History of Darts: Background information when reading The Dart League King

A Short History of Darts

This article relates to The Dart League King

The origin of the game of darts is lost in the mists of time. The game is known to have been played since at least the Middle Ages in England, but it seems likely that bored soldiers lounging around the campsite have probably been throwing arrows at targets for much longer. In fact, it doesn't take much imagination to trace the origins much further back - to the first day that one of our distant ancestors picked up a stone and lobbed it at a passing meal and, on missing, decided to hone his skills throwing at a target.

Early darts boards were probably whatever came to hand, with wine barrels being popular, as the cork bung in the center provided a convenient target. Later, cross-sections of tree trunks were used - the growth rings and cracks in the wood providing circular and radial divisions within the target (the current system of numbers wasn't standardized until the early 20th century). At some point, the game moved indoors, which led to shorter arrows being used, the precursor to the darts used today.

The game was firmly established by 1530 when Anne Boleyn presented her soon to be husband Henry VIII with a set of ornamented darts (apparently both Henry and the then King of France were keen players). It is said that darts arrived in the New World on the Mayflower; and the British army spread the game through every corner of the Empire.

Darts as a pub game came into its own in the early 1900s. During the Victorian era gambling was banned in pubs, but in 1908 a pub owner in Leeds won a court case proving that darts was a game of skill, not of chance, and thus it was allowed to be played in pubs.

Filed under Cultural Curiosities

This article relates to The Dart League King. It first ran in the November 12, 2008 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.