A Game Without A History.
Jamie Barras.
Rounders: In the west of England this is one of the most favourite sports with the bat and ball. In the metropolis [London], boys play a game very similar to it, called Feeder.[1]
Rounders is a game without a history. It has no scholarly work devoted to its origins, nor any convincing evidence for its existence before it sprang, fully formed, in 1828, from the pages of the second edition of The Boy’s Own Book. Modern claims of a Tudor origin seem to be based on a misreading of a quote from Shakespeare and the—highly contested—theory that it was the name given in the nineteenth century to an older game previously known as baseball (“base ball”, “bass ball”, “baste ball”).[2]
The uncontested fact that it had acquired the name “rounders” by the time that the modern game of baseball appeared in the North-eastern United States led some early historians of the latter to posit that the former was its progenitor. This vexed patriotic partisans of the American game no end and led to the promotion of what is now dubbed the “Doubleday Myth”: the idea that the American game was summoned from the aether in 1838, in Cooperstown, New York, by future US Army general Abner Doubleday.[3]
Modern baseball historians, who have long since dismissed the Doubleday Myth, are equally contemptuous of the idea that the American game is a descendant of rounders. Their case is built on the fact that references to baseball in both England and the [future] United States predate those to rounders by nearly a century. They further contend that rounders is not simply this earlier baseball renamed, but a development of the latter game in much the same way that the American game is.[4]
The cap was what he usually wore in the stable, but as he was going on a visit he put on his Sunday hat and his cap and handkerchief inside of it. The stick, he said, was one that he and his brother had been playing at ball with, at a game called “rounder”, but in their retreat they dropped these things.[5]
The leading theory of rounders’ origins, advanced by American baseball historian David Block, is that it is a base-running bat-and-ball offshoot of the old base-running hand-and-ball game “baseball” that, in some parts of England, kept its original name, but in others was renamed “rounders”.[6]
My own theory is a reframing of this: “rounders” was the name applied to a particularly vigorous adaptation of old baseball that became popular with boys, particularly working-class boys, in England in the early part of the nineteenth century. Building on Block’s novel insight that rounders was a bat-and-ball adaptation of the hand-and-ball baseball, I reframe this difference not in terms of equipment but vigour: by the end of the eighteenth century, there was old baseball played without a bat, old baseball played with a bat, and there was rounders: old baseball played with abandon.
Indeed, within two decades of its creation, rounders became so rambunctious, so uncouth that in some quarters it was viewed as a public menace: house-breakers made use of it, gangs of thieves used it as a recruiting tool, boys were fined for trespassing onto private land to play it, and for the playing of it on a Sunday, and passersby received a tongue-lashing for interrupting it. Meanwhile, with the rise in popularity of rounders among boys, for a time, the still-genteel baseball came to be seen as a game primarily for girls.
This relationship would change as both games continued to evolve; eventually, rounders was tamed and in most parts of the country, old baseball was forgotten as it became indistinguishable in people’s memories from the milder form of rounders that they now enjoyed. This would have consequences when, in 1874, a game still using the name “baseball” reappeared in England after becoming popular in the United States.
Separately, in the 1850s, fond memories of the uncouth, vigorous game of their youth led some sportsmen to relaunch “old” rounders as a sport for adults. Those efforts would bear fruit in the following decades, albeit not without experiencing their own problems due to the American adoption and adaptation of baseball.
In this piece, I want to go into the Block theory in more detail and set out the evidence in support of its reframing. I will also present, as an appendix, period references to running strike-a-ball games with an emphasis on the contrasting vigour with which they were played.
Base-Ball. The Ball once struck off,/Away flies the Boy/To the next destin'd post/And then home with Joy.[7]
References to “baseball” (“base ball”, “bass ball”, baste ball”) in English sources date back to the early eighteenth century. That the game was played at least sometimes without a bat, the ball instead being struck with the flat of the hand, can be inferred from the famous woodcut that accompanies its description in John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket Book of 1744. However, it must also be stated that the earliest full description of the game, contained in a book published in 1796 in what is now Germany, shows a game played with a bat. Baseball is, itself, thought to be an offshoot of the much older game stool ball, which, in its earliest incarnations, was also played without a bat, and, when involving more than two players, included runners moving between stools placed in a circle. These were family entertainments and enjoyed by adults and children of both sexes.[8]
That rounders is an offshoot of baseball rather than, as some suppose, its successor or that game renamed, David Block deduces from the fact that the two games appear together in some nineteenth-century accounts, as in the following:
After tea there was a resumption of sports—cricket, quoits, croquet, base ball, rounders, and other pastimes being vigorously pursued until eight o’clock when the time of departure arrived, and the company left the grounds well satisfied with their afternoon’s recreations[...][9]
Block writes that, “[…] my research shows that while English baseball was played predominantly without the use of a bat (players using their bare hands to strike the ball), every published description of rounders from 1828 onward stipulated that bat usage was fundamental to its play.”[10]
By “published description”, Block is presumably referring to descriptions of how the game should be played, such as in books devoted to games and pastimes. We see at least one account in a newspaper of rounders being played without a bat; this was published in 1860 and appears to describe a game peculiar to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight—where the royal family had a summer home.
In another [place] a number of Eve's fair daughters were deeply immersed in the arts of the fashionable, elegant, and highly-accomplished diversion—"Rounders." This feminine enterprise will be deemed vulgar by the fastidious, but had they seen their Amazonian spirit and exertion, the graceful movements of their arms, for a time converted into bats, the contemptuous heel-kicking their garments received in racing after the ball, the unmodulated shouts of "Bring her yer"-—meaning the ball—and the total absence of diffidence in meeting the gaze of the numerous spectators, they would have—no cause alter that opinion.[11]
It is also worth noting that we have at least one example of a description in a book of games and pastimes of the game “Feeder”, a regional variant of baseball and rounders, in which we find the following:
A round stick or a small bat may be used by the players for striking, but this is not necessary, the open hand being a more ready and a sufficiently serviceable weapon.[12]
Thus, I believe, a more cautious interpretation would be that when we see both baseball and rounders presented together, this represents a division of base-running strike-a-ball games into less-vigorous and more-vigorous categories. There is a considerable, but not total, overlap between these two categories and the categories of less-technical and more-technical. Playing with a bat or stick (more vigorous) or without one (less) would represent such a division, as would playing with a bat (less technical) and a stick (more). This latter division exists in modern rounders, where, with one important regional exception, “flat bats” are reserved for novices, while the competitive game uses a truncheon-like stick. There is also an example from cricket in which players wishing to improve their batting technique can train with a bat with a narrow striking surface (a “technique” bat).[13]
Critically, I think that whether the game was played with or without a stick or with a bat versus a stick is important only insofar as it is an indication of the degree of vigour with which the game could be played. In this regard, we can look to nineteenth-century examples of cricket and baseball being played at the same occasion:
The young men played at cricket, while the boys played base ball and other games.[14]
Whether this version of baseball was played with or without a bat or stick is irrelevant; it is being positioned as less technical/vigorous than cricket and therefore more suitable for younger boys.
In general, all forms of physical recreation can be thought of as residing somewhere on the spectrum from less to more vigorous. However, historically, one consequence of differentiating games by their degree of vigour was the rise of exclusions based on gender. This was, for example, the principal objection to women playing Association Football and related sports.[15]
In the present context, it is most obvious in the way in which, in the early twentieth century, in schools in England, boys were directed towards cricket and girls towards rounders. Similarly, in the early twentieth century, in those parts of the country where baseball was played as a sport, it was reserved for boys/men, while girls/women were pushed toward rounders—though not without pushback. However, discussion of this latter phenomenon belongs to a history of nineteenth-century attempts to turn rounders into a competitive sport.[16]
The irony of this is that, as period sources show, the evidence from a century earlier is that rounders was considered a game for boys because it was regarded as lying at the more vigorous end of the spectrum. This stands in contrast to old baseball, which, lying somewhere in the middle, if not towards the less vigorous end of the spectrum, oscillated between being considered suitable for both girls and younger boys and for girls only. Here, again, we see the influence of the arrival on these shores of the American take on old baseball.
It is here also that class enters the picture. It would be tempting to be reductive and say that rounders was “the working-class version of old baseball”. However, although there is evidence that in its most unfettered form it was favoured by working-class boys and youths, it is also clear that, when under adult supervision, children of all classes played both rounders and old baseball, with the latter retaining its position as the less vigorous of the two games, but the former being a tamer version of rounders than that played by boys out of sight of adults. Eventually, the overlap would be so great that rounders would replace old baseball in people’s memories. The effect of this would be to obscure the history of both games.
Jamie Barras, August 2026.
Appendix: Running Strike-a-Ball Games in Nineteenth-Century England, their Degree of Vigour, and Who Played Them
Examples abound from the nineteenth century of the positioning of running strike-a-ball games somewhere on a less-to-more-vigorous spectrum. Many of these also include the gendering of such games on this basis. Overlaying this is a near-equivalent spectrum that considers the degree of technique. Below I present in chronological order a selection of quotes from period sources. These feature references to rounders and old baseball, often in relation to cricket, sometimes singly, and sometimes in relation to each other. Some of the passages illustrate how rambunctious rounders was considered in the nineteenth century. All references to rounders, with one, possibly two, exceptions, both from the Isle of Wight, involve boys/men playing the game. I have also included instances where rounders appears alongside “burney-ball” and “tutball”, two games historically described as regional variants of baseball/rounders. There is also one instance of rounders appearing alongside “stool ball”, said to be the earliest of all these running strike-a-ball games.
It should be noted that this is not intended to be an exhaustive list but rather an attempt to reflect the variety and proportion of period sources covering these games in relation to each other.
(1825; Berkshire) Then comes a sun-burnt gipsy of six, beginning to grow tall and thin, and to find the cares of the world gathering about her; with a pitcher in one hand, a mop in the other, an old straw bonnet of ambiguous shape, half hiding her tangled hair; a tattered stuff petticoat, once green, hanging below an equally tattered cotton frock, once purple; her longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the corner of the green, till she readies the cottage door, flings down the mop and pitcher, and darts to her comrades.[17]
(1832; London) FATAL ACCIDENT. Saturday afternoon an Inquest was held at the Grapes public-house on the body of Jacob Smith, a fine boy aged about eight years, son of Mr. Smith, tobacconist, Whitechapel-road. It appeared that on Thursday afternoon last, the deceased and some other children were playing a game called “Rounders”, in Whitechapel-road, when a waggon which was about to pass that way obliged them for a while to desist.[18]
(1833; Berkshire) Then again, this very afternoon, the squabbles of these ragged urchins at cricket on the common—a disputed point of out or not out?[...]What can be prettier than this, unless it be the fellow group of girls, sisters, I presume, to the boys, who are laughing and screaming around the great oak, then darting to and fro, in a game compounded of hide and seek and base ball.[19]
(1834; London) THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S PROTEST AGAINST WYNFORD'S BILL FOR THE BETTER OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. DISSENTIENT 11. Because it will breed much bitter feeling between the productive and the consuming classes, since I apprehend the games of cricket, trapball, rounders, and fly the garter, which will be prohibited, not much more unholy than the games of rouge et noir, billiards, and hazard, which will be as usual allowed.[20]
(1836; Devon) Mr. Wm. Holmes of Pilton, complained of three boys, Thomas Miller, George Bennett, and George Newcome of Rawleigh, for trespassing over a close of land in his occupation called Duck Pond Meadow, on Sunday the ultimo. The complainant stated, that the close and others near it being much trespassed over by boys, he set a person to watch on the day before named, who, on coming up to the gate, saw a number of stout boys, playing at "rounders," amongst whom was the defendant Miller. Bennett and Newcome did not appear to be at play, but were mere lookers-on.[21]
(1837; London) The prisoners said they were playing at a game called "rounder," knocking a ball with a stick, when the ball went over the railings, and Osborne went into the area to get it, when he found the property. Waddington, the gaoler, said that the prisoners were connected with a gang of "rounder" players on the Calthorpe estate, and were well known.[22]
(1837; Cowes, Isle of Wight) On Monday and Tuesday according to ancient custom, the young men, as well also the young women, of these towns assembled together, and played the games of cricket, trap, rounders, &c. This is not the custom in any other part of the island.[23]
(1838; Gloucestershire) Fred. and Edward Stamp and R. Mayo, were fined 3s. 4d. each and costs, for playing at rounders, &c. on the Pittville walks.[24]
(1842; London) The cap was what he usually wore in the stable, but as he was going on a visit he put on his Sunday hat and his cap and handkerchief inside of it. The stick, he said, was one that he and his brother had been playing at ball with, at a game called “rounder”, but in their retreat they dropped these things.[25]
(1843; Berkshire) The children, above 200 in number, assembled in a meadow adjoining the Forbury, where they amused themselves with cricket, base ball, and other recreations during the afternoon, and were afterwards assembled at the school room in the churchyard and regaled with buns and tea.[26]
(1844; Lancashire) CAUTION TO Boys.—Two boys were brought up at the Town Hall, on Monday last, for playing at rounders on Sunday, and being rather riotous and obstreperous over their sport. They were dismissed with a caution and reprimand.[27]
(1846; Buckinghamshire) The villagers had a general holiday; several parties were stripped for cricket on the hill, and the lasses of the neighbourhood, at bass-ball and other rustic games, made the welkin ring again with mirth and laughter.[28]
(1847; Cowes, Isle of Wight) At three o'clock, about three hundred persons sat down to a substantial dinner of roast beef, plum pudding, &c., after doing ample justice to which, Mr. Toward, the Queen's Bailiff, proposed, in succession, the healths of her Majesty, his Royal Highness the Prince Albert, Prince Alfred, and the rest of the Royal Family, which toasts, we need hardly say, were drank with the greatest enthusiasm. The sports of the evening then commenced in the following order:— Dancing, cricket, quoits, trap-bat and ball, rounders, whipping a ball out of a hole (six persons hooded), foot-ball, foot-race, donkey-races[...][29]
(1848; Suffolk) After the repast the party engaged in various sports, consisting of cricket, baste ball, dancing, &c. The scene, which was of a most gratifying and delightful character, was generally participated in by the company until evening, when all sang " God save the Queen" and three-times-three hearty cheers concluded the festivities.[30]
(1850; Berkshire) After tea, the boys amused themselves by playing at cricket and other games, and the girls by playing at base ball, &c.[31]
(1850; London) My Sundays were spent playing at "rounders," and gambling. I used to play with thieves. I have seen them thieve when I was with them. I went with them on purpose to thieve myself; that was before I came to the ragged school.[32]
(1852; Pembrokeshire) After dinner the company adjourned to the adjoining field to enjoy themselves in singing rounds, glees, &c., cricket, prisoner's base, rounder, and corresponding female pastimes.[33]
(1853; London) Mr. Wilson found that the majority of the boys and of the parents attended no place of worship whatever, dawdled about the streets, went up the river, had their games of ‘rounders’ in Battersea-fields, or listened to some Infidel ‘spouter’ on Kennington Common.[34]
(1853; Cheshire) The principal of the new clubs is the Deva Cricket Club, which has already begun operations. Those youngsters who are not ambitious of cricketing, content themselves with a game of rounders, and many happy groups may every evening be seen on our ancient city playground.[35]
(1855; Buckinghamshire) The children, after amusing themselves for several hours, the boys with foot ball, cricket &c., the girls with base ball, trap bat, and swings, returned at 9 o’clock[...][36]
(1855; Yorkshire) Service ended, the boys for an hour or more amused themselves with cricket, whilst "tirzee," "burney ball," and other kindred games divided the attention of the girls.[37]
(1855; Crimea) FROM A SOLDIER IN THE 21ST TO HIS BROTHER IN GLASGOW. Camp before Sebastopol, 9th May, 1855[...]We have all kinds of games here, such as cricket, foot-ball, rounders, horse and foot racing, &c.; and amongst all our troubles we get an extra drink occasionally.[38]
(1856; Crimea) In camp, quoits, cricket, skittles, rounders, &c., have become quite the rage with the soldiers. Bats are made out of ration and deal wood; and good balls of wood and leather.[39]
(1858; Berkshire) A cricket-match was played between the boys of the Holyport National-school and those of the Follyhill-school, in which the latter were victorious. Other portions of the assemblage were scattered over various parts of the ground, engaged with games such as base-ball, trap-ball, foot-ball, swings, kiss-in-the-ring, &c., &c.[40]
(1858; Dorset) After walking round the garden to the front of the Rectory and there singing the hymn "Children of Jerusalem," they separated to their respective places for amusement, &c., till tea time—the girls to one part prepared for them, and the boys in an adjoining field for cricket, rounders and other games.[41]
(1859; Kent) WORKMEN'S FESTIVAL.—The whole of the workmen in the employ of Messrs. Foord and Sons, builders and contractors, Rochester, celebrated their festival on Saturday last, when about 200 of the workmen dined together, a large portion at the Hook and Hatchet, and the remainder at other houses. During the afternoon and evening the workmen amused themselves at cricket, rounders, and other manly games.[42]
(1859; Sussex) On Friday last, the children of our National School, numbering 290, passed a very pleasant afternoon in Kidbrook Park, when cricket, rounders, stool ball, together with scrambling for sweetmeats, &c., running for cheeses, &c., gave ample employment to the young people till about six o'clock.[43]
(1860; Norfolk) The young men had a game of cricket, the boys played at base ball and other games. Kissing the ring appeared to be the favorite sport of the girls and children, while the men smoked their pipes and watched the games in calm enjoyment.[44]
(1860; Herefordshire) No time was lost before old and young entered the amusements of the afternoon—the boys at cricket, rounders, and leap-frog, and the girls at forfeits and other games.[45]
(1860; Cowes, Isle of Wight) In another [place] a number of Eve's fair daughters were deeply immersed in the arts of the fashionable, elegant, and highly-accomplished diversion—"Rounders." This feminine enterprise will be deemed vulgar by the fastidious, but had they seen their Amazonian spirit and exertion, the graceful movements of their arms, for a time converted into bats, the contemptuous heel-kicking their garments received in racing after the ball, the unmodulated shouts of "Bring her yer"-—meaning the ball—and the total absence of diffidence in meeting the gaze of the numerous spectators, they would have—no cause alter that opinion.[46]
(1861; London) Now, I have no objection to the game of Rounders” as a theory, which, indeed, traces from the earliest antiquity, and is a healthy and invigorating pastime, but I have a most decided objection to the practice when it is played on the middle of a cross path crowded with passers-by, who have as much right to be there the players themselves, and who, as the tip-cats fly about, and the balls shoot over their heads, are in momentary fear ot having a black eye or swelled face from one of the missiles. And I can assure you it is very poor consolation, after being struck on the head with a tough India-rubber ball, to be asked by one of the players, What the——do you mean by spoiling our——game?”[47]
(1862; London) Living in wide, open streets, perhaps in squares, with time for going to the parks, or often to places especially adapted for playgrounds, the boys of the middle and upper classes know not the discomforts of narrow dirty courts, foul atmosphere, and want of space. But the lower half cannot easily transmute their tastes and forget the pleasures of ” rounders,” trap-hat and ball” (or they designate it ‘‘strike up and lay down,”) “foot it,” and the rest; and they have, moreover, very considerable temptation to incorporate with their sports sundry habits, quite the reverse of sportive. “Bill” offends “Jem’s” dignity, and the argumentum ad rem frequently assumes the shape of a stone.[48]
(1862; Norfolk) If they were playing a game of cricket or base-ball, they would not say "thank-you" for a fellow who did not play in earnest, but laid down and took no part in the game; in their studies, let them take care that whatever they took in hand they did it fairly and earnestly. He had watched boys growing up into men and had found that he who played and worked well was the one to get on in life.[49]
(1864; Dorset) In the Park the following amusements have been provided—Archery, Cricket, Croquet, Quoits, Football, Football, High Jumping, Merry-go-round, Gymnasium, Swings, See-saw, Rounders or Base-ball, Skittles, Aunt Sally, &c.[50]
(1866; Shropshire) After the repast, the girls formed several of those "select circles" which are always to be seen at similar gatherings as the present; while the boys betook themselves to cricket, rounders, tut-ball, blind-man’s buff, &c.[51]
(1870; Yorkshire) A suitable time having been allowed to elapse after dinner, all—by the permission of the Rev. R. Elmhurst—adjourned to a field close by, where the gentlemen played a cricket match amongst themselves, whilst the ladies and junior portion of the company amused themselves by playing at burney-ball or rounders.[52]
(1875; Hampshire) After tea there was a resumption of sports—cricket, quoits, croquet, base ball, rounders, and other pastimes being vigorously pursued until eight o’clock when the time of departure arrived, and the company left the grounds well satisfied with their afternoon’s recreations[...][53]
Notes
[1] William Clarke, The Boy’s Own Book (London: Vizetelly, Branston and Co., 1829 Edition), 20.
[2] “Rounders”, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/sports/rounders, accessed 15 August 2026. The Shakespeare quote is from Cymbeline, Act V, Scene 3: “two striplings-lads more like to run the country base”. The scholarly consensus is that this refers to a safe-haven tag game called base/prisoner’s base rather than a ball game such as base ball or rounders by an earlier name.
[3] John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
[4] Patrick Carroll, “The Chicken or the Egg?” The SABR(UK) Examiner, January 1995, 4–5; David Block, “Chapter 2: Rounders Schmounders,” in Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 32–40.
[5] “Worship-street”, Morning Herald (London), 22 January 1842, 7.
[6] Block, Note 4 above, second reference, Chapter 11: Baseball Before We Knew it, 150–159.
[7] John Newbery, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book: Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly (Worcester, Mass.: Isaiah Thomas, 1787), 43.
[8] Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, Spiele zur Uebung und Erholung des Körpers und Geistes: für die Jugend, ihre Erzieher und alle Freunde unschuldiger Jugendfreuden, gesammelt und praktisch bearbeitet von GutsMuths, Mitarbeiter zu Schnepfenthal (Schnepfenthal: Buchhandlung der Erziehungsanstalt, 1796); “Pastimes: Stool Ball”, The Queen, 9 April 1864, 3–4.
[9] “Southampton: Excursion to Broadlands”, Wiltshire County Mirror, 17 August 1875, 6.
[10] David Block, “Rounders: A Game That ‘Gets No Respect’,” Protoball, https://protoball.org/Rounders:A_Game_That%22Gets_No_Respect%22, accessed 17 August 2026.
[11] “Brading: Good Friday”, Isle of Wight Observer, 14 April 1860, 3.
[12] “Feeder,” Cassell’s Book of Sports and Pastimes (London: Cassell, 1882), 222.
[13]https://www.sportsdirectoryuk.co.uk/products/slazenger-flat-rounders-bat, https://www.ramcricket.co.uk/products/technique-cricket-bat, accessed 17 August 2026. The regional exception is Bolton Rounders (Lancashire), which is played with a bat, not a stick: “Origins of Bolton rounders game sought by university”, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13977360, https://www.westhoughton-high.org/wp-content/uploads/Rounders-KO.pdf, accessed 10 August 2026.
[14] “J.J. Colman, Esq. of Carrow”, Norfolk News, 2 June 1860, 5.
[15] June Arianna Kennard, Woman, Sport and Society in Victorian England (EdD diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1974), https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Kennard_uncg_7422020.PDF, accessed 24 August 2025.
[16] “Baseball and Rounders”, ‘Baseball and Rounders’, Liverpool Echo, 30 July 1910, 8.
[17] “A Village Sketch”, Evans and Ruffy's Farmer's Journal, 7 November 1825, 3. From Mary Russell Mitford’s “Our Village” series.
[18] “Fatal Accident”, Weekly Dispatch (London), 8 October 1832, 3.
[19] “Children Out of Doors”, Liverpool Albion, 25 November 1833, 6. From Mary Russell Mitford’s “Our Village” series.
[20] “The Lord Chancellor’s Protest Against Wynford’s Bill…”, Satirist; or, the Censor of the Times, 25 May 1834, 6.
[21] “Petty Sessions, Barnstaple, 9 April 1836”, North Devon Journal, 14 April 1836, 4.
[22] “Hatton-Garden”, Morning Post, 20 April 1838, 4.
[23] “Public Office”, Cheltenham Chronicle, 15 November 1838, 3.
[24] “Cowes, April 1”, Hampshire Advertiser, 1 April 1837, 3.
[25] “Worship-street”, Morning Herald (London), 22 January 1842, 7.
[26] “Public Building”, Berkshire Chronicle, 30 September 1843, 3.
[27] “Caution to Boys”, Preston Chronicle, 4 May 1844, 2.
[28] "West Wycombe", Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News, 22 August 1846, 6.
[29] "The Court, &c.", Morning Post, 9 August 1847, 5.
[30] “Boxford National School Fete”, Ipswich Journal, 2 September 1848, 3.
[31] “Andover”, Reading Mercury, 3 August 1850, 2.
[32] “Visits to the London Ragged Schools”, Express (London), 23 May 1850, 2.
[33] “Tenby”, Welshman, 28 May 1852, 3.
[34] “The Vauxhall Factory Schools”, The Record, 23 January 1853, 6.
[35] “Cestrian Cricket Club”, Chester Chronicle, 4 June 1853, 5.
[36] “Taplow”, Reading Mercury, 14 July 1855, 5.
[37] “Farnham (near Knaresborough): Church School Feast”, Leeds Intelligencer, 16 June 1855, 6.
[38] “From a Soldier of the 21st to His Brother in Glasgow”, Glasgow Herald, 1 June 1855, 5.
[39] “The British Army”, Liverpool Shipping Telegraph and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 31 May 1856, 1.
[40] “Maidenhead: The Braywick Rural Fete”, Windsor and Eton Express, 11 September 1858, 3.
[41] “Annual Tea Feast”, Poole & Dorset Herald, 5 August 1858, 5.
[42] “Workmen’s Festival”, Chatham News, 16 July 1859, 4.
[43] “Forest Row: School Treat”, Sussex Advertiser, 9 August 1859, 5.
[44] “J.J. Colman, Esq. of Carrow”, Norfolk News, 2 June 1860, 5.
[45] “Sabbath-School Festival”, Hereford Times, 6 August 1860, 7.
[46] “Brading: Good Friday”, Isle of Wight Observer, 14 April 1860, 3.
[47] “To the Editor of the Marylebone Mercury”, Marylebone Mercury, 13 April 1861, 2.
[48] “Paddington Green”, Marylebone Mercury, 22 February 1862, 2.
[49] “Competitive Examination of Voluntary Schools”, Norfolk News, 15 November 1862, 2.
[50] “Grand Rural Fete at Winkton House”, Christchurch Times, 25 June 1864, 1.
[51] “Chetwynd: Annual School Festival”, Newport & Market Drayton Advertiser, 21 July 1866, 4.
[52] “Farnham: Easter Festivities”, Pateley Bridge & Nidderdale Herald, 23 April 1870, 5.
[53] “Southampton: Excursion to Broadlands”, Wiltshire County Mirror, 17 August 1875, 6.