Bowls at Reading Country Club

THE HISTORY OF BOWLS

Shakespeare (Richard II, Act III, Scene IV):

Queen: What sport shall we devise here in this garden,

To drive away the heavy thought of care?

First Lady: Madam, we’ll play at bowls.

Queen: ‘Twill make me think the world is full of rubs.

And that my fortune runs against the bias

Bowls is considered a quintessentially English sport. However, it probably originated in France. Like Italy’s bocce and Provencal’s petanque, bowling originated in a game played by Roman soldiers, in which stones were tossed toward a target stone with the object of getting as close to the target as possible. Roman legions introduced the game to countries throughout their empire.

Over time, the stones were replaced by balls that were usually rolled, rather than thrown. In France, the sport became known as boules, from the Latin word for ball, and the English world “bowl” came from that French root. The oldest known bowling green, in Southampton, England, dates at least to 1299, although other greens claim to be older. Henry VIII, himself a bowler, in 1511 banned the sport among the lower classes and levied a fee of 100 pounds on any private bowling green to ensure that only the wealthy could play. The main reason for the ban, as for similar bans on other sports, was that able-bodied men were required to spend their spare time practicing archery.