Mondays at the Manor - Games and Other Fun

With many of us still at home and spending time with family, we are all looking for new ways to spend time together.  Family time, especially for rural farm families in the 1850s and 1860s was part of daily life.  Unlike us, these families did not have things like computers and television to keep them entertained, so they needed to create their own fun.

When the weather was pleasant, and there were free days, families in the area often got together. There were outdoor games for the men and boys such as cricket, which had been brought from England, and. Lacrosse had come from contact with the aboriginal groups.  Ladies were included in playing croquet, which was a new game that came about in the mid 1860s. With enough men, informal baseball games were played, however the more formal games were organized until the late 1870s with one of the first games being played in 1877 in London, Ontario sponsoring the London Tecumsehs.

When weather was bad and social times was spent indoor, there was a variety of things to entertain. Of course, books were read out loud, usually by the men. Some of what we consider classics were published in the 1850s and 1860s. Books such as “Tale of Two Cities”, “The Scarlet Letter” and “Moby Dick” were new and “Great Expectations” was being serialized in the magazine All the Year Round.  Card games very popular for all ages and everyone knew the rules for Whist, Hearts, and Old Maid. For younger members of the group, there was a game to help break the ice, especially between courting couples. It required the couple to match a pair of cards to make a humorous sentence. (some readers of this blog would know it as a less shocking version of “Cards Against Humanity”) Chess, checkers, and Crockinole became popular around 1860.

 For more active groups, especially families and close friends, games took on a more physical appeal. Charades, played by older children and adults, and Blindman’s Buff was a favourite of young couples. Reverend Crawley’s Game, a Victorian version of Twister, involved the group crossing hands with each other and then attempting to untwist themselves and form a single circle. Even small children enjoyed “Lookabout”, where one person would hide a small item in plain sight with the winner being the first to find the object.

 If some of these games have piqued an interest, take advantage of the internet, and do a google search. Many of them have passed the test of time and would provide a new kind of family fun as we continue to spend time together.

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