The Eighteenth Century

During the 18th century the game of billiards became part of the lifestyle of the "common man". In England billiards came to be played by the public regularly, particularly in London, but later across the countryside. Billiards became a part of life in the old inns and in the many coffeehouses that were established at the time as well as the occasional "chocolate" house. Meanwhile in North America, there is a recorded instance of billiards as early as 1709 when a prominent Virginian plantation owner was recorded as "playing billiards at his home, mornings, afternoons and evenings". It seems that the young George Washington was a billiard player as were Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. There were also public tables around this time in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Salem, Richmond, and Annapolis and a little later in New Orleans and in Missouri.

During the latter half of the 18th century the beginnings of a "billiards industry" developed. Until this time billiard tables had generally been made by individual furniture makers, joiners or carpenters, but as the demand for billiard tables grew the well-known furniture makers commenced making them. The famous furniture designers and cabinetmakers, Sheraton's, made billiard tables. And a firm, Gillows, began to devote a significant part of their business activities to billiard tables and associated furniture.

Gillows offered a variety of billiard tables ranging from small portable models, some 6 or 7 feet long, to the full-sized tables, 12 feet long. The standard of work on English billiard tables became much higher than it had been earlier. At this time, of course, the beds of the tables were still made of timber and were subject to movement and warpage. However, the aim was to minimize the effect of the movement of the timbers. Whereas earlier the bed of the table had been constructed of simple wooden boards, at this stage ingenious methods were used to construct wooden beds using a number of framed sections with timbers laid in a crisscross fashion like parquetry within each. The cushions of this time were known as "banks" and were made from a number of strips of flannel which were applied in layers and covered with canvas before being covered in the billiard cloth of the time.

During the 1700s, although many players continued to use the mace, as the century wore on the cue gradually began to be favoured more and more until by the 1820s the mace was only being used rarely.

At this time balls were generally made from ivory although some were still made from boxwood. Ivory balls were much preferred. Ivory balls had to be carefully turned from elephants' tusks imported from either Africa or India. To produce a truly spherical ball the centre of a completed ivory ball had to coincide with the centre of the tusk. Typically a single elephant tusk produced only four or five balls.

There were a number of problems associated with ivory balls. Ivory as a substance took a long time to season. The level of skill in turning the ivory ball had to be extremely high; and it tended to be subject to change with variations in weather. The balls could crack owing to such weather changes and if struck really hard might be damaged which meant they had to be re-turned. With each repair the ivory balls became slightly smaller.

During the 1700s, following the removal of the pass and king pin, in England the most common game of billiards became the "Game of Hazards" or the "Winning Game". Here two players each had a white ball and the aim was to score points by potting the opponent's ball.

Another game emerged from France. It was called "Jeu de Guerre" or the "War Game". In this case there were several numbered balls. The object was to pot balls belonging to opponents while positioning your own ball to avoid opponents potting it. The "War Game" was played for money. It was an antecedent of today's game of pool.

In 1773 an essay on billiards in the Covent Garden magazine referred to another game introduced from France called "carambole". In this game a red ball was added to the two white balls of the winning game. Points could be gained by potting the balls, but the chief object of the game was to use one's own ball to strike the two other balls, thus achieving a "carom" or cannon. Potting the red ball achieved three points, the adversary's white ball two points, and achieving a cannon resulted in two points. The similarity between the 18th century game of carambole and the modern game of billiards is obvious.

In the carambole game there was much more use of the cushions of the table and a requirement for a great deal more control over the player's ball. It was normally played with a cue. By emphasizing the importance of the cue the carambole game helped the demise of the mace. The game of carambole probably emerged sometime after the 1750s but certainly before 1775. By 1807 the carambole game had achieved such popularity in England that it began to be called the "game of billiards", and the white winning game fell from favour. In France, the carambole game gradually led to scoring exclusively by means of caroms or cannons and the pocketing of balls ceased altogether after a time. Billiard tables there began to be made without pockets. Today these tables are called "carom billiard tables". In North America, there developed for a period a four-ball game of billiards which was at its most popular by the mid-19th Century. The game of "carom billiards" was also played in North America. Finally, the game which became known as 15-ball pool, and later as "American pocket billiards" - developed from the Jeu de Guerre – and became the most popular American game in the 20th century. (To continue see A Short History of billiards, page 3.)