The game of badminton is descended from the ancient children’s game of battledor and shuttlecock. As 19th century illustrations show, the game was also played by adults both outdoors and indoors. The idea of the game was to keep the shuttlecock from falling to the ground as long as possible, counting the number of hits. There are rival claims to the birth
of this game. At Badminton House, the seat of the Dukes of Beaufort, a ‘net’ in the form of a piece of string was used to divide the playing field, and players took opposite sides. The other story is that badminton was first played by the British in India and then brought back to Britain by returning army officers. Major Wingfield (known for lawn tennis) was supposed to have been inspired by the game when he was stationed in the country. It may have been taken up and made popular at Badminton House which provided the game with its name. The making of rules was attempted at Poona in the 1870’s but the standard version was only accepted when the Badminton Association set to work in 1893.

LAWN TENNIS
A retired army Dragoons Officer, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, is commonly credited for the adaptation of real tennis to lawn tennis in the 1870s. He certainly had the business sense to see that the time was ripe for a ‘new game’. There were several earlier experiments of real tennis on a lawn - especially by Major Harry Gem, a Birmingham Solicitor who in 1865 set up the game of Lawn Rackets in his garden and later in 1872, started the first lawn tennis club in Leamington Spa with a Spanish friend, Augurio Perera. Major Wingfield originally used the rather unusual name Sphairistike for the game but soon abandoned it. He accepted the more popular rectangular court over his hour-glass shape which was only used for a very short time. In 1875 the All England Croquet Club introduced Tennis to its lawns and the first Wimbledon Champion was produced in 1877.