What games were played on "the playing-fields of Eton"?

The Duke of Wellington is often quoted as saying, “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton.” (http://www.giga-usa.com/gigaweb1/quotes2/quautwellesleyarthurx001.htm) Meaning, I suppose, that the field-sports the sons of the gentry played there helped cultivate capable Army officers. But what sports were played at British public schools in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries? Soccer/football? Cricket? Others that have passed into obscurity?

Uh… “War”? I’m guessing here…

Eton has two near-unique games, the Wall Game and Field Game. However, I’ve no idea about the context of the quote.

I’ve always assumed it was more of a general reference to the “English” virtues instilled into the boys at Eton and brought to the fore in their games: commitment; uprightness; fair play; respect for legitimate authority blah, blah, blah.

Not solely the preserve of the English I know, but I’m sure the Duke thought they were.

Paintball?

Hehehe. I’m so funny.

Honestly, I would say team sports that involve strategy. Maybe rugby.
Additionally, sports that require great physical exertion, like rowing.

Hey that Wall Game looks exciting.–

In his book about a trip to England writer H. Allen Smith reported that upon viewing the playing fields of Eton his thought was, “So this is where the Battle of Yorktown was lost.”

I’m pretty sure that I’ve read that the quote is apocryphal – the playing of organized games like football at public schools was a later, Victorian innovation - when I’ve got time, I’ll see if I can track that down.

Sorry, but rugby wasn’t invented until well into the 19th century - at, well, Rugby school - by one William Webb Ellis, after whom the William Webb Ellis trophy {aka "Bill}, better known as the rugby world cup, was named. Ellis employed that time-honoured English tactic of cheating, which may well have stood generations of Empire-builders in good stead: certainly Harry Flashman, that celebrated Victorian soldier, poltroon, scoundrel and lecher was an Old Boy of Rugby.

And here’s one of the many links indicating the quote is bunk:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/21/1029114133638.html

Well he could have played Cricket if he wanted to, but sports weren’t compulsory at Eton back then. By all accounts he spent most of his time there playing on his own in and around a ditch at the bottom of his boarding house’s garden.

Its almost certainly apocryphal - not least because Arthur Wellesley (as he was known before he was famous :D) was a shy, awkward loner at Eton who didn’t even graduate and held no love for the place later in life although he did say (on visiting his two sons there in 1818):

As to the apocryphal quote itself (to quote Elizabeth Longford’s Wellington):

So basically its all the French’s fault.

shakes fist at France

But the articles don’t say how old those games are.

But they keep saying it is going to take the U.S. by storm any time now.

Actually, unlike Napoleon who loved his armies - and loved playing with them - the Duke, a cold and unlikable man at the best of times, seems to have regarded his troops {a large number of whom were Irish, incidentally, at a time when Ireland was under armed occupation and constantly on the brink of revolt, and who would have balked at being described as English} with a disdain bordering on contempt, referring to them on one occasion as “scum recruited for drink”.

There’s another Eton-developed game that really did take the world by storm [albeit a Category 0.001 storm].

Eton Fives is a handball variant that started when boys played in a natural 3-wall “court” formed by buttresses and steps of the Eton Chapel. A photo of the court is at the first link on this page (it’s a Javascript popup so I can’t link directly). The walls, buttress, steps, and even a drainage hole (the “Dead Man’s Hole” :eek: ) have survived in copies of the courts that have been built on five continents.

Currently, the game is played in countries as far-spread as England, Wales, Ireland, France, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Argentina, Nigeria, Malaysia, India, and Australia (apparently Australia is in Asia in the Eton Fives universe :dubious: ). Photos on the linked pages show that all of the courts have the architectural imprint of the original Chapel steps at Eton (which looks pretty strange when implemented in dried mud in Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria).

The first purpose-built Fives courts were built at Eton in 1840, and were close copies of the original chapel-steps court. Clearly, the game had achieved sufficient popularity by this date to require new courts to handle the demand. Since Arthur Wellesley was at Eton from 1781 to 1785, I suppose that it’s possible that he played Fives – or a precursor thereof – while at Eton. Of course, one wouldn’t have called the Fives court a “playing field” as such.

Tom Burnam’s book More Misinformation has an article on this.

See? Cricket’s not as dull as you thought. :smiley:

This article gives a good idea of what games they were playing. Particularly relevant is the following paragraph, which specifically refers to Eton -

As for Wellington’s supposed remark (in whatever version), the fact that there is no strictly contemporaneous record need not be that big a problem. People do tend to remember remarks made by the very famous and then retell them for effect years later.

The bigger problem is the lack of any precise context. It is not as if the comment is unambiguous. One could equally interpret it as being uncomplimentary, with him intending it to mean that the school had brutalised him and/or the other boys. Which would be just the sort of irony that might be missed by a foreigner such as de Montalambert or by those who wanted to take a rosier view of Eton life.

:stuck_out_tongue:

For those who didn’t read the Wikipedia article on the Wall Game, a goal is only one of several ways of scoring in the Wall Game (albeit the highest-scoring way). Much more common are “shies”, which the article says occur about 3 times a year. If we assume only one game per year (as seems to be implied by the article), this is only a little lower-scoring than hockey or even baseball. Also judging from the Wikipedia description and accompianying photographs, I’m going to hazard a guess that actually scoring is not as important as making sure that the other team is more injured than your guys are.