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In the early days of snooker, it was generally accepted that the game of snooker originated in the British
Army garrisons of India as a combination of the various billiard games, particularly English billiards,
which where then commonly played. Beyond this nobody laid claim to its specific origins until a debate
began in the late 1930s.
One thing is certain though, the game in which Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain of the Devonshire regiment
claims to have named snooker ("snooker" once being a derogatory term for a first-year cadet
of the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich in England) in 1875, and which for many years was referred to as
snooker's pool, bore more relation to the existing billiard games of the time than the modern
game of snooker – fewer balls were used, they were positioned on different spots, had different
values, and the scoring sequence and rules would be unrecognizable to a follower of today's game of snooker.
Who brought about the changes which form the modern game remains a mystery, but they were generally in
place by 1900. They probably evolved through a series of individuals in the Army Officers' Mess, or it is
even thought the English gentleman at the club in the Ootacamund hills of India added more balls to the game
– perhaps this is why Chamberlain waited over 60 years until the late 1930s before making his claim
to be the originator of snooker.
Here follows a letter by Compton McKenzie which appeared in the Billiard Player publication of April 1939.
The details of the letter have become accepted as fact as to the origins of the game of snooker.
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The Billiard Player – April 1939
Last year an article in "The Field" put forward the theory that the game of snooker had its origin
at the Royal Military Academy (RMA), Woolwich, where officers of the Royal Artillery and the Royal
Engineers receive their training as cadets.
The theory was plausible, because a first-year cadet at "The Shop", as the RMA is familiarly known,
is called a "snooker," the soubriquet being time's corruption of the original word for a newly-joined
cadet, which was "Neux." It must be remembered that the RMA was founded as long ago as 1741.
The writer of the article stated that the original rules of snooker were copied out by Lord Kitchener
from those at "The Shop," brought by him to Ootacamund, India, and there hung up in the Club.
This assertion was formally contradicted by General Sir Ian Hamilton in a letter to "The Field" of
July 11, 1938. In point of fact Lord Kitchener never visited India until many years after snooker
had become a popular game out there.
Investigation has established that so far from snooker having originated at "The Shop," the game
was invented at Jubbulpore in the year 1875 by Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain, who is fortunately
still with us and whose memory is perfectly clear on the subject.
It befell during the "Rains" that Sir Neville, then a young subaltern in the Devonshire Regiment,
anxious to vary the game of Black Pool which was being played every long wet afternoon on the Mess
billiard table, suggested putting down another coloured ball, to which others of different values
were gradually added.
One day a subaltern of the Field Battery at Jubbulpore was being entertained by the Devons, and in
the course of conversation told young Chamberlain about the soubriquet "snooker" for first year
cadets at Woolwich. To quote Sir Neville's own words: "The term was a new one to me, but I soon had
an opportunity of exploiting it when one of our party failed to hole a coloured ball which was close
to a corner pocket. I called out to him: 'Why, you're a regular snooker!'
"I had to explain to the company the definition of the word, and, to soothe the feelings of the
culprit, I added that we were all, so to speak, snookers at the game, so it would he very
appropriate to call the game snooker. The suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm and the game has
been called snooker ever since."
In 1876 Sir Neville Chamberlain left the Devons to join the Central-India Horse, taking with him
the new game. A year or two later came the Afghan War, a more serious potting game in which young
Chamberlain was himself potted.
However, fortunately for himself and the great game which we enjoy so much today, he recovered from
his wound, and when at the close of 1881 General Sir Frederick Roberts became Commander-in-Chief of
the Madras Army, the inventor of snooker served on his personal staff, and was with Roberts when
every summer he moved to the hill station at Ootacamund known to all and sundry as "Ooty"
Here came officers from big garrisons like Bangalore and Secundderabad and planters from Mysore. All
of them enjoyed snooker as a speciality of the "Ooty" Club where the rules of the game were drawn
up and posted in the billiards room, but not by Lord Kitchener.
During the eighties rumours of the new game in India reached England. One evening Sir Neville
Chamberlain when dining in Calcutta with the Maharaja of Cooch Behar was introduced to a well-known
professional billiards player whom he had engaged from England for some lessons.
This professional told the Maharaja he had been asked in England to obtain the rules of the new
game snooker and the Maharaja introduced Sir Neville Chamberlain to him as the best person to give
him the information he wanted because he was the inventor of it.
In a letter to "The Field" of March 19, 1938, Sir Neville regretted he did not know the name of the
professional but thought he was probably a contemporary of John Roberts and W. Cook. A week or two
later Mr. F. H. Cumberlege wrote to Sir Neville Chamberlain to say that the professional must have
been John Roberts himself who came out to Calcutta in 1885. Mr. Cumberlege added that he remembered
showing the Maharaja the new game of snooker at Cooch Behar after a shooting party in the spring of
1884.
Sir Neville Chamberlain has received from several other distinguished authorities confirmation of
his claim to be the inventor of snooker. Major-General W. A. Watson, Colonel of the Central India
Horse (his old regiment) wrote: "I have a clear recollection of you rejoining the regiment in 1884.
You brought with you a brand new game, which you called snooker or snookers. There were the black,
the pink, the yellow and the green. We all understood it was your own invention. We took to it very
keenly."
Major-General Sir John Hanbury Williams (Colonel of the 43rd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
Infantry) wrote: "I was always under the impression that you introduced the game of snooker to the
43rd. in 1884-5. Certainly the 43rd never played snooker till you came and introduced it to us.
Hope you will stick to the honour of its invention."
Field Marshal Lord Birdwood wrote: "I remember well you introducing the game of snookers into the
12th Lancers' Mess, when I was a subaltern in the Regiment at Bangalore in '85."
Sir Walter Lawrence, Bt., wrote: "When we first met in Simla in 1886, when you were with Lord
Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief, and afterwards when we served together in Kashmir, I always looked
upon you as the inventor of snooker, and I know that this idea was common to many of my friends.
Quite recently, last year (1937) I was telling some of my friends in England who were discussing
snooker, that I had the honour of knowing very intimately the inventor of the game."
The testimony of these and other highly distinguished officers finally disposes of the theory
advanced with some emphasis by the writer in "The Field" that the game of snooker originated at the
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and it has been a privilege for me to assemble in print such
incontrovertible evidence.
There is nothing to add except that all the many thousands of snooker players the world over will
wish Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain, who is now in his 84th year, many another year to enjoy the
honour of being the inventor of a game, now 63 years old, which has added so much to the gaiety of
nations.
– Compton McKenzie. (1938) |
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