Block:Tut Ball

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Tut Ball (21 entries)

Tut Ball in West Yorkshire on May 19 1842

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Thursday, May 19, 1842
Location West Yorkshire
Data

“Tut ball”, according to a newspaper report of local Whitsuntide festivities, was the game played at one such activity held in Keighley, a parish of the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire: “The Keighley district Visiting Society were treated with tea and its accompaniments at the Rectory, by the Rev. W. Busfeild, after which they amused themselves with 'tut ball'.”

Sources

Bradford Observer, May 19, 1842, p. 5

Tut Ball in East Yorkshire in 1848

Block Game Tut Ball
Date 1848
Location East Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was named as a game played on Ash Wednesday in a local history book's description of the local customs observed on various holidays in the seaside town of Hornsea in East Yorkshire. “Of these are, the eating of 'eggs and callops' on Shrove Monday—pancakes on Tuesday—and on Wednesday, a curious custom of playing at 'Tut-ball' (elsewhere called hand-ball or stool-ball). At present, this is only practised by children, but, within the memory of persons yet living, old as well as young turned out in the closes or on the Common for this play, and it was a saying that they who did not play at Tut-ball on Ash-Wednesday would be sick in harvest time.”

Sources

An Account of Hornsea in Holderness in the East-Riding of Yorkshire, Hull, 1848, William Stephenson, p. 90

Tut Ball in Derbyshire/South Yorkshire on August 28 1852

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, August 28, 1852
Location Derbyshire/South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was among the amusements enjoyed by students of the Wicker Sunday School of Sheffield, Yorkshire, who were brought to the grounds of an estate in the town of Bolsover in nearby Derbyshire. “By three o'clock they had congregated, and having received a hearty welcome from their kind-hearted host, the proceeded to entertain themselves at games of cricket, tut-ball, etc.”

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Aug. 28, 1852, p. 6

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on August 19 1854

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, August 19, 1854
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tutball” was among the games played at a big party given to honor Henry Wilkerson, a local industrialist, by his employees who held him in very high regard, if you believe what the newspaper story had to say. “The presentation concluded, the party spread themselves in groups over the park, and engaged in cricket, football, dancing, tutball, and other amusements, until shortly after three, when they were summoned to a substantial dinner.

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Aug. 19, 1854, p. 10

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on June 18 1859

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, June 18, 1859
Location South Yorkshire
Data

Attempting to retrieve a ball in a game of “tutball” almost led to a boy's death in the Hillfoot neighborhood of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. A newspaper reported that the boy, William Lamb, “was playing at a game called 'tutball' with several other lads, when the ball was knocked into the river at Hillfoot. Lamb went over the side of the river to recover the ball, and, overbalancing, fell into the water.” Fortunately, he was rescued from the water and taken to an infirmary where he recovered from the “asphixia” caused by being immersed.

Sources

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, June 18, 1859, p. 2

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on July 17 1860

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Tuesday, July 17, 1860
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was one of the pastimes enjoyed at the annual dinner held for the masters and workmen in the employ of the Atlantic Works, a quality producer of knives and cutlery in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Following a cricket match in the afternoon, the workmen, who were joined by their wives, sat down for a dinner and tea. “These having been disposed of,” a newspaper reported, “the party adjourned to the green. Skittles, bowls, tut-ball, and other such amusements were again the order of the day.”

Sources

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, July 17, 1860, p. 3

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on April 12 1862

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, April 12, 1862
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Touch ball” was mentioned in a letter to the editor of a Barnsley (South Yorkshire) newspaper in which the writer was defending his position upholding religious singing in Sunday schools. “A Sunday-school . . . is a fitting place of psalm and hymn singing. I would as soon think of mixing mustard for dinner in a place of worship, during service, as I would bring the religious exercise of singing into a gala-park or playground, amongst young persons whose thoughts and intentions are on cricket, touch ball, terzy, &c.”

Sources

The Barnsley Chronicle, and Penistone, Wath, and Hoyland Journal, April 12, 1862, p. 3

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on July 11 1862

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Friday, July 11, 1862
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was referenced in a newspaper piece describing a day's cricket outing by members of the Sheffield Corporation (city council) in which the writer defended the virtues of men playing ball. “They entered into the game heartily,” he wrote, “not as scientific cricketers, but mainly we suppose for a day's recreation, in the pursuit of which they would no doubt have found a similar amount of enjoyment in the less dignified pastimes of “tut-ball' or 'kiss-in-the-ring;' thus proving that the spirit of juvenility remains with man throughout his life.”

Sources

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, July 11, 1862, p. 2

Tut Ball in Shropshire on July 25 1866

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Wednesday, July 25, 1866
Location Shropshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was played at the annual school festival in the small rural Shropshire parish of Chetwynd. According to a newspaper report, the school children were first served tea and then “after the repast, the girls formed several of those 'select circles' which are always to be seen at similar gatherings as the present; while the boys betook themselves to cricket, rounders, tut-ball, blind-man's buff, &c.”

Notes

That tut-ball was played side-by-side with rounders supports the theory that the former was a bat-less game, similar to English baseball.

Sources

Eddowes's Shrewsbury Journal; Advertiser for Shropshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and the Principality of Wales; July 25, 1866, P. 6

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on October 23 1872

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Wednesday, October 23, 1872
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was used as a basis of comparison in trying to explain (and denigrate) baseball to a Sheffield, Yorkshire, newspaper audience by an arrogant columnist covering the American tour of the All-England Eleven cricket team. “Base-ball (a kind of “tut-ball,” played with hedge-stakes), however, being less laborious, not at all scientific, and soon over, will continue to please the youthful Americans most; just as euchre takes the place of whist, and spirits the place of wine. Something simple, requiring no thought, soon over, and at which one can talk, is preferred in this superficial land.”

Notes

This sort of open contempt for the U.S. was not commonplace in British newspapers of this period. The reference to hedge-stakes is more likely a put-down of spindly baseball bats (as compared to cricket bats), rather than a reference to the stakes used as bases in the Massachusetts game.

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Oct. 23, 1872, p. 3

Tut Ball in West Yorkshire on July 31 1874

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Friday, July 31, 1874
Location West Yorkshire
Data

“Touch-ball” was referenced in newspaper article about the British tour of American professional baseball players. “Base ball, as we were prepared to find, is an American modification, and of course an 'improvement,' of the old English game of 'rounders,' or, as it is called in the West Riding, 'touch-ball.' The children in those districts play it without a bat or club; they strike the ball with the open hand, and have posts or stones at the corners of the playground, which correspond to the 'bases' of the American game. If the ball was caught before it reached the ground, or the fielders could hit the striker with it before he reached the 'touch,' he was out.”

Sources

Manchester Guardian, July 31, 1874, p. 5

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on September 28 1874

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Monday, September 28, 1874
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was defined within a serialized publication of the local Hallamshire Vocabulary that appeared in a Sheffield, Yorkshire, newspaper: “Tut-ball—a local game played with a soft ball, in which the players have to make their way to certain homes or stations, called 'tuts.' If hit with the ball while running from one tut to another, their side is out. Called pize ball in the neighborhood of Leeds. The American base-ball seems to be an elaboration of the game.”

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Sept. 28, 1874, p. 4

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on February 13 1875

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, February 13, 1875
Location South Yorkshire
Data

That “tut-ball” and other spring games were being played by children on Shrove Tuesday despite snowy and freezing weather was praised in a Sheffield, Yorkshire, newspaper column entitled “Spectator in Hallamshire.” After mentioning that in days of old the typical holiday sports were violent ones such as foot-ball and cock-fighting, he wrote: “To this have succeeded in our day the innocent shuttlecock and tut-ball, and the law of habit seems like a law of nature, the boys and girls being as sure to resort to the usual games as the early lambs are to be seen beside their dams.”

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Feb. 13, 1875, p. 7

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on November 1 1879

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, November 1, 1879
Location South Yorkshire
Data

Stating that children should be provided space to play “tut-ball” and other games, a newspaper writer in Sheffield, Yorkshire, argued against the local Hallamshire council spending money to make a new park more suitable for adult sports: “I hope the Town Council will not think it necessary to spend money in levelling (sic) the land it is to acquire at Crookes moor. If it were to be a ground for cricket and football matches, no doubt a lot of money would have to be spent upon it. But I look to the children far more than to adults. For the children, a piece of ground, though rough, is sufficient, where they can fly their kites, and play little games at tut-ball, cricket, football, &c. If men were to have the ground for their matches that would mean clearing the children out of their way, which is far from my notion of what is right and desirable.”

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Nov. 1, 1879, p. 6

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on November 2 1885

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Monday, November 2, 1885
Location South Yorkshire
Data

The game “tut-ball” was mentioned in a Sheffield, Yorkshire, newspaper article discussing some events from the childhood days of Robert Leader, the paper's former proprietor. In one tale, related from a diary entry, the young Robert was visiting a farm with his father: “A humbler game than lawn tennis was then in vogue. 'Mister Wells has got a house at Steel bank, and I have engaged to go, and have a game at tut-ball with him and his ladies.'”

Notes

This tut-ball event transpired in the late 1820's.

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Nov. 2, 1885, p. 4

Tut Ball in Lancashire in 1886

Block Game Tut Ball
Date 1886
Location Lancashire
Data

A brief definition of “Tutball” was included in a published glossary of local words and phrases from the market town of Rochdale and the district of Rossendale, both traditionally part of Lancashire county. “Tutball, n. A child's hand-ball.”

Sources

A Glossary of Rochdale-with-Rossendale Words and Phrases, by Henry Cunliffe, Manchester, 1886, John Heywood, p. 93

Tut Ball in South Yorkshire on July 10 1890

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Thursday, July 10, 1890
Location South Yorkshire
Data

“Tut ball” was asserted to be the local name for rounders in the view of a Sheffield, Yorkshire, newspaper writer who was reviewing the current issue of an American children's magazine: “St. Nicholas is bright and fresh as ever—full of stories and adventures, and practical papers on sports. 'Bat, ball and diamond,' is an American elaboration of rounders, or (locally) 'tut ball' into a scientific game.”

Sources

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, July 10, 1890, p. 2

Tut Ball in West Sussex on August 1 1898

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Monday, August 1, 1898
Location West Sussex
Data

“Touch ball” was mentioned in newspaper coverage of a court case where an injunction was sought against a boys' camp for using the village green of Wisborough-Green, West Sussex, as its playground. The article reported that the plaintiff's (the chairman of the parish council) complaint of nuisance appeared to be that on one occasion a cricket ball passed very near his bicycle, and on another occasion, while playing at touch ball, the ball went very near his white horse.”

Sources

London Evening Standard, Aug. 6, 1898, p. 3

Tut Ball in Staffordshire on August 12 1902

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Tuesday, August 12, 1902
Location Staffordshire
Data

A young adult novel set in the Staffordshire potteries district described “tut-ball” as one of the games organized by one of the teachers at a school treat : “Another diversion which he always took care to organise was the three-legged race for boys. Also, he usually joined in the tut-ball, a quaint game which owes its surprising longevity to the fact that it is equally proper for both sexes. Within half an hour the treat was in full career; football, cricket, rounders, tick, leap-frog, prison-bars, and round games transformed the field into a vast arena of complicated struggles and emulations.”

Notes

Clearly, tut-ball was considered a separate game from rounders in this locale. The “five towns” referred to in the title are fictional stand-ins for the six towns of the Staffordshire potteries district.

Sources

Anna of the Five Towns, by Arnold Bennett, London, 1902, Chatto & Windus, p. 205

Tut Ball in Staffordshire on January 4 1924

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Friday, January 4, 1924
Location Staffordshire
Data

“Tutball” was cited in one of a series of Lichfield, Staffordshire, newspaper articles about Staffordshire Customs, this one entitled “Children's Games, Pastimes and Amusements.” After a lengthy discussion of rounders, the writer added that “'Tutball' was a similar game in which the bat was dispensed with, and the open hand used to smite the ball—once highly popular with the poorer children of the Black Country whose means precluded the possibility of providing other apparatus than a penny ball.” A description of the game then followed.

Sources

Lichfield Mercury, Jan. 4, 1924, p. 6

Tut Ball in Derbyshire on August 25 1928

Block Game Tut Ball
Date Saturday, August 25, 1928
Location Derbyshire
Data

“Tut-ball” was one of the amusements enjoyed by members and families of the Labour Party of Holmewood, a mining village in northeast Darbyshire, on an outing to nearby Sutton Spring Wood. A newspaper reported that “games were played and included ladies' and gentlemen's cricket match, football, jolly miller, tut-ball, leap frog, tug-of-war, dancing to the gramophone, etc.”

Sources

Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, Aug. 25, 1928, p. 10

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