Lawn Bowls and the Scottish Rules, 1849

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Mitchell's role is recorded by World Bowls and in his own manual, and club histories document the spread of the game in Scotland. Claims about the oldest greens and clubs vary, and many depend on later club records. Mitchell drew up the first widely adopted code, but the laws have been revised many times since.

An old game

established Bowls was played in England by the 13th century, and the Southampton Old Bowling Green, first used in 1299, is the oldest surviving green in the world. English kings repeatedly restricted the game, partly to protect archery practice: acts of 1495 and 1511 listed bowls among unlawful games, and the Unlawful Games Act of 1541 limited ordinary people to playing at Christmas in their master's house. It was not repealed until 1845.

Bowls in Scotland

established Bowls was well established in Scotland by the 18th century. The Kilmarnock bowling green, Scotland's oldest club, was instituted in 1740. In the 19th century many clubs were founded, among them Dumbarton (1832), Kelso (1838), Hamilton (1841), Biggar (1848) and several Glasgow clubs in 1849. Mitchell himself began playing in Kilmarnock at the age of 11.

The laws of 1849

established William Wallace Mitchell (1803–1884) was a Glasgow solicitor and cotton merchant. Bowls at the time could be lawless and sometimes violent, and rules varied from club to club. In 1848 about 200 Scottish clubs backed an attempt at a meeting in Glasgow to form a national association, but it failed. When the delegates met again in 1849 they still could not unite, but they agreed they needed a uniform code. They appointed a consulting body with Mitchell as honorary secretary, and he drew up the Laws of the Game, which the clubs of the west of Scotland adopted that year.

A Victorian club sport

established Mitchell's laws served a game that was growing fast. The historian Neil Tranter, in "Women and sport in nineteenth-century Scotland", a chapter of Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker (eds), Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation (1994), puts the number of active bowlers in Scotland in the early 1890s at 25,000 or more. Clubs were often promoted as civic assets. Provost Philip of Bridge of Allan, quoted by John Lowerson in the same volume from Tranter's earlier research, told his town it had "a duty" to provide for bowling, cricket, curling and golf to attract visitors. Some clubs became limited companies to raise money for greens; at Crieff and Kirkintilloch, both incorporated in 1889, no women held shares.

established Women's place in the Victorian game was small but not absent. As early as 1860 a match for the Championesses' Belt of the Bridge of Allan Bowling Club drew twenty women competitors. In 1897 the Doune Castle club announced that it was "the proud and happy possessor of a spirited young lady member", and both Doune Castle and Deanston bought new books for enrolling women. The numbers stayed low. At Polmont Bowling Club women made up between 2 and 10 per cent of members in 1911–14, paying 7s 6d a year against 15s for men. Tranter concludes that very few of Scotland's bowlers in the 1890s can have been women.

Mitchell's manual

established In 1864 Mitchell published his Manual of Bowl-Playing, an 86-page book that went through several editions. It set out his laws and gave practical advice, including how a skip could use visual signals to direct players without revealing tactics to the opposing skip. In parts of the United Kingdom a "toucher", a bowl that touches the jack, is sometimes called a "Mitchell" in his honour.

From Scotland to the world

established The Scottish Bowling Association was formed in 1892 and in 1893 adopted Mitchell's laws, with some modifications. When the International Bowling Board was set up in 1905, its laws were based largely on Mitchell's code. Scottish emigrants took the game across the Empire: Victoria in Australia had its own association by 1880. Bowls has been part of the Commonwealth Games since they began in 1930, except in 1966.

Flat green and crown green

established Mitchell's laws are for flat-green bowls, played on a level surface in rinks. In parts of northern England crown-green bowls is played instead, on a green that rises towards the middle, using the whole green with two bowls per player. Flat-green bowls is the form played internationally.

• The world's oldest surviving bowling green, at Southampton, was first used in 1299.
• English law restricted working people's bowls to Christmas from 1541 to 1845.
• Kilmarnock bowling green dates from 1740.
• Mitchell started playing bowls in Kilmarnock at the age of 11.
• His manual taught skips to use silent hand signals.
• A bowl touching the jack is sometimes called a "Mitchell".
• Lawn mowers, first patented in Britain in 1830, helped make smooth greens possible.
• Bowls has been played at almost every Commonwealth Games since 1930.

• Do not say Scotland invented bowls.
• Do not present the Drake story as history.
• Do not present any single club's claim to be the oldest as settled.
• Do not say Mitchell's 1849 laws are unchanged today.