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History of Table Tennis

Table Tennis is based on Tennis - it is a miniaturised form of Lawn Tennis played on a table. It was originally just another parlour game designed for Victorian children and families towards the end of the eighteenth century. The first known game entitled Table Tennis was, believe it or not, a "Tiddleywinks" game involving counters on a small board that were flipped backwards and forwards over a low net. The first "physical" parlour Table Tennis turned up in 1890 as part of a compendium of similar Table games patented by a Englishman called David Foster. A similar idea was first produced one year later in 1891 (design registered in 1890) by John Jaques, the venerable games maker, best known for Croquet and Chess. They produced a game called "Gossima" which featured a net strung between 2 brass posts that clamped to a table, a cork ball and 2 battledores of a similar type to those used for Battledore and Shuttlecock. Jaques claim to have invented the game of Table Tennis and Gossima is almost certainly at the root of the modern Table Tennis family tree. The name "Ping Pong" is the cause of some debate among historians and there have been a variety of contradictory claims made for it. Importantly, there is a design registration for "Ping Pong" by Jaques in 1893 but there isn't any evidence that Ping Pong was actually used by Jaques until 1901 and even then Ping Pong was almost written as an afterthought in smaller writing. Soon afterwards, Jaques changed this to "Ping Pong or Gossima" with the emphasis and larger text now on the Ping Pong and before long, Jaques dropped the name Gossima altogether. Various other texts make it clear that "Ping Pong" was a phrase in general popular use well before 1900.

From 1900, the game suddenly took off but at that this juncture Jaques were just one of several manufacturers producing versions of Table Tennis. F.H Ayres produced a game called "Table Tennis" and Slazenger were making "Whiff Whaff". The popularity of all these versions of Table Tennis soon led, as these things always did in England, to the creation of an organised body to promote and administer the game. Initially in 1901 rival organisations emerged, one called the "Table Tennis Association"; its rival was the "Ping Pong Association" but after only a couple of years, the two organisations had merged. The success of the game from 1901 is almost certainly down to the use of better Table Tennis equipment. Table Tennis did not progress further until 1922 when the laws were standardised in England and the game took off in Europe. Four years later, Table Tennis finally came properly of age as the new International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) was inaugurated in Berlin and the First World Championships were held in London, England. From that point onwards, Table Tennis progressed like many other modern sports eventually making it to the Olympic Games in 1988.

You can learn more about the history of Table Tennis from The Online Guide to Traditional Games.