"Early wargaming on the BBC Antiques Roadshow" Topic

An interesting discovery may be a previously undocumented instance of one of the earliest examples of fighting battles and campaigns with model soldiers.

Tonight's edition of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow (Eastbourne Bandstand 2) had an intriguing item on a collection of around 1,000 metal figures dating from the 1860s and 1870s, which had been used for wargames by a boy who became and officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1878. He took the bulk of them on his first posting to Rangoon, where he played wargames on the floor of his bungalow with the Regimental Surgeon on a large canvas map spread on the floor. It also sounded as if he might have conducted some play by mail activity with his brothers who remained with the rest of the collection in Liverpool. The collection also includes a large notebook which described how these wargames were carried out.

Antiques Roadshow expert Graham Lay says he is puzzled as he thinks wargaming (meaning battles with model soldiers) is usually accepted to have started at the turn of the century. This view is understandable – Lloyd Osbourne's article in Scribner's Magazine on Robert Louis Stevenson's wargames appeared in 1898.

While clearly people will have fought battles with their model soldiers for many years, from simple plying to more formal rules, this does seem a notable new instance and could be the earliest dated example of more formal wargaming.

For those with access to the BBC iPlayer, the item can be found here:

bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01g3y68

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed watching that very much. It would be wonderful to have a peek at the book and the rest of the collection. I hope this doesn't get sold off piecemeal; it really deserves to be kept intact.

Thanks for the link. Its a fascinating story.

Great story! Thanks for sharing

Thank you very much for the link. I enjoyed watching it. A charming story. Like P H Lewis, I'd love to read the book and I hope that everything stays together as a collection. Wouldn't it be great if the book was published?!

Wow, what a fascinating clip. Really neat to watch.
I'm surprised at the value – I would have thought much more.
What do you reckon on the scale? About 30mm?

Brilliant link and an amazing story – thanks for posting – figures by the German manufacturer Heyde perhaps? Bronze cannons look interesting too – made locally in India even? – really hope the current owner gets them all counted and properly researched and that book published – definitely historically important. Hope to see the collection in the National Army Museum one day (if only!). Seconding the paltry valuation too – with that provenance, even well played with figures would be worth a heck of a lot more than that – particularly if there are a thousand of them!

Interesting story

This is exactly one of the reasons why I think we should have a "History of Wargaming" discussion board ;-)

TMP link

The toy soldiers and Kriegspiel set used by the Trevalyan brothers at Wallington
link
date from about 1880 – the youngest brother is said to have started to play at 6 which would have been 1882. They used rules and either played by mail or at least wrote to each other about how battles went.

A fascinating story, and how splendid that the artillery actually fired. From what the owner was saying, it appeared they used powder and shot in them – excellent…!

Nice to learn it started in my home town.

Doug

This was a very interesting insight into nineteenth century recreational wargaming.

I suspect that the collection might have been built up over a longer period than 1860-1870 as there were definitely Zulu figures in the collection, and I doubt if they would have been available before the Zulu War. If that is the case then the figures would have been around at the time that POLEMOS was being written (the first set of rules and figures were commercially available in 1883). POLEMOS was a commercial wargame that used figures and a large cloth map, and it was demonstrated at the Royal United Services Institute (there is a famous illustration from the Illustrated London News, November 1888 that shows the game being used).

I did a lot of research into POLEMOS for a forthcoming book about early wargamers that is being put together by John Curry as part of his ‘History of Wargaming' project ( johncurryevents.co.uk ), and it would appear that recreational wargaming certainly does pre-date H G Wells by quite some time.

Bob Cordery

That's a great looking game, Bob, even though (from their expressions) things don't look to be going well for the player team shown! If the illustration was used for marketing the rules, it may explain why they didn't catch on. ;-)

Do you think the minis are 30mm flats?

Cheers, Simon

Its likely the collection stretched over various years and wasn't bought in one go. Some of the infantry appears to be in 1860's-70's gear with shakos and long rifles (presumably Enfields). Its possible they were paint conversions of Austrian figures by the manufacturer but presumably sold before the switch to helmets at home and abroad in any case.

I do hope someone over there attempts to contact the gentleman to see if the paper work could be published.

I was shocked it was only valued at 3-5000 GBP. I know wargaming may be a pretty niche hobby, but that's only 3-5 GBP per figure.

I have no idea how much vintage flats go for now, but the Spencer Smiths talked about in Battlegames sounded like they were close to that.

& the completeness of the collection, with the book & picture, should make it even more valuable.

I'm another who doubts the value quoted by the appraiser on Antiques Road Show.

I've seen vintage lead soldiers go for $20 USD per figure, and they were in poor condition compared to these figurines.

It was interesting to see the Zulus and what looked like French infantry in the background of one shot. I love to have a look in that cabinet to see what nationalities and troops were represented.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that I'd buy that for 3000 GBP…just sayin'

I have a new book on early wargaming out shortly called, the British Kriegsspiel. This contains examples of a few of the early wargames. wargaming.co

I thought the value was a low ball number as well.

Bob, that image just became my desktop wallpaper! Thanks for sharing.

If only he'd opened a drawer and said "and these were his collection of Orks"

Sort that one out copyright lawyers..

What if the collection had included "Space Marines"?

I took the hourglass for a can of Coke at first…

BTW, I still think that "games" like this were a quaint dead end in the history of our hobby.
They are like finding Viking settlements in New Jersey. Interesting, but nothing ever came of them.

It took the Immortals, like Featherstone and Scruby (the Columbusses of the hobby) to set things in the proper path.
Do those Dudes look like they are enjoying themselves? I think not.

Looks like there a mixture of flats and hollow cast figures. Hollow cast was credited to William Britain in 1893. I believe he built this collection up over time.

Some of the figures looked like blobs of metal in the tray.

I would be curious the condition of the ones not displayed.

John the OFM,

In actual fact there is a continuum of wargame development that begins in the 1820s and which carries on – in fits and starts – up until H G Wells's LITTLE WARS. 'Polemos' was one of several commercial games that were sold during the 1880s and 1890s, and it is far more like a modern wargame than LITTLE WARS.

Donald Featherstone carried a copy of LITTLE WARS with him during World War II, and it certainly shaped his thinking even if he went down a different route when it came to developing his own rules.

Members of the BMSS ran wargames using Colonel Sykes rules between the two World Wars, and Colonel Sykes actually advised H G Wells regarding the rules in the appendix to LITTLE WARS.

Very interesting.

Interesting use of the sand timer, I think that should be reintroduced in games, it would put an end to slow play and prevarication by rules lawyers over questionable tweaks they try to employ! Unless there is some artistic licence the figures in the illustration seem a lot smaller than other figures from days of yore.

There's timer used in Space Hulk.

I don't know what others think; but I thought the figures looked rather crude. As if they were home-casts, or produced by some local toy manufacturer. They certainly don't look like Hyde's or Minot's.

Very interesting. I recently visited the British Army Museum in London and saw block figures used to demonstrate drill c. 1803. My first thought was they could be used to simulate tactical situations as well. Not recreational gaming, but still similar to microarmor used on sand tables by the US Army in the 1980s.

Is this an indication of an even earlier start?
From 'The devil is an ass' by Ben Johnson 1616.

Gui. But, now, I had rather get him a good VVife,
And plant him i' the Country; there to use
The blessing I shall leave him. Mer. Out upon't!
And lose the laudable means, thou hast at home, here,
T' advance, and make him a young Alderman?
Buy him a Captains place, for shame; and let him
Into the World early, and with his Plume,
And Scarfs, march through Cheapside, or along Cornhill;
And by the vertue' of those, draw down a VVife
There from a Windo', worth ten thousand Pound!
Get him the posture Book, and's Leaden Men,
To set upon a Table, 'gainst his Mistris
Chance to come by, that he may draw her in,
And shew her Finsbury Battels.

link

Finsbury Fields was used by Londoners in medieval times for archery and sports.

link

This goes from the late 1800s to 1981.

Also, trivia-wise (although you're going to have to check this as I'm going from memory [bad idea]), in the version of I Claudius (Derek Jacobi), there is a scene of Augustus tutoring his grandchildren (?) about moving legions around the Empire using a large map and figures (or blocks?). I always wondered if this was nothing more than a map with figures to track the legions or if it was a Risk like game…and…whether there is any historical basis to this or not.

Russ Lockwood
(borrowing the OMM accuont while restocking Wally Simon's Secrets of Wargaming Design booklets at OMM)

The problem is trying to trace the owner of the soldiers. Graham Ley was the presenter and the owner of the soldiers showed them in Eastbourne. Not much to go on…

I wonder if the Gordon Highlanders are Hungarian or Grenzer troops with the coat-skirts painted as (very short!) kilts and the tight pants painted as bare flesh? It also looks like they're wearing longish boots rather than short gaiters.

See it at:
youtu.be/UR_qh2phhz8

I think the picture is to denote 'serious' rather than fun. Certainly worth more than valued.

A full transcript of the Journal (the campaign diary for 1873 -1894) has now been completed, with the assistance of the family, and was published today together with other material about the collection as a new blog, the History of Georland, which you can access here:

georland.blogspot.co.uk

Terrific work!

I too was struck by the lowball value. I'd certainly say with the book, 1000 figures and perhaps the photo (not certain on that point), that 6000 pounds would be a low figure, and would not be surprised at 10,000 quid.