"Early Wargaming on the BBC Antiques Roadshow: new blog" Topic

For anyone who was interested in the appearance on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow of George Keef's collection of toy soldiers used for wargaming from the 1870's, the following may be of interest.

Since its airing on the Roadshow I have been working with the family to produce a transcript of the 60 hand written foolscap pages, profusely illustrated with maps, plans and diagrams, which make up the Journal which accompanies the collection, The History of the Army of George 1.

This book is in effect a campaign diary of the wargames fought by George Keef, his brothers and friends from 1873 to 1894. The significance of this is that it predates the generally accepted first documented evidence of wargaming with figures as a hobby, Lloyd Osbourne's "Stevenson at Play" article in Scribners Magazine,by 22 years.

The whole Journal is now available as a series of posts on a new blog, the History of Georland, which can be found at:

georland.blogspot.co.uk

along with other material relating to the collection and its history.

Wow, that is really excellent work! I have been following this fascinating saga on your blog all along, and you have put everything together very nicely. Congratulations, and thanks for getting the Keef family to allow you to share this treasure with those of us who can really appreciate it. Well done!

This is simply amazing!

Jim

Thanks !

Phil

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Wow -- amazing work, Vintage Wargaming -- THANK YOU so much for investing the time and effort needed to make this valuable material available to all of us!

Many thanks for getting this organised. I foresee many visits to read it all.

It ties in very nicely in with Churchill's time frame and collection in Blenheim Palace as well.

Great Work! I just bookmarked it.

Good stuff – well done indeed!

Very interesting.
You got a new follower!

I'd just like to second Mad Guru's thanks for making this available. Added to my favourites!

Thanks for all the work!

Any plans of turning this into a book for the 'History of Wargaming' project?

Phil – you'd have to ask John Curry that. The family are wondering about making the Journal available in Kindle format and there is an article in the pipeline for one of the glossy magazines. This may be about it's level as it is not clear there is enough to generate a whole book.
I'll continue to add any material that comes to light to the blog, which is intended to be the collection's main window on the world. There has been some thought given to a pdf facsimile but there are technical difficulties in scanning the material and the hand writing isn't always easy to read and decipher.
I'm hoping to do some further research, for example into George Alfred Keef's letters – for example we know he bought a copy of Kriegspiel form a Colonel returning from a posting but the rules had been lost and he ordered Baring's translation of them – but this was while he was on active service in the late 1870s. There is more to be done on the organisation of the army and on the figures themselves, but it all depends on the forbearance of the family and how far they are happy to go on with this.
We know the figures were originally bought cheaply and were from the Franco Prussian War, adapted to British Regiments, and were (are) demi rondes. Many of the opposition forces were flats, and not all are the same scale. There is a rather splendid pontoon train, from which the boats actually float in water, and the cannons fired pellets using gunpowder.
I'm also intending to add a gazeteer of places and some notes on some of the characters. Many of the Prussian generals are based on real officers.
I'm aware that everything to date has been from a wargaming point of view and there is a considerable element of interest to do with the toy soldier side of things, for example identifying the manufacturers. In the immortal words of Count Arthur Strong in the role of Doctor Two "It's outside my area of expertise – I'm afraid" but I am expecting some more pictures of figures which will be added to illustrate the existing and new posts, and maybe we can find some toy soldier expertise to explore this side of the story further.