View Basket
Jaques Games
Jaques Games
The History of Jaques Games
Jaques Games - A Famous Story
Passing down the family business from father to son has become ever more rare. Passing it down in happy circumstances for six generations may be something of a record. Accordingly it seems only fitting that John Jaques Games is the company that invented Happy Families.
Today, John V and Christopher Jaques run what is the oldest games and sports manufacturer in the world, Jaques Games. Their sons, Benjamin, Emmett, Joe and daughter Clare, will be the seventh generation in an unbroken line which began with a country boy named Thomas. Thomas Jaques, founder of the firm Thomas Jaques was a farmer's son of French Huguenot descent born in 1765. Following a country childhood in the Wiltshire village of Grittleton near Chippenham, Thomas Jaques, having finished his schooling, left in a wagon for London to seek his fortune. He was, by then, an ambitious young lad of fifteen.
Thomas Jaques arrived in London in 1780 where his traditional Huguenot craftsmanship skills flourished, and became apprenticed to a bone and ivory turner, Mr Ivy, at 65 Leather Lane in Holborn. Thomas's instinct and good sense extended into his private life: at twenty-one, Thomas Jaques married Mr Ivy's niece! Thomas Jaques continued to work for Mr Ivy. Nine years later, his employer and mentor died. Thomas Jaques, now thirty, was so well-versed in his craft that he could take on the business and establish himself as "Thomas Jaques, (Manufacturer of Ivory, Hardwoods, Bone, and Tunbridge Ware)". Consequently, it is from this date, 1795, that John Jaques marks its official beginning.
Thomas Jaques worked in wood, bone and ivory, handcrafting carved snuff-boxes, coat, hat and hair brushes, paper knives, work boxes, glove stretchers, and the inlaid woodwork known as Tunbridge Ware. In 1795, a son John Jaques was born, the third of seven children, and the son who would carry on and expand the family business, Jaques Games. At fifteen, John Jaques was apprenticed to his father and five years later partnered him in the firm, which became "T. and J. Jaques, Wholesale Ivory Turners".
It was, by this time, too narrow a description, as their materials now included hardwoods. Lignum vitae was the unique wood which was to become Jaques croquet mallets. Turkey boxwood was destined for mallets and balls. In fact, before long Jaques Games would become timber-based, as they are now, 206 years on. As the father and son partnership prospered, so the family grew. John married, and fathered a son: John Jaques II. He, too, was apprenticed as a young man, to the family firm, which by now, had expanded into additional premises at 102 Hatton Garden. (Leather Lane was retained.) From this time on a series of events shaped the history of Jaques Games, especially the invention of many famous games and sports, which led Jaques Games to 'teach the world to play'.
