The English Pell Mell Club

Chapter III: Wars, Interruptions, and Hannibal

The English Pell Mell Club, like so many venerable institutions, has always insisted that it exists above the fray of politics and war. Unfortunately, politics and war have never quite returned the courtesy. Over the past two centuries, the Club’s history has been punctuated by interruptions ranging from the inconvenient to the cataclysmic — though, remarkably, the game itself has proved as stubbornly indestructible as the Pimlico Wilde Cup.

The Napoleonic Afterglow

Although the official founding date of the Club post-dates the Napoleonic Wars, there remains a persistent legend that Pell Mell was played in secret during the Congress of Vienna. According to a particularly florid entry in the Club archives, Lord Basingthorpe, acting in some unspecified diplomatic capacity, organised “informal rounds” between rival statesmen as a means of brokering peace. The Russian delegation reportedly refused to play after Metternich accused their mallets of being “overbalanced,” while the Austrian team insisted on using a ball the size of a cannon shot.

No reliable evidence exists for these matches, but the tale remains popular, in part because it allows members to imagine Pell Mell as the quiet hand behind nineteenth-century European stability — a theory unsupported by historians but vigorously defended over brandy.

The Hannibal Theory Emerges

The First World War was the first genuine interruption to organised Pell Mell in London. With the Club’s ground requisitioned for military purposes (it was turned into a vehicle depot), and its members scattered to various services. It was during the war’s quieter moments that the so-called “Hannibal Theory” emerged.

In 1917, club historian Sir Peveril Grange published his now-infamous pamphlet, Elephants at the Hoop: A Carthaginian Precedent for Pell Mell. In it, Grange argued — with a confidence frankly untroubled by facts — that Hannibal’s generals played a form of Pell Mell during the Second Punic War, using elephant tusks as mallets and polished stones as balls. His central “evidence” was a fragmentary Roman mosaic showing three men with sticks in an oval enclosure, which every actual archaeologist agreed was probably a wrestling match.

The Hannibal Theory was swiftly debunked by the British Museum, which called it “a work of imaginative fiction with illustrations.” Nevertheless, it was embraced by the Club’s more romantic members and remains a cornerstone of official toasts, with visiting dignitaries often baffled by the cry of “To Hannibal!” before the first stroke of every match.

Pell Mell in the Colonies

The interwar years also saw the spread of Pell Mell to the far reaches of the Empire. British colonial officers, eager to display refinement, introduced the game to places as far-flung as Ceylon, the Gold Coast, and New South Wales. Reports survive of Pell Mell being played on palace lawns in Delhi, in front of bemused maharajas, and in the gardens of Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, where the heat forced matches to be played at dawn.

Not all adaptations were considered orthodox. In Nairobi, for instance, local conditions inspired a variant involving hollowed gourds as balls, producing a wildly unpredictable bounce; in the Caribbean, mallets were occasionally replaced by sugarcane stalks. The London Committee dutifully sent polite letters acknowledging these innovations while privately agreeing that “colonial rules” were not to be recognised at home.

The Second World War and “The Underground Years”

The outbreak of the Second World War once again put a halt to formal competition. This time, however, several members conspired to keep the game alive in unconventional settings. The most famous of these was the so-called “Underground League” — matches held in unused sections of the London Tube, lit by hurricane lamps and timed to avoid air raids. Balls, it turns out, roll unusually well on smooth concrete platforms, though the occasional passing rat proved a unique hazard.

After the Wars: Myth and Memory

By 1946, the Club’s court off Pall Mall was restored, and Pell Mell returned to its peacetime rhythms. The war years, however, had left their mark — and their myths. Stories of desert matches in North Africa (balls rolling endlessly down dunes), impromptu games aboard troopships (masts serving as hoops), and a supposed exhibition match in liberated Paris (with Charles de Gaulle himself taking a ceremonial first stroke) circulated freely.

Whether any of these events happened is ultimately irrelevant. In the world of the English Pell Mell Club, evidence has never been a prerequisite for tradition. And so, to this day, when the Pimlico Wilde Cup is held aloft, someone will inevitably mutter, “Hannibal would have approved.”

Chapter II

The Early Years and the Continental Influence

If Chapter I was the birth of the Club, Chapter II may be considered its adolescence — a period of enthusiasm, experimentation, and the occasional international incident. Having established a home just off Pall Mall, the founding members soon discovered a pressing need for variety. This was not because they had tired of playing against each other (though some had – Lord “Cheater” Harris was finding it harder and harder to get a game), but because London society of the 1820s was obsessed with the idea of foreign travel as a means of collecting both unusual hobbies, unusual souvenirs and unusual illnesses.

It was Lord Basingthorpe — never one to shy away from adventure or a suspiciously aromatic cheese — who proposed that the Club should “test our mettle upon the Continent.” The term “tour” was used, though in truth the first such expedition in 1827 consisted of three matches, one half-match (abandoned due to a dispute over the correct interpretation of “through the hoop”), and a great many hours spent in cafés explaining the game to bemused locals.

The French Encounter

The Club’s earliest foray into European soil was a much-romanticised engagement with the Société Parisienne de Mail, an organisation that, as it turned out, did not actually exist until a fortnight after the Englishmen arrived in Paris. Undeterred, the Club cobbled together a match against a team of aristocratic dilettantes, half of whom believed they were being taught cricket.

The French style was, even in this embryonic stage, distinctly flamboyant: strokes were delivered with theatrical pauses, shots were applauded whether successful or not, and there was an alarming tendency to break for oysters between hoops. The English won narrowly, though later analysis suggested that the French had been unclear on the scoring system and believed they were winning. Two duels were fought during the game; as no substitutes were allowed, the Rev Bill Charston was forced to play on despite having sustained a severe blunderbuss injury to the upper chestal region in the second duel. This did little for his ongoing health, in fact some medical men present suggested it may have been the cause of him collapsing and sadly dying on the pitch, for which England was docked two points. A plaque in his memory was mooted, but never got made.

The Italian Episode

From Paris, the Club proceeded to Florence, lured by reports of a game called pallamaglio played in the Boboli Gardens. This “match” was, in fact, more of an afternoon promenade during which the players stopped periodically to push a ball with a stick while discussing sculpture. Nevertheless, the Club returned with what it declared to be an “Italian variation” of the sport — involving lighter balls, narrower mallets, and the occasional requirement to play from atop a garden bench.

It was during this trip that the infamous “Bench Incident” occurred, in which Captain Smythe, attempting a daring elevated shot, lost his footing and landed in the lap of the Marchesa di Montelupo. Contemporary accounts differ on whether this was accidental; what is certain is that the Marchesa sent Smythe a mallet with a ribbon the following Christmas and three years later they were married.

The German Campaign

No account of the early years of the English Pell Mell Club would be complete without mention of Herr Doktor von Hammerstein, the first foreign member of the Club. A man of impeccable moustache and impenetrable accent, von Hammerstein insisted on wearing a ceremonial Pickelhaube during play. His 1832 invitation to bring the Club to Berlin was accepted with enthusiasm, only to result in a match against what turned out to be a Prussian Guards team, who had misunderstood the rules and were not only mounted on large steeds, but were using rifles for mallets. They were also using live ammunition which led to the first and only time the English Pell Mell team has ever retired from the field of play, although in retrospect it seems only sensible – 7/8s of the team had been injured or killed. The captain Sir Hercules Patt shot himself later that day, so ashamed was he of the retirement and an incident that happened later involving a hoop, a cavalry horse, and the German Minister for Culture.

Continental Legacy

From these scattered European encounters, the English Pell Mell Club absorbed a patchwork of foreign influences. The French contributed the notion that style could trump substance (a philosophy the Bond Street Raveners would later embrace with gusto). The Italians introduced the idea that play could be improved by the presence of fine art and light refreshments. The Germans, unintentionally, reinforced the value of a robust insurance policy.

Back in London, these lessons were distilled into the evolving rules of the game — now allowing for optional flourish, mandatory pauses for conversation, and the codified ban on mounted play, a regulation still read aloud at the start of every annual meeting in memory of Berlin 1832.