Four Little Snookers

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Billiards by Major General A W Drayson

It is a little known fact that the first edition of Billiards by Major General A W Drayson (1889) contains the first published rules of Snooker.

In some editions of the book Drayson reproduces the full rules for the game first introduced in 1889 by Burroughes & Watts, which they called “Four Little Snookers”. They are as close as you are likely to get to the game as it was played by Chamberlain when it was first invented in 1882.

Chamberlain gave his rules of “snooker” to S W Stanley when they met in Calcutta in 1885, and the latter brought them with him when he returned to England in 1887. They then found their way to Burroughes & Watts, who probably fiddled around with them a bit before launching the game on the British public, but they will be more or less faithful to the original game.

It’s interesting to note that the Burroughes & Watts rules, which have four pool balls, are significantly different to the game described by Drayson in the narrative of the same book. This describes a game with six pool balls, more like the modern game. It goes to show the wide variations which existed before the Billiard Association published their official rules in 1901.

Here is a transcript of the original Burroughes & Watts 1889 rules of Snooker which can be linked back to Chamberlain. They are referenced in the first edition of Drayson’s book and reproduced in full in other editions. I have highlighed a coiuple of interesting bits in red.

Peter Ainsworth

Originally posted to the Cues n Views facebook page 13^th September 2017