All images in this entry are from: The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England: including the Rural and Domestic Recreations. May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. 1801 by Joseph Strutt [edited and enlarged by JC Cox 1903]
Joseph Strutt (1749-1802) made a substantial contribution to English antiquarian historiography but there is a dearth of material available about him on the internet.
The study of games at every level of society - jousting and hawking for the nobility, chess and backgammon for the intelligentsia, wrestling and bowling for the commoners, and field games for the children - are all included in Sports. Strutt is referenced when interpreting some words in Shakespeare and is credited with popularizing golf and of having an influence in the origin of baseball.
He also wrote extended works on the antiquities of England and a dictionary on engraving but his other great achievement was documenting historical dress styles.
Strutt is said to have undertaken most of his social studies at the British Museum, using stained glass windows and illuminated manuscripts as inspiration to record the hobbies and dress customs going back to Roman times.
After Strutt died, Sir Walter Scott completed a lacklustre romance novel that Strutt had started, and he credited Strutt with influencing his subsequent writing of the famed Waverley novels.
- The full text [reproduction] of Sports (the 1903 preface contains by far the most biographical material about Strutt)
- List of illustrations in Sports
- Another page of Sports illustrations (cache)
- A Complete View Of The Dress And Habits Of The People Of England 1799 - costume plates - or go to these thumb pages: I, II, III, IV (blogger isn't accepting uploaded images at present or else a few of these would have been included)
- Joseph Strutt bibliography
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