Historical Board Game Collection

Oxford's Bodleian Libraries board game collections, which span two centuries, are on display.

21:40 14 January 2016

Some of the 1,500 board games donated by collector and historian Richard Ballam to Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries are now on display at Weston Library.

 

The exhibition, aptly called Playing With History, shows how games were used to teach children about topics including kings, queens, wars, and conflicts in the early 20th Century.

 

Some of the games featured in the exhibition include Tar of All Weathers, which shows Queen Victoria at the head of her colonies in Africa and Asia, Suffragetto, which describes itself as "an original and interesting game of skill between suffragettes and policemen” and as World War One games such as Krom and British v Germans.

 

Julie-Anne Lambert, the display’s curator, said: "Games are fascinating because they hold a mirror to society.”

 

"History was presented to children through the view of adults, so it was completely impossible to be impartial.

 

"Some of the games which include monarchs highlight events from the reign which you wouldn't necessarily associate with them - there is no reference to Henry VIII's wives, for example."

 

She added: "The games reveal much about the attitudes and perspectives that were prevalent at the time."