Cavalry Game

The “Cavalry Game” manufactured by Thomas de la Rue & Co Ltd, c.1900-10.

United Kingdom De la Rue Gibsons Games Card Games Education Military

Box from the “Cavalry Game” manufactured by Thomas de la Rue & Co Ltd, c.1914

Above: the front of the box showing a 1st Life Guards Officer, the King’s bodyguard.

De La Rue produced a range of high quality games at the end of the Victorian period and into the early 1900s. The “Cavalry Game” - registered in c.1914 - aims to teach identification of the various Dragoon Guard regiments. Players compete through drawing and exchanging cards to complete sets of the regiments, and the player who first obtains four Brigades making a Cavalry Division wins the game. Later editions of the game were licensed to H.P. Gibson & Sons Ltd.

The Dragoon Guards regiments were converted to armoured cars and tanks during the 1930s.

The “Cavalry Game” manufactured by Thomas de la Rue & Co Ltd, c.1900-10

Above: The “Cavalry Game” manufactured by Thomas de la Rue & Co Ltd, c.1914, for three to six players. The set contains 41 cards in box: 10 cards are Brigade cards, in order of their numbers, and the rest are soldier cards. The British cavalry dressed in a way that paid homage to their origins and retained elements of Polish or Hungarian dress style in their uniforms.

By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

Member since January 30, 2009

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Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.

His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.

Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.

Cavalry Game

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