John Jaques II won a place in sporting history, and a Gold Medal for introducing Croquet into England at the Great Exhibition in 1851. His display attracted such wide attention that the game speedily became vogue, throughout Europe and Great Britain.

The origin of the game of croquet is somewhat obscure - John Jaques II first glimpsed a version of it in Ireland. And the etymology of the word "croquet" remains unresolved. But JJ II's compilation of rules no doubt saved the sport from flying off in all directions as it seemed in danger of doing during those early years. Lewis Carroll (an avid player at Oxford in the 1860's reflected the potentially unruly nature of croquet in his memorable passage of Alice's Adventures Under Ground in which the croquet balls were hedgehogs, the mallets live ostriches, (flamingoes appear in later versions), "and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches".

Few people today have a championship-size croquet lawn (35 x 28 yards). Keeping to the 5 to 4 ratio is desirable, but not critical, as croquet can be played practically anywhere!