“Hockey” magazine, 15 December 1893 – the first magazine for hockey?

The Hockey Museum (THM) has over 80,000 items in its growing collection. We receive another two collections most weeks. These are sorted and catalogued by our brilliant volunteers and occasionally we come up with a gold nugget.

Recently we discovered four copies of a hockey magazine that we were previously unaware of – the oldest hockey magazine ever published, pushing the date back to 1893, twenty years after the very first stirrings of hockey at Teddington in 1871.

Hockey magazine ran for 33 editions from 1893 to 1895, although sadly we only have four copies. Happily, these include the historically important issue number 1, which is illustrated above. We will find lots of information and stories from these four copies but imagine what we might learn if we could obtain all 33 editions.

Our experience tells us that there will almost certainly be copies of this magazine out there with collectors and enthusiasts. We would love to obtain any copies that we can, but the ability to just copy/digitise would save the information. If you know of any copies, please contact us.

Prior to this discovery we believed that the first magazine (also called Hockey) was published in 1897, although the two publications appear to have no connections beyond inventive titles!

This latest discovery once again proves that our efforts to preserve the history and heritage of hockey is a never ending and fascinating journey. If you fancy joining us on this journey, even in a very small way, we would love to hear from you. Visit the contact page (click here) and select “Volunteering”.