| Description | These papers chart the development of the well-known board game, Cluedo, from initial notes and sketches by its inventor Anthony Pratt of Kings Heath, Birmingham, to receipt of the patent in 1947 and the game going on sale at the end of 1949. Prior to the Second World War, Anthony was a composer and musician, but this work ended with the onset of war, when he became a worker in a Birmingham munitions factory. With the disappearance of the social life he had known in the pre-war years, Anthony turned his mind to more creative things. An avid reader and a fan of the detective novels which were popular at the time, he developed, with help from his wife, Elva Pratt (1913-1990), a game which he called ‘Murder!!’, based on murder mystery games which they and their friends had played at house parties in the years before the war. In 1949, the name of the game was changed to Cluedo.
The papers mainly comprise incoming correspondence from the games publisher, Waddingtons, along with Anthony’s early notes and sketches. Correspondents from Waddingtons are mainly: Clarence Hirst, Director and Sales Manager, Norman Watson, Managing Director, C R Stephens, Company Secretary and Mr C M Goodall, consultant and advisor to Norman Watson. Anthony's letters to Waddingtons were handwritten and in virtually all cases, no copy was made or kept.
The papers were deposited and listed by Anthony Pratt's daughter in 2025. |