Squash at Harrow, and what came after.

Before squash: rackets

The World Squash Library says historians generally date rackets to the 18th century, when debtors held in London's King's Bench and Fleet prisons adapted the wall game of fives by using tennis rackets against the prison walls. Two other accounts, both seen only in search summaries, frame it differently:

• World Squash's own history is summarised as saying prisoners at the Fleet created a simplified real tennis in the early 18th century.
• Britannica is summarised as calling the Fleet Prison origin a once-common notion, and as saying most scholars now trace rackets to real tennis.

Neither page could be read in full. Real tennis itself is covered on real tennis and the roots.

When rackets reached Harrow

Squash begins at Harrow School

When squash itself began is given several ways:

• Around 1830. Wikipedia, in a summary, says Harrow boys noticed then that a punctured ball, which "squashed" against the wall, gave the game more variety.
• During or just before the 1850s. The World Squash Library places the origin here, while saying some of its timings may be a little uncertain.
• From time immemorial. Lord Dunedin wrote in The Times on 6 February 1937 that squash had been played at Harrow for as long as anyone could remember, in an area called "The Corner", as the Library records.

The Library says that around 1850 two long rackets courts were built at Harrow and a separate hard-ball rackets game developed there. Meanwhile, according to the Old Harrovian M. C. Kemp, eleven boarding houses had small courts of their own, played with a softer India rubber ball. The Library cites the historians James Zug and John Horry describing this as a softer, smaller version of rackets.

The first courts built for squash, 1864

Citing Dale Vargas's time line of the school, the Library says four squash courts were built at Harrow in 1864 on the site of the Fifth Form court and came into use in January 1865, and it calls them the first courts built specifically for squash. It also records a Times account saying the Fifth Form court was cut up for fives courts, not squash courts, so even this is not settled. The Library says those first four courts were judged too small and were remodelled into three larger ones in 1897, and that squash court dimensions were not standardised until 1922.

The early ball, as R. Stewart-Brown described it from 1886, was a soft, thin rubber ball, with or without a hole; the ball's later history is on rackets from wood to graphite.

The national bodies

US Squash says it was founded in Philadelphia in 1904 as the United States Squash Racquets Association, and calls itself the world's first national squash governing body. A secondary history, seen in a summary, gives 1907 for the first national association, and a manufacturer document gives 1907 as well. US Squash says the women's association merged into it in 1979 and that it took the name US Squash in 2006. The first squash court in North America is summarised in a single secondary source as built in 1884 at St Paul's School, New Hampshire; that is unconfirmed.

In England, Wikipedia says the Squash Rackets Association was founded in 1928. No primary source for that year was read for this site.

Hardball and softball

North American squash was long played as hardball, a different game from the international softball form. The historian James Zug, in Squash Magazine on 1 April 2018, records the US Open relaunched as a softball event in 1985, US softball sales overtaking hardball in 1991, the hardball professionals' championship renamed the Tournament of Champions and switched to softball in 1992, and softball becoming the leading form in the US from 1 January 1993.

The world federation

The International Squash Rackets Federation (ISRF) followed a 1966 meeting in London attended by representatives of Australia, Great Britain, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, the USA, Canada and the United Arab Republic, and held its first meeting on 5 January 1967, according to Wikipedia. Its founding is disputed both in year and in size. Wikipedia-based summaries give 1966 or 1967; another summary gives 1968. The World Squash Library is summarised as saying six founder nations began the federation, while the London meeting list names nine countries.

Wikipedia says the ISRF was renamed the World Squash Federation in 1992. The Squash Site reported on 28 January 2025 that it was rebranding as World Squash, tied to the sport's Olympic debut at LA28.

The players' associations

The PSA's own history says the International Squash Players Association (ISPA) was founded on 21 February 1974 at a crisis meeting after a seeding protest at the Prodorite Open in Birmingham, with Jonah Barrington as chairman and Geoff Poole as the first secretary. The same history names Ken Hiscoe as president and Geoff Hunt as vice-president in one section, and the reverse in another.

It also names Barrington as the first full-time professional, in 1969, and records the first World Open in 1976, won by Heather McKay and Geoff Hunt, a computer ranking from 1979 and the end of amateur status in 1980.

When was the PSA founded?

Zug adds that the WPSA approved the merger in Hartford on 4 December 1992 by 21 votes to 4, with 4 abstentions.

The women's tour

The PSA says a first attempt at a separate women's body failed in 1978; players agreed at the 1983 World Open in Perth to form one, WISPA, which held its first meeting at the Belfast Boat Club in 1984, renamed itself the Women's Squash Association in 2012 and merged with the PSA in 2015. Other dates differ. Squash Ireland, in a summary, gives February 1984 in Belfast as the founding and 2012 for the relaunch. Wikipedia gives the rename in 2011, a merger announced in November 2014 with the WSA closing in December 2014, and in one article credits Angela Smith with forming WISPA in 1979.

Squash's campaign for a place at the Olympic Games, which ended with LA28, is on the Olympic story, and World Squash and the PSA as they are now are on squash bodies and tours.