Burroughes Hall was an important

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

and

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

venue in

Soho Square Soho Square is a garden square in Soho, London, hosting since 1954 a ''de facto'' public park let by the Soho Square Garden Committee to Westminster City Council. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, and a much weathered s ...

, London from 1903 until it closed in 1967. The hall was in the premises of Burroughes & Watts Ltd., who had been at 19 Soho Square since 1836. Burroughes & Watts opened a new billiards saloon in 1903, known as the Soho Square Saloon. This was re-opened as the Soho Square Hall in 1904 and was renamed Burroughes Hall in 1913. In 1967, control of Burroughes & Watts Ltd. was taken over by a group of property developers. The assets included 19 Soho Square, which was demolished and replaced by a modern office block. In 1919 Burroughes & Watts opened a second London match-room in

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

, generally called the New Burroughes Hall. This venture was not a financial success and the new venue closed in 1925. During this period, the hall in Soho Square was sometimes known as the Old Burroughes Hall.

Snooker

Before World War I, Burroughes & Watts organised an annual professional

'London tournament'. This was a handicapped

American tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

played at Soho Square Hall. In four tournaments, from 1907/08 to 1910/11, a snooker competition was arranged in parallel to the billiards. This generally consisted of a frame of snooker played at the end of each session of billiards. Soho Square Hall was also the venue of one of the earliest professional snooker matches, hosting a match of 101 frames between

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including ''Nati ...

and

Tom Reece Tom Reece (12 August 187316 October 1953) was an English professional player of English billiards. He was six times runner-up in the World Billiards Championship (English billiards), professional billiards championship, now regarded as the worl ...

from 25 May to 6 June 1908. The match was for £100, £50 for the player winning most frames and £50 for the player winning most aggregate points. Roberts won both prizes, winning 54½ frames to 46½ and 5,529 points to 5,209. Roberts made a break of 73, equalling a recently set record by James Harris. Burroughes Hall was sometimes used as the venue for the final of the

English Amateur Championship The English Amateur Championship, an annual snooker competition, is the highest-ranking and most prestigious amateur event in England. It is also the oldest and longest-running snooker tournament in the world, having been established in 1916, a ...

from 1920 to 1962. In the 1920s and 1930s

Thurston's Hall Thurston's Hall was a major billiards and snooker venue between 1901 and 1955 in Leicester Square, London. The hall was in the premises of Thurston & Co. Ltd which relocated to Leicester Square in 1901. The building was bombed in 1940 and reope ...

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

was generally preferred for important professional matches but Burroughes Hall was occasionally used, hosting matches in the

1936 World Snooker Championship The 1936 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament that was held at the Burroughes and Thurston's Halls in London, England from 23 March to 2 May 1936. There were 13 entries; a significant increase from five in the previous year and ...

and the

1939/1940 Daily Mail Gold Cup The 1939/1940 Daily Mail Gold Cup was a professional snooker tournament sponsored by the '' Daily Mail''. The cup was won by Alec Brown with Sydney Lee finishing in second place in the final table. It was the sixth and last Daily Mail Gold Cup ...

when matches were played at the two venues simultaneously. After World War II, the hall was again used for World Championship matches in

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in ...

and

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

as well as for the qualifying competition in

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

, 1947 and 1951. After the closure of Thurston's Hall in early 1955, Burroughes Hall was a regular venue for the

News of the World Snooker Tournament The News of the World Snooker Tournament was one of the leading professional tournaments of the 1950s, widely considered as more important than the world championship due to the involvement of Joe Davis. The event was sponsored by the Sunday news ...

until the tournament ended in 1959. With the revival of the World Championship in a challenge format in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...

, the hall was used for the first three matches in April 1964, October 1964 and March 1965.

References

{{World Snooker Championship Snooker in England Snooker venues Sports venues completed in 1903