TT's Origins
"The history of table tennis appears to be shrouded in mystery. That it developed from a relatively simple parlour game is in no doubt. How it developed into an international sport is less well substantiated."
It should be noted that in attempting to document the origins of table tennis, as with most sports, one must be aware of several influential factors. Among other considerations, when attempting to examine the apparent roots of table tennis one must remember that "it is difficult to extract scientific evidence from a clouded past, although it is clear that table tennis started as a parlour game and was invariably played on a dining room table. The late Ivor Montagu, founder president of the International Table Tennis Federation summed up the problem most succinctly when he said... 'It is a period in which history becomes tangled and confused by reminiscence, and reminiscence itself is dimmed either by senility or the hearsay of a new generation.'"
As such, the following synopsis of the apparent origins of table tennis attempts to take into consideration aspects of Montagu's assertion.
In examining much of the research on the development of the game it would appear that table tennis has its origins in late nineteenth/early twentieth century England.
Furthermore, it also seems that the main participants of early forms of this 'parlour game' were members of the upper social classes.
Some people have suggested that table tennis is a natural descendant of twelfth-century Royal Tennis and a younger brother of Lawn Tennis which emerged about the same time, in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
The above should not come as too great a surprise given the development of many 'modern' sports from their more simplistic 'folk' pastimes.