How the equipment evolved.

The leather tip

The leather cue tip is credited to François Mingaud (1771 to 1847), a French infantry captain who perfected it while imprisoned at Bicêtre in Paris; he was released in 1807. Why he was jailed differs by source (political outspokenness, or gambling debts), and the oft-told version that he was held in the Bastille cannot be right, because the Bastille was destroyed in 1789. One source says his tip was cut from a horse's saddle, another from an old harness.

The date of the tip is disputed: 1807 (WPBSA and Clare), 1818 (Billiards Digest), or 1823 for the tip being "perfected" (BCA), and others experimented with leather tips before him. Mingaud is also credited with discovering the massé shot by raising the cue toward vertical. In 1827 he published Noble Jeu de Billard, with instructions for 70 strokes, which John Thurston translated into English around 1830. European cue tips reached the United States in 1823. The BCA dates the two-piece cue to 1829; Clare cites an 1885 patent for a joint like a modern one.

Side spin and chalk

Around 1815, Jack Carr, a marker at the Upper Rooms in Bath, learned side spin from his employer, John Bartley. Carr then sold "twisting chalk" at half a crown a box, claiming it made his spin shots possible; the boxes held ordinary chalk. (That is Wikipedia's account; the WPBSA names him John Carr and dates the chalk sales to the 1840s, and Clare credits Bartley with first applying side about 1820.) ("Twist" was the old word for side spin. One explanation for the American term "English" is that spin passed from English to American players.) Before chalk, players twisted their cue tips against whitewashed walls or ceilings for grip.

Modern cue chalk was co-invented by player William A. Spinks and Chicago chemist William Hoskins; Spinks received a US patent on 9 March 1897. Their formula used silica and corundum (aluminum oxide).

Slate beds

Early table beds were cloth-covered wooden boards. John Thurston, whose London business began as furniture making in 1799, introduced the slate bed; Thurston's company history dates it to 1826, with the first complete slate-bed table going to White's Club in 1832. Billiards Digest gives 1835, the BCA says slate became popular about 1835, and Clare's lecture on cushions implies 1834. In 1892 the Billiards Association adopted a Thurston table as its standard.

Cushions

Cushions began as barriers to keep balls on the table and were later stuffed with felt or "list" so balls would rebound, though list cushions were very slow. In 1835 Thurston introduced India rubber cushions, but natural rubber hardened in the cold, so players warmed the cushions with hot-water pans. Goodyear discovered vulcanization in 1839, and Thurston introduced and patented the first vulcanized rubber cushion in 1845, marketing it as "Frost Proof." The BCA says the table had essentially reached its modern form by 1850. After World War II, molded rubber cushions replaced hand-built ones.

Cloth and heat

Table cloth is baize, typically worsted wool or a wool-nylon blend. Queen Victoria's table was heated with zinc tubes, chiefly to stop its ivory balls from warping. Electric table heating was first used in December 1927 at an 18.2 balkline match between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer Jr.

Balls: wood, ivory, celluloid, resin

Early balls were wood and clay. Ivory was the preferred material from at least 1627 into the twentieth century, with ox bone also common in Europe. Dyed and numbered balls appeared in the early 1770s. (The often-quoted claim that only about eight balls could be cut from one elephant's tusks is unsourced.)

A New York supplier offered a $10,000 prize for an ivory substitute. John Wesley Hyatt patented an "ivory imitation" billiard ball on 4 May 1869, made from nitrocellulose, camphor and bone; it was the first US billiard ball patent. (Billiards Digest instead dates the celluloid ball to 1868 and credits Isaac and John Wesley Hyatt.) There is no evidence Hyatt ever collected the prize. The popular story that celluloid balls exploded on impact is doubted; the real fire hazard was in handling nitrocellulose during manufacture. Celluloid-type materials were sold under names like Bonzoline and Crystalate until the 1960s. Today Saluc, founded in Belgium in 1923, makes phenolic resin balls under the Aramith brand; we did not find a reliable date for when phenolic balls were introduced.

Brunswick

John Moses Brunswick, a Swiss immigrant, opened a shop in Cincinnati on 15 September 1845 intending to build carriages, and built his first billiard table that year. His company merged with Julius Balke's firm in 1874 and later with Collender (1878 per Brunswick, 1884 per the BCA). According to the BCA, Brunswick-Balke-Collender controlled the game until the 1950s, and its successor remains the largest American billiards manufacturer. In 1925 the company introduced an eight-ball set of seven red, seven yellow and one black ball to make the game easier to follow. Brunswick entered bowling in 1890 and became Brunswick Corporation in 1960.