Egg rolling - A British Easter Monday custom

People assemble for egg-rolling at Barley, Lancashire

Competitive egg rolling is a traditional Easter Monday custom in Britain, particularly in northern England and Scotland.

The rolling of the eggs was undertaken by children and teenagers. It seems that they would try to smash the eggs of other participants - presumably the eggs were hard-boiled. In at least some cases, the eggs were dyed beforehand; the dyeing could be done at home, or a pre-dyed egg could be bought from a shop.

The crowds would number in the hundreds or thousands, or even in the tens of thousands.

It is not clear when the custom of egg rolling started. It was already regarded as ancient in the 1850s.

The custom has still been practised, or at least revived, in recent years.

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The earliest reference that I can find to Easter Monday egg rolling comes from 1835:

Monday last was a day of merry-making for the young folks here, some hundreds of whom assembled, under the superintendence of the Sunday school teachers and others, in the Friarage field, to enjoy the pastime of egg-rolling. [Lancaster Gazette, 25 April 1835]

Here is a report from the same place - Lancaster in Lancashire - in 1851:

The annual meeting of children for the purpose of rolling eggs took place on Monday last, in a large field near the heights of Abraham. The day was delightfully fine, and well suited for the occasion, scarcely a cloud was visible, and the sun shone out in all its brilliancy. Soon after one o'clock crowds might be seen making their way to the scene of bloodless encounter; the number kept increasing, until at one time it was computed that between 3 and 4,000 persons were present. The numerous battles having been fought, amidst the hearty laughter of the young ones engaged, the company dispersed. [Lancaster Gazette, 26 April 1851]

Sometimes the egg rolling could be accompanied by a brass band:

The juvenile inhabitants of Lancaster assembled in great numbers in the barracks field, on Monday afternoon, to celebrate the ancient amusement of egg-rolling. A truly pleasant sight it was to see their joyous happy faces and listen to the merry laughs of triumph which so often arose from some young reveller whose egg had resisted the most formidable batterings of his antagonists. The Borough Band paraded the streets.... [Lancaster Gazette, 29 March 1856]

Sometimes the weather was bad. That didn't necessarily put everybody off, as we can see from this 1850 report:

EGG-ROLLING - This annual juvenile festival came off pursuant to immemorial custom on Easter Monday last, which unhappily for the youngsters turned out very wet; the National School band did not attend, many children were otherwise entertained, and thus the holiday was somewhat short of its fair proportions; but notwithstanding this, in the latter part of the day a very considerable crowd assembled in the usual field on the Caton road, and amused themselves in spite of wind and weather. [Lancaster Gazette, 6 April 1850]

A few years later, the weather was so bad in Preston that the egg rolling could not proceed. Note the reference in this report to "orange-throwing", which seems to have been another Easter Monday pastime:

The juvenile portion of humanity was doomed to great disappointment on Easter Monday. The weather was "shocking" - rain fell during the whole of the day, and the usual preparations which had been made for field sports, egg-rolling, and all that sort of out-door exuberant business, were fairly knocked on the bead. The consequence was that the jocund, belligerent work ordinarily transacted on the greensward, and along the slopes of pleasant fields - the egg-smashing, orange-throwing, &c., indulged in by young Britishers, on Easter Monday, had this year to be carried on calmly and quietly at home. [Preston Chronicle, 2 April 1864]

This report from 1883 - which again relates to Preston - provides a fairly detailed account of the custom. Many people had come long distances to watch the action. Note again the reference to orange-throwing:

Easter Monday is the fête day of the juveniles, and is looked forward to by them with scarcely less joyful anticipation than Whit Monday. Several days before the Easter festival, eggs dyed all the colours of the rainbow were exposed in shop windows for sale, but by far the greater number used on the occasion were dyed at home, with cochineal, saffron, logwood, or onion peelings. Some of them bear the names of the youngsters who are to roll then down the slopes in Avenham Park, for that is their destination, the name being produced upon the egg-shell by writing it with candle-end before it is submitted to the dye, and the writing being thus impervious to the dye, the name appears in white. About noon nearly every child in Preston, and youth and maiden up to about the age of fifteen, repair in thousands to Avenham, most of them carrying little baskets containing their stock of eggs for the day; and the approaches to the park are thronged with crowds bent upon enjoying the fun of egg-rolling, or watching the play. The young people occupy the slopes and lower ground, and the promenades running round the top of the park are crowded by thousands of the parents of the children and elderly people, besides visitors who come, many of them, long distances to see this unique spectacle. At three o'clock yesterday there were not fewer than from 40,000 to 50,000 per[s]ons in Avenham Park, young and old. Hundreds of young men, with some shillings that they don't seem to care much about, congregate on the up the walks, and when the majority of the eggs are broken and devoured they "perry" some scores of oranges among the children and youths below for the pleasure of the scrambles. [Liverpool Daily Post, 27 March 1883]

During World War I, the custom was kept up despite the higher price of eggs and oranges. Note that the event in this case happened on Easter Saturday:

On Saturday the young folks enjoyed their Pasche egg-rolling as usual, in spite of the fact that eggs cost fully threepence each. The price of the eggs did not trouble the young people, for it is a long time since they ceased to expect to able to buy anything worth having for less than that sum, but one small maiden was heard holding forth on the unpatriotic extravagance of dyeing eggs with tea as that was “awfu’ scarce the noo!” The little picnics that were wont to be held on Easter Saturday at very small cost must have meant a serious expenditure this year with the two necessary concomitants eggs and oranges selling at threepence each. The remains of these feasts visible on the parks and commons after the event, showed very little diminution when compared with former years though times have changed in nearly every direction. [Arbroath Herald, 5 April 1918]

Finally, we may quote the following memory from a 97-year-old lady, who told a local paper in Yorkshire in 2004:

The fields were our venue for egg-rolling when Eastertime came round. The eggs were dyed — blue from a blue-bag (a laundry aid to us oldies), yellow from gorse flowers, red from cochineal and brown from tea. On Easter Monday, my mother supplied us with jam sandwiches, cake, a bottle of water and, of course, our eggs. She expected us to be missing for ages. The nearest good place to roll our eggs was the Calla and, in no time at all, we'd rolled, eaten, drunk the water and I can still see Mum's woebegone face when we turned up, mission accomplished. So much for her couple of hours peace. [Whitby Gazette, 10 February 2004]