The game started in England in the 16th century. The earliest definite reference to the sport is in a court case of 1598. The court in Guildford heard a coroner, John Derrick, that when he was a scholar at the "Free School at Guildford", fifty years earlier, "he and diverse of his fellows did run and play [on the common land] at cricket and other players". Later, the game spread to countries of the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries.