All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club are invited to become members. The patron of the club is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and the President is The Duke of Kent. The Club was founded by six gentlemen at the offices of "The Field" on 23 July 1868 at the height of a croquet craze as the "All England Croquet Club," and held its first croquet competition in 1870. Its original ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon. Croquet was very popular there until the then-infant sport of lawn tennis (a game introduced by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so prior, and originally called "Sphairistikè") was
United States Croquet Association brought together five clubs in 1977 to form the nucleus of the United States Croquet Association. Although the sport had long flourished in the Commonwealth countries, croquet had devolved to a backyard pastime in the United States, and there were no agreed-upon rules. One of the first orders of business of the new association was to hammer out compromise rules acceptable to all five clubs - the Green Gables Croquet Club, the Palm Beach Croquet Club, the New York Croquet Club, the Westhampton Mallet Club, and the Croquet Club of Bermuda. Since then, the list has grown to nearly 400