Jaques of London

Dating itself from 1795 when Thomas Jaques, a farmer's son of French Huguenot descent, set up as a "Manufacturer of Ivory, Hardwoods, Bone, and Tunbridge Ware",[1] the company gained a reputation for publishing games under his grandson John Jaques the younger.

The family lore is that "John Jaques II ... was a friend of Lewis Carroll [and] ‘Carroll was one of the founding members of the croquet club at Oxford University’", according to Joe Jaques, a descendent of the founder, who goes on to explain that, "It is no surprise that croquet is in Alice in Wonderland because Lewis Carroll was a family friend and we had commissioned the illustrator Sir John Tenniel, who went on to illustrate Alice in Wonderland, to draw the original Happy Families characters when he was a cheap jobbing illustrator in 1851.

The inside walls of the chess pieces box were hollowed out "...to secrete maps, currency, documents, hacksaw blades and swinger compasses."

The large chess boards were perfect for supplying to prisoners "...counterfeit documents, maps, currency and other contraband."

The chess pieces themselves were hollowed out and used to hold messages, compasses, maps and dye to help turn uniforms into civilian attire.