Blackboard History

Blackboards were originally made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone framed with wood to keep them from breaking. The earliest recorded use of a chalkboard was in 1801 in America where instructors utilised them in academic military schools.

The term 'blackboard' wasn't coined until about 1820 when a leap forward occurred; a geography teacher in Scotland is reputed to have taken the slates off his student's laps and mounted them on the wall at the front of the classroom. Teachers no longer had to write individual problems and lessons on a single student's board. Instead they could teach an entire class on a blackboard that all the students could see saving a great deal of time.

Since then, our modern day chalkboards with their greenish cast and dustless chalk have gone through many stages of evolution. Blackboards continue to be widely used in classrooms and lecture halls but are perhaps more commonly found in catering establishments (typically Public Houses) as a form of advertising, to display menus and pricing or to keep the score in darts matches!

Interestingly, the white and coloured chalks used with today's blackboards are no longer made from chalk rock but from gypsum, a naturally occuring crystal. Liquid chalks are also now available. These non-toxic, water soluble (yet waterproof) chalk pens are used to create more attractive and colourful signs and advertising and are particularly useful when used in conjunction with a weather-proof A-frame blackboard outside.