Do you know who started the first pub quiz?
The first pub quiz organisers are believed to have been a company called Burns and Porter. The pair distributed quizzes in the 1970s as a way to get patrons into pubs in the UK on quieter nights. Over the span of just a few years, the popularity of these nights grew from 30 teams playing each week to 10,000. Probably a bit more than they bargained for, but they made it work!
Burns and Porter, (or Sharon and Tom depending on how much of a regular you were) travelled across the country presenting their quizzes to breweries and pubs as a way to help them bring in more customers.
The BBC even turned to them for help finding contestants and questions for television quiz shows. Burns and Porter eventually published their own line of quiz books, cementing themselves as the original quiz nerds. Before they knew it, the quiz nights had a life of their own and started cropping up left right and centre with or without their participation.
Although they’re no longer an active company, Sharon Burns is rumoured to frequent charity quiz nights every now and then.
Of course, the original pub quiz is hotly debated, many contenders have cropped up with the potential of being the true creator of the pub quiz. Newspaper clippings and word of mouth suggest that the first pub quiz could have been as far back as the 1930s. So while we may never actually know the true origins of the pub quiz, it’s a bit ironic that it has a secret history that keeps us guessing.
Source: thebigfatquiz.com
