There are few forms of packaging more versatile, more economical and more environmentally friendly than custom cardboard boxes. 

They are remarkably sturdy for their weight, can be easily recycled and can be made in practically any size, shape and with any kind of inlay to more securely store valuable, small or easily lost components.

Most products and nearly every parcel is shipped using a cardboard box, but before this was ubiquitous, one product had to be the first to prove the potential of the material for transportation.

The History Of Card And Cardboard

Whilst early forms of paper and slightly thicker cardboard had existed since the 2nd century BC in China, eventually spreading to Europe by the 13th century, it took until the 19th century for cardboard to become available for storage.

Interestingly, whilst playing cards had been created since the 9th century and were some of the earliest products to be sold in any form of packaging, they were not sold in the typical tuck-flap cardboard boxes until the end of the 19th century.

Before that, playing card decks tended to be sold in paper sleeves, envelopes or occasionally wooden boxes, something still commonly found with certain traditional games such as hanafuda today.

Eventually, It was found that the card itself could be folded and arranged in such a way that allowed for it to be used as packaging, which led to one of the first decorative product boxes ever.

The Box Of Besieging

Believed to have initially been produced in 1817, The Game of Besieging is far from the first board game, but it was one of the first board games to be widely sold and distributed in cardboard boxes rather than using other materials such as wood or paper sleeves.

A thematic adaptation of the abstract strategy game Fox And Geese, The Game Of Besieging was based on a tradition dating back to the late 18th century of celebrating historic events and battles in board game form.

Many of these were homemade, crafted from paper and pencils around a similar board type, made from and housed within wooden boxes or sold in paper slipcases.

These designs later became more sophisticated, incorporating paintings, etchings and lithographs featuring particular battles. The first to be stored in a cardboard box, for example, featured soldiers wearing the uniforms of Frankfurt-on-Main circa 1809.

This suggests that it was meant to depict the War of the Fifth Coalition, where Frankfurt was ordered to battle for Emperor Napoleon and the First French Empire against the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom.

As is the case with a lot of abstract strategy board games, there were a lot of versions of The Game Of Besieging of varying quality and depicting a range of different battles.

Some are particularly crude handmade boards, whilst others feature lavish art. At the same time, the number of pieces and the specifics of the rules also vary between different versions.

What is remarkable is that the box was remarkably sophisticated in design, and somehow managed to survive largely intact before it was rescued and stored in the V&A Museum collection.

Whilst it was the first board game to be stored in a cardboard box, it was far from the last, and to this day it is unusual for board games to be solid in anything other than a solid cardboard container, often including cardboard inserts.

The Mystery Of Sir Malcolm Thornhill

One piece of the mystery that is yet to be solved about The Game of Besieging and other early cardboard boxes used to store everything from pocket watches to silkworms was the name Sir Malcolm Thornhill.

Several articles, including one for Country Life, credit a British industrialist by the name of Sir Malcolm Thornhill for creating the cardboard box or having a hand in its creation. However, this mysterious man who fundamentally changed the industrial world does not appear to exist.

Whilst there were several publications that credited Sir Malcolm Thornhill, it turned out that this was an elaborate prank orchestrated in 2008 by a high school computer science teacher in Kent of the same name.

He edited the website Wikipedia to make a point about not trusting uncited information on a website anyone can edit, but the practical joke was published in a 2009 book on famous inventions, which caused it to endure for decades afterwards.

The actual inventor of the cardboard box in the form seen in The Game of Besieging is currently unknown, but the corrugated boxes we know and widely use today are known to have been developed and patented by Scottish inventor Robert Gair.