Modern dating around the world can be traced back to London in the very early 18th Century. The World’s first daily newspaper The Daily Courant was launched in 1702 and began to carry advertisements in it’s personal column, where well to do gentleman were able to advertise for a wife. In turn this led to the first Dating Agency, known as a Matrimonial Bureau in those days, opened its doors in London in 1705.
More than 200 years later the shortage of men after the 1st world war in the USA, led to ‘Dating Agencies’ beginning to spring up in US cities, as ladies sought a marriage partner and London followed suit in the 1930’s when Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver opened the Marriage Bureau in Bond Street, Mayfair, London. It was a tremendous success and had more than 1,000 clients seeking others at it’s peak and operated successfully until it was sold to Penrose Halson in 1992, when the landlord wanted to increase the rent by 700%.
The Katherine Allen Agency followed in 1960 and then the Katherine Kent Marriage Bureau was formed in 1962 but there was a dramatic twist in 1965 when 2 students at Harvard developed the first computerised dating platform, this was purchased and brought back to the UK by John Patterson in 1966, who formed Dateline International, the first computerised dating service later that year. After early years of struggle it flourished throughout the 1970’s taking full page adverts in National Newspapers and TV advertising followed making Dateline a household name in the UK.
In the 1980’s more traditional agencies were launched around the UK with Heather Heber Percy and Geraldine Turner, launching Country Partners in 1983 and The County Register a little later. Mary Balfour launched Drawing Down the Moon in 1986. Eddy Ankrett launched Elite Introductions in 1992 and RSVP was launched in the same year, specialising in social events as well as introductions.
A dating revolution followed in the mid to late 1990’s with the launch of kiss.com in 1994 and match.com in the USA in 1995 and in the UK in 1998, with literally thousands of other dating sites following suit and internet dating was up and running around the world, with millions signing up and trying this amazing way of meeting others. Dating Apps became another option in 2011 onwards with Momo, a Chinese app being the first, with Tinder and Hinge both launching a year later in 2012.
It wasn’t always a happy scenario however and from 2012 onwards there were some troubled times for some online dating companies with burgeoning crime levels, particularly fraud and identity theft as well as physical crimes such as murder, rape, violence, sexual assaults, blackmail and extortion. As a consequence online dating and dating apps became a something that many people felt were too great a risk and a huge percentage have turned to Personal Matchmaking as the only real alternative.