Walter Thomas Whitmore-Jones

The Father of Competitive Croquet

The Croquet Association is the fourth governing body for croquet.
The first such body was the All England Croquet Club (AECC), now the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Wimbledon founded in 1868. The second was a rival body set up in 1869 by Walter Jones Whitmore called the National Croquet Club (NCC) which was later (1871) absorbed into the AECC. The third was the Grand National Croquet Club also formed by the eternally dissenting Whitmore but this body, although running a number of successful tournaments, did not survive Whitmore's death in 1872.
Despite his many failings, Whitmore is credited with the organisation at Evesham in 1867 of what has been regarded as the first Open Championship, although many might question whether it should merit such a distinction, since there was no advance notice of the event: he merely invited four friends to play, the courts were small, the hoops eight inches wide, and he won the event himself! However that may be, this was the tournament whose centenary we celebrated in style in 1967 in the presence of our patron, Her Majesty The Queen.

The Birth of the Croquet Association, Oxford Croquet

England Births and Christenings:

• Name Walter Thomas Whitmore Jones
• Gender Male
• Christening Date 14 Mar 1831
• Christening Place CHASTLETON,OXFORD,ENGLAND
• Father's Name John Henry Whitmore Jones
• Mother's Name Dorothy

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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

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