Never Say Die: Arthur 'Baby' Gore, the Oldest Wimbledon Champion

By Derek Sculthorpe

Never Say Die is the gripping story of Arthur ‘Baby’ Gore, a battling tennis player of the Edwardian era and the oldest-ever winner of the Wimbledon singles title.

Gore enjoyed an unparalleled 40-year career in which the game evolved from a garden-party pastime into a dynamic international sport. Thrice All-England champion, Olympic gold medallist and the first-ever Davis Cup captain, Gore was an amateur of the old school who competed in more Wimbledon tournaments than anyone else in history, all the while pursuing a hectic business life in the City of London.

On court he was a dogged fighter who famously did not stop trying until the last point was played. A leading personality of the sport, he symbolised the generation that established the game in the public imagination.

With analysis of his opponents and the changes he witnessed in tennis and wider society, this compelling biography provides an unrivalled insight into the life and times of a forgotten great of English sport.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Football Shorts
• Release date: Jun 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781801508346

Book preview

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2024

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© Derek Sculthorpe, 2024

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. ‘Baby’ Gore at Dinard

2. And So, to Wimbledon

3. Life Begins at 30

4. ‘The Dauntless Three’ Sally Forth

5. All England Champion

6. A Man of Business

7. ‘One of the First Favourites of the Lawn’

8. ‘A Formidable Doubles Player’.

9. The Nestor of Lawn Tennis.

10. Last Edwardian Champion.

11. A Great Sporting Rivalry

12. His Indian Summer

13. Summer’s End

14. Lest We Forget

15. Pastures New

16. Adventures in the East

17. The Grand Old Man Bows Out

Epilogue

Appendix

Career Results

Notes

Bibliography

Photos

To my sister Janie with love

‘Never say die, however hopeless the score may sound against you.’

Mrs D. K. Lambert Chambers, seven times Wimbledon ladies champion, advice to aspiring young players.¹

Acknowledgements

WITH THANKS to Emma Traherne the curator of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, and photo librarian Sarah Frandsen. With grateful acknowledgement to Alex Nieuwland at www.tennis.com for the priceless work he and all the contributors to the site have accomplished since 2011. Thank you to everyone else who helped along the way and to Pitch for the opportunity. With special thanks to Graham Hales, Duncan Olner, Andrea Dunn and Alex Daley for all their excellent work in bringing the project to life. With thanks as always to my family for their constant support and encouragement.

Introduction

- ‘A terrific forehand drive, the heart of a bulldog; and an ice-cold brow under his neatly-parted hair.’¹

WHEN THE great Roger Federer won Wimbledon for the eighth time, he nicknamed the trophy ‘Arthur’, in honour of Arthur Gore. To many modern-day tennis fans, it was a name that meant nothing to them, from a time that seemed like another world. Thus, they were sent scurrying for their reference books, or more probably the nearest search engine. Gore was an archetypal English sporting hero of the Edwardian era whose long career was unparalleled and who earned the epithet the ‘Iron Man of Tennis’. He saw the game develop from a parochial garden-party pastime to a dynamic international sport. Having won his first tournament at the age of 12, he was still playing almost half a century later. Not only did he span the heyday of the Renshaws and the Dohertys but he continued while Tilden was supreme, and remains the holder of many long-standing Wimbledon records. He had the distinction of being the oldest-ever men’s singles winner, at 41, as well as the oldest runner-up at 44. In total he competed over a period of almost 40 years at the All England Club, in 34 Wimbledons, only ever missing a couple of scheduled competitions in all that time. Had he not been struck down by illness he would surely have turned up the following year at 60 with his same bonhomie and goodwill ‘just for fun’, not for glory but because he loved the game and played so much with the spirit of the true amateur. It was that same spirit that helped establish the game at a time when it had to fight its corner as a sport worthy of public attention and acclaim, a fight in which he played an integral part.

On the face of it, Gore is perhaps not the most obvious subject for attention, even from his time. The Doherty brothers and Tony Wilding stand out clearly as great players who brought glamour and new fans to the game and have been called the first superstars of the sport. They were considered great while they lived and for some time afterwards, whereas Gore is practically forgotten, and his achievements explained away in a facile manner. Even so, the qualities that made him valued in his day are evergreen in sport. His biggest victories came unexpectedly and against the odds at an age when many others were contemplating retirement, his first when he was 33 and already a seasoned veteran. According to received wisdom he was essentially a one-stroke player; his main weapon was a devastating forehand, but the inference was that he had no backhand worth the mention. Despite his limitations he had from the beginning a fighting spirit which carried him through when all hope seemed lost and it was that grit which made up for any technical shortcomings, and moreover made him a notable figure to the wider sporting public beyond the realm of tennis. It was that ‘never say die’ resolve which is crucial in any sport if there is to be a contest worthy of the name, and which makes him deserving of remembrance. There is no doubt that it contributed to his trio of victories on the old Centre Court, especially in his famous triumph in 1909 when he came back from two sets down to win. There was always something heroic even about his losses because he never gave up. As one observer rightly said of him, ‘He was splendid even in defeat.’²

Gore achieved all that he did while simultaneously pursuing a hectic working life in the city. In that sense he was the antithesis of the modern careerist and egotist, but rather the genuine amateur. Besides, the male players of his day had to fight their corner to prove that their game was a man’s game and not just mere ‘pat ball’ suitable only for delicate ladies and children. Between them they did so, and won over the world to embrace a great sport that required athleticism, intelligence and skill. Like them, Gore epitomised much of the ethos of amateurism before its reputation was soured by the filthy lucre, and the spectre of ‘shamateurism’ raised its head. He was, besides, an underdog in many of his encounters, even at the height of his fame, and the British have always loved an underdog. Like W. G. Grace in cricket, he became the ‘Grand Old Man’ of tennis, a national sporting hero of the court, who epitomised an aspect of the ideal, his name a byword for battling in a seemingly lost cause. If anyone asks ‘Why Gore?’, I would answer because I did not imagine anyone else would do it, and that maybe it could not be done. As the saying goes, ‘Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.’

A lot of sport can be reduced to statistics, and for those who like figures I have included an Appendix containing a comprehensive record of Gore’s tennis career covering principal tournament wins, with special reference to his Wimbledon finals. Numbers only show one aspect, and often do not do justice to a sportsman, but even these reveal that he had a remarkable career by any standards. His sheer durability in a game made for youth marks him as a sportsman of note. Slightly built and wiry, he was incredibly light on his feet, which gave him the uncanny ability of turning balls that ought to have been met with the backhand into forehand shots. He displayed marvellous stamina and persistence which was rewarded: over a 16-year period at Wimbledon from 1898 until the Great War, he was eight times a finalist and three times a winner. Only thrice in that time did he fail to make the last eight.

Most of my previous books have been biographies, often about those who have been overlooked or not been given their due. I concentrate on diligent research and attempt to make the subject accessible and enlightening. My earliest encounter with the game of tennis was as a small child when I went with my dad and sister to the park every Sunday morning in the summer months to play on the public courts. I was usually the ball boy. I can still see the green-painted pavilion with the tiled roof, the immaculate bowling green adjacent. Mostly we had the courts to ourselves. In retrospect it seemed like a halcyon time. I freely admit that I am by no means a tennis expert but have always been fascinated by Wimbledon, and have read widely on the subject over many years. Compared to cricket, there is relatively little written about tennis, particularly in its early days. Look at the sports section of any bookshop, new or second-hand, and see if it is not so. There might be several rows for football, cricket, rugby, boxing or golf, but not much for tennis. For instance, there are so few books about any of the great players such as the Doherty brothers, who dominated the sport for a decade. If they had been cricketers, there would surely have been a shelf full of books about them by now. Mention of Joshua Pim and Willie Renshaw might induce blank looks all round today, but they were leaders of their sport in the late-19th century. Perhaps one day their story will be told.

Of the first 15 winners of The Championships before the First World War, only two (Brookes and Wilding) have books about them. There have been no previous studies of Gore of any kind. Even though the earliest Wimbledon took place just a short time after the first recognised Test match in 1876, the literature of cricket is vast, but that of tennis is miniscule in comparison. My aim is to redress the balance a little. As an outsider it appears that the emphasis in discussing tennis is firmly on the here and now, and that even players of 50 years ago belong to ancient history. It is as though tennis only began in 1968 and that whatever went before was not worth investigating. However, the previous 91 years must have counted for something, and judging by some of the books of recent vintage there is a greater appetite for discovering more about the history of the game and its personalities than we might be led to imagine, as listed in the Bibliography. These seem to me pioneering studies each in their own way, breaking new ground in research and show that there is a whole untapped seam of different areas of interest to be explored in the sport. I hope this monograph proves to be a worthwhile and entertaining addition to the existing literature on the subject. One would imagine there must be a curiosity among fans to know more about those pioneering days when its success was entirely in the balance, and the personalities who made it happen. Gore was a vital part of the generation that firmly established the game in the public imagination and as such deserves to be remembered.

Chapter One

‘Baby’ Gore at Dinard

‘Of slight physique, he is extremely quick in action, and has a wonderful wrist play which enables him to command his flight of the ball from the racquet with amazing skill.’¹

ARTHUR WILLIAM Charles Wentworth Gore was born on 2 January 1868 at The Orchard, in Lyndhurst, Hampshire into a distinguished family that had served for at least two generations in the military. He was the third son of Augustus Wentworth Gore, late of the 7th Hussars, and his wife Emily Ann (née Curzon). Augustus Gore was the son of Lieutenant, later Captain, Charles Arthur Gore of the 1st Life Guards, and the nephew of the Duchess of Argyle. Augustus had been born in France, and in 1855 when he was a Cornet (the modern-day equivalent of a Second Lieutenant) he was appointed Aide de Camp to the Earl of Carlisle. As a full Lieutenant, Augustus Gore served with the regiment in India in 1858 during the siege of Lucknow, and afterwards in the Rohilcunda campaign for which he was awarded a medal and was frequently mentioned in dispatches.²

Arthur’s paternal grandmother was the novelist Mrs Catherine Grace Gore (née Moody). In her works, Mrs Gore (1798–1861) depicted the fashionable social life and character of the Regency and Georgian eras from intimate knowledge of many of its leading players. She was prolific; she wrote over 70 works consisting of more than 200 volumes, including 11 plays. Among her novels were Theresa Marchmont or the Maid of Honour, Mothers and Daughters and Cecil, The Story of a Coxcomb. She wrote under several noms de plume and was the leading light of what became known as the ‘silver fork’ literary school. Much lauded in her day, her novel Women as They Are was a great favourite of George IV. The Times once said of her, ‘Some future Macauley will turn to her pages for a perfect picture of life as we find it in the upper classes of society.’ Her father Charles Moody was a wine merchant at East Retford in Nottinghamshire, although she never knew him because he died when she was young, after which her mother married a wealthy physician and moved to London. Unusually for those days, Catherine had been well and expensively educated by governesses and private tutors.³ In February 1823 she married Captain Charles Arthur Gore (c.1795–1846) of the 1st Life Guards, at St George, Hanover Square. On his marriage, Charles sold his commission and left the service. The couple had ten children, of whom eight died in infancy. They lived for some years on the continent, where Catherine looked after her then ailing husband. It was largely her prodigious literary efforts that supported the family.⁴ This despite the fact that she was swindled out of her rightful inheritance of £20,000 by her former guardian Sir John Dean Paul, who was later convicted and imprisoned. It was a case of life imitating art because her novel The Banker’s Wife was all about a fraudulent banker.

Charles died in 1846 and Mrs Gore was blind in her later years after which she became far more reclusive. At the time her loss of sight was partly attributed to extreme anxiety over her only son Augustus serving in India during the Mutiny. On her death in January 1861, she left a considerable fortune, having inherited a property from a relative on her mother’s side. As well as personal property valued at £14,000, she owned an estate called The Lodge in Halifax, Nova Scotia of some 12,000 acres, along with 400 shares in the Dublin & Belfast Railway worth £17,000 (a combined value today approaching £3.8m). She was concerned about her posthumous literary reputation, and left instructions to her son Augustus in her will that ‘he is to prevent, as much as in his power lies, any posthumous notice, or biography, or re-publication of my works, and I wish him to look over and burn any of my papers, giving to his sister any object as a memorial of her mother’.⁵

Arthur’s mother Emily was a younger daughter of Hon. Edward Curzon, of Scarsdale House, Kensington, a qualified barrister who was at that time the Registrar of Designs. Edward could trace his ancestry in the male line back to Geraline de Curzon, feudal Lord of Locking, Berkshire, at the time of the Domesday Book, who was reputedly a Breton. Indeed, the Curzons played a central role in the life of the nation over many generations as public figures and administrators.

As befitted their status, Augustus Gore and Emily Curzon married in a big society wedding at St Mary Abbotts, Kensington, on 19 September 1861, which attracted much of the landed gentry. This was in the 17th-century church before it was rebuilt a few years later. It was a jolly occasion that drew an appreciative gathering outside as the cadets of the South Middlesex Volunteer Rifle Corps, all wearing their colourful rosettes, sang ‘Haste to the Wedding’ while the Queen Elizabeth’s Band from Southwark played. The service was conducted by the bride’s uncle, Hon. and Rev. Frederick Curzon. After the service the happy couple were heartily cheered as they made their way to Castle Goring near Worthing before leaving for their honeymoon on the continent.⁶ They settled in the pleasant town of Lyndhurst, the administrative capital of the New Forest and the meeting place of the ancient forest courts held at the Verderers’ Hall. The Gores were active locally in Hampshire and intimately involved in the social life of the area. They were particularly associated with the New Forest Hunt. An army friend recalled that Augustus once hunted the fallow deer with the deer hounds for a brief period.⁷ The month following Arthur’s birth, they attended a lavish ball and supper at the Crown Hotel in Lyndhurst, given by the New Forest Hunt. Augustus decorated the room appropriately for the occasion, and all the prominent families were present. The local society correspondent noted, ‘Targett’s band played in the usual brilliant manner, and dancing was kept up with great spirit until five o’clock in the morning.’⁸ Arthur had two elder brothers, Charles (b.1862) and Frederick (b.1865), and a younger brother Francis, 11 years his junior. There was one sister, Catherine, who died of scarlet fever at the age of six in Winchester just before Christmas 1870.⁹

By around 1875 the family moved to France, at which time Arthur was seven, and the move proved serendipitous for his future path. It was there that he was chiefly educated and spent his formative years.¹⁰ Naturally he was fluent in French, but did not appear to have much interest in academic pursuits. The family were resident in Brittany in the Ille-et-Villaine Department of the coastal resort of Dinard, home to several English families. Before it became too fashionable, it was remembered by one of its votaries as a place of easy charms, with its horseshoe bay for ‘bathing parties, shrimping ones, excursions to the oyster beds at Cancal, and nightly dances at the quiet little casino’. The same writer recalled how ‘in the early days there was no dressing up, no show, no unnecessary expense. Everyone knew everyone. The young people could run loose from infancy to twenty.’¹¹‘Baby’ Gore had an idyllic childhood during which the boys were left to their own devices. All kinds of games were encouraged among his siblings, including cricket and, happily for him, the new invention of lawn tennis, which was then the latest thing and all the rage. He took up the game with gusto when he was around nine. As he recalled, ‘This was on the magnificent sands at Dinard, which a receding tide left sufficiently hard to enable us – I am speaking of the years 1877-8 – to mark out a court with a stick. Then I and my brothers began smacking the ball about with one or two other small boys the year the first Wimbledon Single Championship was won by my namesake Spencer Gore.’¹² Being the younger brother, he tried that much harder to compete and his lack of height made him even more determined to prove himself. The game soon became popular among the children of the resort, especially so with the brothers Gore. Despite the seeming unsuitability of the sand for the game, the surface proved good, and the bounce was surprisingly true. The success of tennis in season led to the construction of two permanent courts which later became six, and the establishment of several competitions, including some for children. He admitted that he received no formal tennis instruction worth the mention, there being few if any coaches at a time when the game had not been going long, and so he learned by playing.

The Dinard Tennis Club was first established in 1879 and is still extant, the oldest club in the country. The permanent courts were composed of talc sand, a fine gravel, and were known as being fast and true. At the time he was first playing, the exact rules of the game were still in flux to an extent, and were not formalised officially until the third year of the Wimbledon Championship, when the court dimensions and height of the net were agreed upon. Originally, the court was an hourglass shape, tapering at the net, and the net itself stood at five feet high. The All England Club decided instead on the rectangular shape known today, and after a few years the net was reduced first to 4ft 9in at the posts, then 4ft and finally by 1883 to 3ft 6in and 3ft in the centre, and these measurements have been in operation ever since.

Lawn tennis was a derivation of ‘real tennis’, as it later became known, which had a long history and traced its origins in the higher echelons of society across Europe in the 15th century, hence its original moniker of Royal Tennis. It was famously encouraged by Henry VII who had a court especially constructed at Hampton Court. The scoring system was similar to that adopted by the later game; only the first player to six won the set without the need for a two-game advantage. Another branch of origin was from the game fives, in which a ball was propelled against a wall in a three- or four- sided court by the gloved hand. Rackets developed from that, which, as the name suggests, used a racket instead of the hand. Curiously, for a game said to have first developed at the Fleet debtors’ prison, it was readily taken up by public schools and universities. Rackets was essentially a forerunner of squash. The new variation of lawn tennis had originated in England, the brainchild of Major Walter Clopton Wingfield and was based on a game he played in Leamington Spa with Augurio Perera, a Spanish-born merchant and sportsman. The game was boxed up and marketed as Sphairistikes. The novelty was that it could be set up on any lawn of a suitable size, in what was the heyday of the English lawn and all it stood for. The Englishman’s obsession with, if not veneration for, his lawn has long been remarked upon, and it was surely fitting that the country nurtured the game and moreover the inventor of the lawn mower. Tennis soon took off among the upper classes across the British Isles, and in a short time clubs and tournaments began to be established which codified the rules. British and Irish players dominated the scene in the first 30 years or so. The Renshaw brothers, William and Ernest, were the most proficient and consistent players of the time, and were instrumental in establishing permanent courts in France, in order to practise in the off-season, which in itself was a considerable advancement in a short time, and showed just how much serious interest the new game engendered. Consequently, the game found instant popularity in France, and its progression was so rapid that by the 1880s it was played by many nations across the globe.

Young Arthur soon advanced and his early exposure to the conditions at Dinard made him adept on the courts there; it was essentially his home patch. He soon mastered what became known as his trademark stroke, the swinging forehand drive on which his game was based – so much so that he won his first tournament in a mixed doubles handicap in 1880 at the age of 12. It was that win which earned him the nickname ‘Baby’, a name that stuck. There was always something of the eager boy about him. He retained that same boyish enthusiasm of the barefoot child lost in his love of the game when he first discovered it on the beach. His initial childhood enthusiasm never wavered and he retained