Wednesday 8th January 2014
Warminster Club Annual Billiards Handicap Challenge Cup 1905
Warminster Town Council have contacted Danny Howell with regard a silver cup that Police Inspector Alan Webb has discovered in one of the police offices. Inspector Webb is to hand over the cup to Warminster Town Council at a Full Meeting of the Council on Monday 20th January 2014. The Mayor of Warminster Paul Batchelor will accept the cup on behalf of the Council and the cup will be kept in safe keeping at the Town Council Offices in the Civic Centre.Â
The cup is engraved ‘Warminster Club Annual Billiards Handicap Challenge Cup 1905’. There are several names of winners and dates inscribed on the cup too, including Percy H Bishop 1905 and 1906; O B Chambers 1907; W T Wall 1926; A H Coates 1927 and 1928; R W Long 1929; T H Hughes 1930; and A Lockyer 1931. There are other names on the cup in between, and the last name and date on the cup is A Lang (for snooker) in 1995.
The Town Council have asked Danny: “We wondered if you could give us any information that might relate to the Warminster Club and its Challenge Cup?”
Danny Howell has responded ~
“In reply to your query about the Warminster Club and its billiards cup, I can tell you the following:
The Warminster Club was at 3 Weymouth Street. The Kings Arms public house also had the same address. The building is today the John Barleycorn public house. It seems the building may have been divided for two separate purposes, one side or the ground floor being the public house and the other side or the first floor being the Warminster Club. This probably accounts for why, when you look at the John Barleycorn today, you can see it has two front doors side by side.
The Warminster Club was a men’s club. It’s advertising always noted that it was open daily from 9.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m. The day-to-day running of the club was administered by its secretary. It comprised rooms for reading, recreation and billiards. Billiards was, of course, a popular game during the first half of the 20th century. The fact the club had its own billiards room no doubt prompted it to hold an annual billiards’ tournament for its members.
Some of the names on the cup are of well-known persons who lived in Warminster.
Percy H. Bishop was Percy Bishop who had a music shop in the Market Place, Warminster, and was the Organist at the Parish Church of St. Denys (The Minster).
O B Chambers was Octavius Bertram Chambers, the watch and clock repairer whose shop was in the Market Place and he used to maintain many of Warminster public clocks. Up until 1948 he used to wind daily the clock in the Chapel of St. Lawrence.
W T Wall was William Thomas Wall who ran the Central Garage in the Market Place, Warminster, where Coffee1 and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop now are. Mr. Wall transferred the garage business from there to East Street in the mid-1920s, his new premises becoming what are now the East Street Service Station (Esso Garage).
A H Coates was Alfred Herbert Coates. He was the Secretary of the Warminster Club in 1923. He lived at the house known as Beastlease at The Avenue, Warminster. He was the proprietor and editor of the Warminster Journal for 60 years. Mr. Coates died in 1959. His first love was cricket but he was also an excellent billiards player. His obituary noted: “He was no less well known with his ability with the billiard cue and even a few months before his retirement could hold his own with any player in the town at snooker.” As well as playing billiards at the Warminster Club he also played billiards for the Warminster Conservative Club at Church Street, playing in the Frome Billiards League before the Second World War. After the Second World War he played billiards at the Athenaeum Club, Warminster.
T H Hughes lived at Braeside, Longleat. He was the Clerk of Works for the Marquis of Bath.
A Lockyer was Arthur Lockyer, the Manager of Lloyds Bank, Market Place, Warminster.
I can as yet, find no records for the Warminster Club after the Second World War, so maybe it had ceased to be by then. The last reference I have to it is in the 1930s, when the local auctioneer David H. Waddington was the secretary and Mr. Sidney Lewis Scutt was the treasurer.
Sidney Scutt was born at Preston, Dorset, in 1882. Just before the First World War he was living at Maiden Castle Farm, near Dorchester, but he enlisted, aged 33 and served in The Buffs. Army Records list him as living at 21 North Row, Warminster, at some period between 1914 and 1920. He stayed resident in Warminster after the First World War. During the 1930s, when he was the treasurer of the Warminster Club, Mr. Scutt lived in a flat at The Laurels, Sambourne Road, Warminster. I believe he was a bachelor. I think I’m right in saying his occupation was a bank clerk, no doubt why he was suitably qualified to be a club treasurer. Mr. Scutt died at Weymouth, Dorset, on 4th September 1949.
Doug Lakey, now aged 93 and living at Weymouth Street, Warminster, tells me he has no memory of the Warminster Club whatsoever, suggesting it had ceased to be before he came of age, which maybe confirms that it no longer continued after the War. Anyone alive now, it seems, would have to be over 85 years old, I guess, to recall anything about it.
The latest winner and date on the Cup, you say, is A. Lang in 1995, and for snooker. I have no idea who A. Lang is. I can only summise that the Cup, on the demise of the Warminster Club, was passed on to be used by another club or group. If the Cup was discovered in Inspector Webb’s office, maybe it had been transferred to the Police Club? In which case A. Lang may have been a police officer or a member of the Police Club. On the other hand, the Police may have found the cup “during enquiries”. A. Lang may not have even been in Warminster. Although the Warminster Journal reported results for pool in 1995, they don’t seem to have published snooker results during that year.
I hope these details shed some light on the Warminster Club and its billiards cup. Time and further research will maybe bring more information into the public domain.”
Footnote: If any readers of www.dannyhowell.net have any further information about the Warminster Club, or what club or organisation was presenting the cup in more recent years, or who A. Lang was/is, please contact us by emailing dannyhowellnet@gmail.com