General Tancred Disraeli
Cummins
Male
England
1864-02-15
Liverpool, Lancashire, England
1950-12-27
Llandudno Caernarvonshire, Wales


About

Tancred Disraeli Cummins was born in Liverpool in February 1864, the son of Charles Cummins, a businessman and later a journalist, and Mary Cummins (née Firth). The choice of the lawn tennis player’s name seems to have been influenced by the novel Tancred, or The New Crusade, first published in 1847, by the author and politician Benjamin Disraeli, who twice served as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Tancred Cummins spent much of his adult life living in Wales, where he designed and owned at least one golf course.
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From: The North Wales Weekly News, 27 December 1950:

Obituary – Former tennis champion

Mr Tancred Disraeli Cummins, who died at Llandudno on Wednesday, aged 87, was a Lancashire county lawn tennis player in the eighties of the last century, and in 1893 won the North Wales Challenge Cup (covered courts) at Llandudno, going on to win the trophy outright. Mr Cummins was a spectator at this year’s revival of the covered court championships at Craigside.

He designed the North Wales Golf Club course in 1893 and the Addington Court course, of which he was also a former owner. As a young man he played rugby for the Manchester Club. Mr Cummins, who resided at “Home Green”, Church Walks, Llandudno, leaves one son, four daughters and eight grandchildren.
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From https://www.facebook.com/homefrontmuseum/posts/this-weeks-lockdown-walk-is-around-west-shore-llandudno-it-starts-at-maesdu-brid/1710235865802455/

North Wales Golf Club

In 1894, Llandudno did not have a golf club but then along came Tancred Disraeli Cummins. Tancred came to Llandudno not for golf, but tennis, when in 1893 he played in the very first match at the newly opened Craigside Covered Tennis Courts. He was a prodigious sportsman but his first love was golf. He acquired the lease from the Town Improvement Commissioners, a forerunner of Llandudno Urban District Council, to what was then a windswept 6-hole course and turned it into an 18-hole course which opened in August 1894.

It seems that in the early years some residents of Llandudno had little regard for Tancred’s golf course. On one occasion Tancred found cricketers had set up a wicket on the fairway leading to the second hole and was even more perturbed to find a set of goal posts had been erected and a football match being contested.

But my favourite incident is told in Tancred’s own words. He was playing a round with a good friend, when: “On the 18th we found a picnic party enjoying a hearty spread. On the green was a white cloth with a goodly array of crockery and many eatables. The flagstaff had been converted into a hat and coat stand; being of iron it stood the weight of a formidable array of clothing.

“We looked down upon the party with mixed feelings, when a lady said: ‘I wonder if the little white ball which dropped amongst us belongs to these gentlemen?’ Upon which a small boy took my ball out of his pocket and handed it to me. My opponent, picking up his ball out of the bunker, said: ‘I think we had better call this hole a half’.”



Media


Archive statistics 1885 - 1906
3
71
42


Tournament wins 1895 - Trefriw (Amateur)
1894 - Trefriw (Amateur)
1889 - Keswick (Amateur)


Tournaments Welsh Covered Court Championships - 1906 Craigside - 1896 Welsh Covered Court Championships - 1895 Trefriw - 1895 Welsh Covered Court Championships - 1894 Craigside - 1894 Trefriw - 1894 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1893 Welsh Covered Court Championships - 1893 Craigside - 1893 Buxton - 1893 North of Wales - 1893 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1892 Sheffield - 1892 Craigside - 1892 West of England Championships - 1891 Northumberland Championships - 1891 South of England Championships - 1891 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1891 Sheffield - 1891 Craigside - 1891 Buxton - 1891 Cheltenham Challenge Cup - 1891 Sheffield - 1890 Buxton - 1889 Macclesfield - 1889 Keswick - 1889 Lancashire County Championships - 1889 Buxton - 1888 Keswick - 1888 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1887 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1885

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