player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameErnest George
LastnameMeers
GenderMale
CountryEngland
Date of birth1849-02-25
Place of birthKingsnorth, Kent, England
Date of death1928-08-20
Place of deathYork, England

About

Ernest George Meers was born on 25 February 1849 in the village of Kingsnorth in Kent. He was the youngest of the three children – two sons and one daughter – of James Gray Meers (1823-1905), who was a native of the village of Chilham, also in Kent, and variously a farmer, a loam and sand merchant and a corporal in the Paymaster General’s office, and Mary Archer Meers (née Sweetlove), who was from Maidstone in Kent. Ernest Meer’s younger brother, Arthur, also took part in some lawn tennis tournaments, though with little success.

In 1871, Ernest Meers married Eliza Rosa Hart (1850-1934), who had been born in Madras in British India to Captain Henry Douglas-Hart of the Madras Army, who was assassinated while serving in British India in 1858, and Eliza Elizabeth Hart. Ernest Meers and his wife had six children together – five sons and one daughter.

Ernest Meers died on 20 August 1928 in York. He was 80 years old.
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From The Times, 23 August 1928:

“Obituary – Mr Ernest G. Meers

“In Mr Ernest George Meers, who died at York on Monday at the age of 80, there has passed away a player of lawn tennis who was for a long time among the first rank of players, and an accomplished musician, whose knowledge of and skill at the organ were exceptional.

“Mr Meers, who was a Bachelor of Music, Oxford, and chairman and managing director of Messrs Watts, Limited, gum-makers, of Fenchurch Street, had lived latterly at Guildford, having previously lived at Chislehurst, and at each of his houses he had a fine organ of his own.

“As a lawn tennis player he is frequently mentioned in histories of the game. His ‘E.G.M.’ racket, which he invented, was long popular. In 1892, with Ernest W. Lewis, he won the gentlemen’s doubles in the Irish Championship, and in the same year and in 1893 he won, with Harold Mahony, the Covered Courts Championship, then played at the Hyde Park Club.”
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From The Times, 27 August 1928:

The late Mr Ernest G. Meers

Mr Herbert F. Ellingford, Mus.Bac., A.R.C.M., F.R.C.O., writes:

“In Mr Ernest George Meers, of whom an obituary notice appeared in The Times last week, the musical world, and particularly that section interested in the organ, has lost a very keen enthusiast and patron. Music was only a side-line, but in this side-line, as in his tennis and chess-playing hobbies, he was an extraordinarily capable exponent. In the late eighties, he became the amateur lawn tennis champion of England, and he could play an excellent game of chess with the finest players.

“Music, though a hobby, was to him a lifelong study. He held a few organistships at some London churches, particularly Saint Mark’s, Lewisham, and placed the emoluments of these posts to the improvement of the status of the choir and its music. He also played the organ at the performance of Gounod’s ‘Redemption’ in the old Saint James’s Hall, soon after its production at the Birmingham Festival of 1882. He was the donor of some fine organs, notably that in the Parish Church at Maidstone.

“The voicing of organ pipes, particularly those of the string family, was of especial interest to him, and at his home in Guildford he had a complete voicing shop, where he spent many hours experimenting in that fascinating art. He had a magnificent organ at Chislehurst, which is destined to go out to Sydney Cathedral, the arrangements for which were made during the short occupancy of that post by his old friend, the late Dr Tom Haigh. The small two-manual organ in his Guildford house is a charming little instrument.

“It was on this chamber organ that he revelled in his favourite pastime, organ pedalling, and the playing of Bach’s organ works. In middle life he had lessons in organ playing for several years under the late Sir Walter Parratt at the Royal College of Music. and greatly enjoyed the fun, as he expressed it, of playing some of the great Bach works at the terminal examinations.

“He made a study and a science of organ pedalling, and it is no exaggeration to say that there are very few organ executants, even among the most expert pedallers, who are possessed of a more facile or cleaner pedal technique than Mr Meers had. A man of great culture, widely travelled, a charming and kind personality and generous, he will be remembered by many for his practical readiness to assist them to continue their studies.”
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