John Thorneycroft
Hartley
Male
England
1849-01-09
Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
1935-08-21
Knaresborough, Yorkshire, England
John Thorneycroft Hartley was born in January 1849 in the city of Wolverhampton in Staffordshire. He was the fifth of the seven children – four daughters and three sons – of John Hartley, senior, and Emma Jane Hartley (née Thorneycroft), who had married each other in Wolverhampton on 20 August 1839.
John Hartley, senior, had been born in the Scottish town of Dumbarton in 1813, but the family later moved to England. His father, George Hartley, also a native of Scotland, helped run the family glassmaking business, Hartley, Chance and Co., which was based in the industrial town of Smethwick, located four miles to the west of Birmingham.
John Hartley senior’s father-in-law, George Thorneycroft, had founded a business of his own, the Shrubbery Ironworks in Wolverhampton, at a time when related industries were thriving in the city due to the significant coal and iron deposits to be found in the area. John Hartley, senior, later became a partner in his father-in-law’s company. Both men would also serve as Mayor of Wolverhampton, George Thorneycroft in 1848 and John Hartley, senior, ten years later in 1858.
Although John T. Hartley, the future Wimbledon champion, had been born in Wolverhampton, the family lived for much of his childhood in Tong Castle, a large country house located in the county of Shropshire, between Wolverhampton and the town of Telford. John T. Hartley’s father had leased Tong Castle from the Earl of Bradford in 1856 and the Hartley family remained there until 1909, when Emma Hartley, widow of John Hartley, senior, died. (Tong Castle was demolished in 1954.)
John T. Hartley attended Harrow public school in the 1850s and 1860s, and notably won the school’s singles and doubles competitions at rackets, a cousin of lawn tennis. After leaving Harrow, he went up to Oxford University, where he was a student in Christ Church College and represented the university at real tennis. He obtained a B.A. in 1870 and an M.A. in 1874. He also took holy orders and was appointed Vicar of the parish of Burneston in North Yorkshire in 1874, a post he held for 45 years until his retirement in 1919.
John T. Hartley married Alice Margaret Lascelles on 8 July 1875 in the parish of Kirby-Wiske in York. Alice Lascelles was the third of the eleven children of Hon. George Edwin Lascelles and Lady Louisa Nina Lascelles (née Murray). Alice’s father was the son of Henry Lascelles, 3rd Earl of Harewood, and Lady Louisa Lascelles (née Thynne). The marriage between John T. Hartley and Alice Lascelles produced no children.
John T. Hartley’s first appearance at Wimbledon came in 1879, when he won the title, defeating the Irishman Vere Goold in the All-Comers’ Final (Frank Hadow, the holder, was not defending). Hartley retained the title the following year by defeating Herbert Lawford, himself a future Wimbledon singles champion, in the Challenge Round. After losing his title to William Renshaw in the Challenge Round in 1881, Hartley played virtually no more competitive lawn tennis, although he did reappear at Wimbledon in 1883, when he lost in the second round of the singles event. On a trip to Australia in 1888, he also took part in the Victorian Championships in Melbourne, where he was runner-up in the men’s singles event to the Australian player Arthur Colquhoun.
John T. Hartley’s professional duties as a vicar did not allow him the time he would have needed to devote to practising in order to be able to compete with other top players on level terms. In later years he did his best to follow the sport of lawn tennis in the printed press. He also became a keen golfer. In 1926, at the Jubilee (fiftieth anniversary) Wimbledon, he was among several former champions to appear on Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on Church Road to receive a special commemorative medal.
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Obituary
From The Times, 28 August 1935
Canon John Thorneycroft Hartley
Sir Herbert Wilberforce writes:
Canon John Thorneycroft Hartley, who died recently at the age of 86, was Vicar of the parish of Burneston in North Yorkshire for 45 years (1874-1919), Honorary Canon of Ripon, and sometimes Rural Dean of East Catterick. He was a teetotaller and a non-smoker, melancholy weaknesses which may have contributed to his athletic achievements. When I met him in 1882, his days of violent accomplishment proved to have passed. At Oxford University (where he went from Harrow public school to Christ Church College) he won the singles and doubles at rackets in 1869, played for his university at real tennis, and subsequently took up the then new game of lawn tennis with such success that he became singles champion at Wimbledon in 1879 and 1880.
Living and working, however, in a remote Yorkshire village, he was unable to follow the development of the game and fell an easy victim the next year to the coming genius, William Renshaw. He scored a temporary revenge in 1882 by beating, with his regular partner, Richard T. Richardson, the Renshaw brothers, William and Ernest, in the Oxford University Men’s Doubles Championship, but although he made two attempts that year in singles competitions it appeared plain that he had not the match temperament, and that players whom he could and did defeat regularly in private were his masters in public.
Thenceforward he restricted himself to the lighter side of the game and became, whether at Burneston, Tong Castle in Shropshire, which his family occupied for many years, or under my humble roof, the organizer and arbiter of innumerable friendly struggles – indeed, until two or three years ago he played quite well enough to discomfit many young people who fancied themselves over much. In 1926, when their Majesties presented medals to all former champions at Wimbledon, Canon Hartley was there to receive his; and watched modern players and their tactics with discriminating interest.
In all his occupations Canon Hartley was fortunate above measure to possess an ideal associate in his wife, Alice, daughter of the Honorary George Lascelles, son of the third Earl of Harewood. He was singularly free from what is known as clericalism. His sermons were always cheerful and practical, teaching how a Christian life ought to be and could be lived nowadays, and how, if so lived, it would be a happy life, whether in sickness or health, riches or poverty. He had been one of Dean Charles Vaughan’s “doves,” and it may be said that some of his philosophy was derived from that eminent divine. A philosopher Canon Hartley certainly was, sometimes disconcertingly so, and a man of method in all his doings. Gifted with a sense of humour, which occasionally had to be concealed, he was a delightful companion to young and old alike.
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1879 - 1888
3
26
19
1886 - Chapel Allerton (Amateur)
1880 - Wimbledon (Grandslam)
1879 - Wimbledon (Grandslam)
Round 1
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
J. Gow
6-1
6-1
8-6
Semifinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Frank Highett
1-6
2-6
6-4
7-5
6-2
Final
Arthur Gideon Hugh Colquhoun 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
6-3
6-4
6-3
Round 2
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
A.A. Betts
6-0
6-1
Quarterfinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Francis Joseph Hirst
6-5
6-3
Semifinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
R.W. Heaton
6-1
6-0
Final
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Sir William Henry Mahon
2-6
6-2
4-6
6-3
6-0
Round 2
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
J.H. White
w.o.
Round 3
F. Bramah 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
6-1
6-2
Round 1
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Harry Sibthorpe Barlow
6-1
6-3
6-1
Round 2
Herbert Wilberforce 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
4-6
6-5
6-2
6-4
Round 1
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Louis Winslow
6-0
6-0
6-0
Round 2
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Ernest de Sylly Hamilton Browne
6-5
6-2
6-1
Quarterfinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Edward Lake (Teddy) Williams
6-3
6-2
5-6
0-6
6-5
Semifinals
Champion Branfill Russell 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
6-5
6-4
2-6
2-6
6-0
Round 1
E.T. Hartley 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
5-4
5-0
Challenge Round
William Charles Renshaw 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
6-0
6-1
6-1
Challenge Round
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Herbert Fortescue Lawford
6-3
6-2
2-6
6-3
Round 1
J.H. Forster 1 *
John Thorneycroft Hartley
?
Round 1
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Charles John Cole
6-0
6-0
6-3
Round 2
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Lestocq Robert Erskine
6-4
6-5
5-6
0-6
6-5
Round 3
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
William Cecil Marshall
6-1
6-3
4-6
6-1
Quarterfinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Charles Gilbert Heathcote
6-4
6-3
6-3
Semifinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Cecil Francis Parr
2-6
6-0
6-1
6-1
Final
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Vere Thomas Saint Leger Goold
6-2
6-4
6-2
Challenge Round
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Patrick Francis (Frank) Hadow
w.o.