Golf in Hertfordshire

At the HALH Symposium on Sport, held at St Edmund's College in November 2012, Julia Moore gave a talk on Golfing in Hertfordshire in the late 19th century. She observed that as more and more London based professional people started to acquire rural homes, mainly in South West Herts, they wanted to be involved in rural activities - but were not able to ride horses as well as the local gentry. Golf provided rural exercise and the first golf courses were on existing commons - such as the one at Berkhamsted. However later courses were especially constructed on private estates where the general public could be excluded! Some of her slides included lists of the early clubs, drawn up from Kelly's Directories. While I was unable to copy it at the time I have "reconstructed it" - and the following is a list of clubs, drawn up with details from the 1914 directory, with the earliest date I fond in earlier directories available to me, although Julia had earlier dates for some of them. I have also added some employment statistics.

Over the years there was a major increase in Golf related employment.

• In 1881 there was no-one in the Watford area whose job involved Golf
• In 1891 Benjamin Ball is described as a golfer, Herbert Baldwin was a golf boy, David Cuthbert was a golf club maker and William Walker was a golf professional.
• The list on the right gives the names and occupations for the 1901 census.
• In 1911 57 people had golf-related occupations.

Golf Links, Boxmoor (1906)

Bishop's Stortford Golf Course. 1910

See  Abe MITCHEL (Golfer), St Albans, 1925-1947

See Samuel Ryder & sons, Seed Merchants, St Albans for where the money came from

Golf Workers in Watford, 1901