Neville Chamberlain’s letter to Ooty
The original is held in the collection of Peter Ainsworth, and the permission to publish it has been formally granted.
The Wilderness, Ascot.
May 12th, 1939
To The Secretary,
the Ootacamund Club.
Dear Sir,
I have posted to your address a copy of the Newspaper “The Billiard Player” – which I hope will be of interest to your Committee and yourself. It is the official organ of “The Billiard Association and Control Council” of great Britain.
On page 12 of it will be found an article by the well known writer, Compton Makenzie, on the origin of the game “Snooker.” He tells the story well, and how the game was played at Ootacamund from 1882 onwards.
He begins by referring to an Article in “The Field” which claimed that the game had its origin at “The Shop” (the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich), and this article was followed by several others, in the same strain.
I did not enter into the controversy with the writer, but I wrote to several of my old friends, and asked them what they remembered of the game of “Snooker,” which they, and [others?] played at Ootacamund, and elsewhere in India, in the “eighties of last century”.
They responded whole heartedly to my request, and Compton Mackenzie gives the replies of several of them. I wish he had included one from an old friend of mine in “Ooty” days – Mr. J. Dunlop Watson, a former member of the Ooty Club. He wrote to me as follows.—
“I was at Ooty, and a member of the Club there, where I frequently saw the game played – and I have since then, at times, stated that you were the originator of the game. You were with Sir F. Roberts, C. in C. Madras, about the years 1882/84.”
I would like to add that while it is correct to say that the game was first played at Jubbulpore, in 1875, it never really made progress until it was played by the members of the Ootacamund Club. In view of this I hope you will find room to place among your records the story which I now sent you.
I retain very many happy memories of the Ooty Club, and the many good comrades I met there, between the *Spring of 1882, until the Autumn of 1885.
Yours very truly, Neville Chamberlain
[Not dated, but enclosed article published April 1939]
*NOTE: Chamberlain arrived at Ooty on 23rd December 1881, spending Christmas there before setting off a tour of the Garrisons with Lord Roberts in the early part of January 1882. The reference to ‘Spring 1882’ marks the end of this tour and return to Ooty on Saturday 25th March 1882. Perhaps his application for membership of the club was not processed until after the Christmas/New Year holiday.
