| Admin History | The question of forming a sports club was raised among the Clerks as early as 1905. A. E. S. Curtis, of the Private Draing Office, obtained some 250 signatures in support of the formation of a sports club in October 1905. He was later to be appointed the first Honourary Secretary in 1910. Several of the other large banks had already formed a sports club for their clerks by this point. William Douro Hoare, a Bank Director, was particularly sympathetic to the cause and in November 1906 a small Committee was appointed to consider the question of the proposed formation of a sports club. The Court approved spending up to £15,000 for the purchase and laying out of the ground. In December 1907, the site in Priory Lane, Roehampton, covering eighteen acres, was purchased at a cost of £10,000, and an additional expenditure of £6,500 was authorised for construction and furnishing of a pavilion, and laying out the ground.
The Sports Club was founded in 1908, with the first General Committee meeting being held in February 1908. Provision was made for two cricket pitches, a rugby and Association football ground, a hockey ground, ten lawn tennis courts, a croquet lawn, a bowling green, two squash courts and two fives Courts. At the same time, a Club House was also constructed. Before 1918 the Bank had cricket teams, rugby and Association football teams, and a hockey team; while the tennis, swimming, golf, squash, fives and athletic sections were also active.
(Source: The House: A history of the Bank of England Sports Club 1908-1983 by A.J.N. Bond and M.O.H. Doughty). |
| Related Material | 3A161/81, 7A232, 8A109, 8A293/1, 8A297, 8A310, 10A105/3, 10A105/6, 10A149, 13A84/1/13, E5/60-65, G4/130, G15/46, G14/336. |