TROJANS FC

 

 

 

(TROJANS RUGBY CLUB)

 

Founded 1874   

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TROJANS FOOTBALL CLUB

 

The Early Presidents

 

The Trojans Football Club had four Presidents during the first 75 years and here follows a description of the significant gentlemen involved.

 

To avoid over use of quotes, those parts of the following sketches in italics have been added by the author and the rest have been compiled from old local newspapers reports and the Trojans Club minutes.

 

1875 – 1878    Alfred Leighton McCalmont J.P

 

Alfred Leighton McCalmont became the Club’s first President in 1875 aged 24 and served until his death in 1878 aged 27. There is no record of him playing the game or what interest he had in sport but, in his short life, he certainly had close involvement in the life of the town.

He was born at Highfield in 1851. He was elected councillor for Southampton All Saints Ward in 1873 (aged 22) with a record vote. Only four years later he became Mayor of Southampton at 26 years of age – probably the youngest first citizen of any sizeable English town.

 

In 1876 he was placed on the Commission of the Peace for the Borough. Mr McCalmont received the thanks of the Town Council in November 1878, for the admirable manner in which he had conducted the business of the town during the time he had held office. A vote of thanks was also accorded him by the Harbour Board for the reception of their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. These votes were embossed on vellum.

 It was through feeling slightly indisposed that he preferred to retire for a time from the high position he was pressed again to occupy, for in acknowledging the vote of thanks passed to him by the Council for the services he had rendered, he expressed a hope that he might again be called upon to fill the high position of Chief Magistrate. But a few days afterwards what was at first thought to be only a slight cold, developed into a serious illness, causing congestion of the brain and typhoid fever, and despite every care and attention of the very first physician and specialist, he gradually sank, peacefully passing away on the 26th November 1878. He was buried in the Southampton Cemetery, and though the funeral was private, it was estimated that about 4,000 persons attended.

 

At one time he was actively engaged in agricultural pursuits, cultivating the land on his farm, more for pleasure than as a means of profit, thus he was quite at home in welcoming the Bath and West of England Society’s Show, which visited Southampton during his mayoralty.

 

He had close associations with Highfield church which was built in 1847. Alfred McCalmont laid the foundation stone of the east end extension in 1878 and the single stained glass window there was put up in memory of him and his brother Frederick by 312 friends. The face of one Apostle was painted from a photograph of Alfred.

 

 

1878 – 1884    Algernon Charles Frederick Sartoris Esq.

 

In 1878 the position of President of the Trojans Football Club seemed difficult to fill.

 

On the 3rd December 1878 the Trojans Football Club minutes recorded the death of the President, Mr A L McCalmont. It was proposed that Mr Le Feuvre be asked to accept the office of President. The minutes of 19th December 1878 indicate that Mr Le Feuvre had declined the position.

 

The minutes of 28th August proposed that the Admiral Cournwell be asked to accept the Presidency of the Club. The minutes of 4th September 1879 showed that the Admiral Cournwell declined the Presidency and stated “that the Hon. Alexander Yorke be asked to take the Presidency jointly with Mr Edward Sartoris esq. of Warsash”.

 

The minutes of 23rd September 1879 stated, The Secretary announced … that he had seen Mr A Sartoris who had agreed to take the Presidency.

 

This throws some confusion into the issue – who was the President? Mr “Edward” or Mr “A” Sartoris. Finally, the minutes of a meeting dated 23rd August 1882 confirm that “The re-election of the President Algernon Sartoris Esq. was proposed”.

 

Algernon’s father, Edward John Sartoris J.P., was born in London in 1815, the son of a wealthy Italian banker. He married Adelaide Kemble, acclaimed in Italy and England as a first-rate opera singer and actress, in 1843. They lived at Warsash House in Warsash where they entertained many visitors of social eminence and distinction in art and literature. Edward the Seventh stayed there when he was Prince of Wales and Sir Frederick Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, was a frequent visitor.

 

Their son, Algernon, who was to become President of the Trojans Club aged 26, was born in London in 1852. He is recorded in the 1881 census as living in Warsash House with his father and seven servants. The 1891 census shows him living in Warsash Cottage together with a caretaker, valet, page, cook and house-maid. There is no record of any “occupation” so one assumes he was a “man of leisure. He was certainly a sportsman with the records showing that, later in 1874, “in the field next to his father’s model farm, he had a cricket pitch made and it was played on for years”. There is no actual record of him playing rugby. However, in a match report of Trojans versus Southsea in the 1874/75 season, at Southsea, there was an A Sartoris in the Southsea side. Was it him?

 

 Of particular note is that Algernon Sartoris visited America where he married Emily Wrenshall Grant, the only daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant. On May 21, 1874, they were married in a magnificent wedding in the East Room of the White House. Grant bitterly opposed the marriage; he considered Sartoris to be immature and vain. Emily divorced him after her father's death and Algernon died in Italy in 1893. President and Mrs Grant also stayed as guests at Warsash House. So did the American President ever watch Trojans play? We shall never know!

 

 

1884 – 1924    Tankerville Chamberlayne. J.P, M.P

 

 

Tankerville Chamberlaynewas born in 1843 ,was educated at Eton and Magdelan College, Oxford and took his BA in 1865. He was a member of the Carlton, Junior Carlton, St. Steven’s. Royal Thames Yacht and Primrose Clubs and, of course, Trojans.

Mr Chamberlayne was Justice of the Peace for Hampshire and Lord of the Manors of Hound, North Baddesley, Woolston and Barton Peveril in Hampshire and East Norton Leicestershire.

For some years he suffered considerably from indifferent health, but in his more youthful days he took a keen interest in sport, and at one time played in the Hampshire cricket eleven. Yachting and cricket were his chief recreations, but when football became more popular in the South of England he was a great supporter of the game (and thus became President of the Trojans Football Club in 1884, aged 41, having been Vice-Prsident for some years before).

No club appealed to him for support in vain, and his purse and presence were ever ready with assistance.

 

Tankerville Chamberlayne was returned as member of parliament for Southampton on three separate occasions. The first was in 1892, when he headed the poll with 5449 votes and the second in1895. However, on this latter occasion, a petition was presented against his return and he was unseated. Speaking in Westminster Hall on 5th May 2004, Dr. Alan Whitehead MP (Southampton, Test) said

 

There is scant evidence of widespread fraud and personation in England, Scotland and Wales in recent years. That has not always been the case: in Victorian times, there was widespread evidence of personation and electoral corruption, with people receiving funds to vote. The Conservative candidate in the 1895 election in Southampton, Sir (sic) Tankerville Chamberlayne, gave his address as the first floor of the Dolphin hotel in central Southampton. Six strong men carried him shoulder-high from the first floor and placed him in a cart that they had previously unhorsed. They then pulled him to the Cowherds inn at Above Bar, and he waved to the crowds and threw sovereigns at them as he went. Incidentally, his election was ruled invalid, and a further election was held. These days, however, we have relatively clean and uncorrupt elections in the UK, and there is certainly little evidence of personation, fraud, undue influence, bribery and treating in our electoral system.

 

However, a newspaper story around the time of his death said –

 

He (Tankerville Chamberlayne) it was who gave Netley Recreation Ground to the village as a Diamond Jubilee gift, but actions of this kind did not prevent action being taken against him, to unseat him from Parliament under the Bribery and Corruption Act. All kinds of charges of general “treating” of electors were laid at his door, but they were completely exploded at a special hearing –all except one case of a Southampton elector who was at Winchester at the time and to whom he lent two shillings for his fare to get him to Southampton to vote. So on that one issue Mr Tankerville Chamberlayne was unseated – but he returned triumphant a few years later to represent Southampton Borough for another period of years.

 

Mr Chamberlayne died at his residence, Cranbury Park, near Winchester, at the age of 81.

 

 

 

1924 – 1950    Lieut-Colonel Sir George A E Hussey. J.P.

 

George Hussey was the first president to become so at a more advanced age (61) than his predecessors having led a full and productive working life.

 

Like Alfred McCalmont, he became mayor of Southampton at an early age (33) and served exceptionally for three consecutive years.

 

As Mayor he was much involved with troops embarking for South Africa to fight the Boers. He was himself a military man, later Colonel comanding the 5th Battalion Hampshire Regiment in 1907-12. He was made an Alderman and Freeman of the Borough in 1901, the same year he received his knighthood.

 

One thing that must have been of interest to members of the Trojans Club was that in about 1944 he was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Distillers (it was the second time he had held the office, previously 20 years before). Sir George had a long association with the brewing trade. He was a director of Scrases Brewery, Southampton and when that was taken over by Strong’s of Romsey he became a director of that company.

 

Quite what close involvement Sir George had in the affairs of the Trojans Club is not certain but he was certainly closely involved in the Royal Southampton Yacht Club where he was Hon Secretary for 22 years, and finally Commodore from 1932 until his death in 1950.

 

An interesting group of people. That is not to say that the Presidents of the Club from that day to this have not also been interesting people and perhaps, in time, their potted biographies will also be written.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-Mail  web@trojansrugby.co.uk or phone the Club on 023 8061 2400 (Bar) 023 8061 3068 (Admin)      

This page last updated:  14 February, 2008