Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

Hugh Williamson
Parkstone/Zurich
Hugh was the middle one of the three golfing brothers, sons of Edmund Williamson, and born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in 1881.

Jackson’s register has him starting his career at West Middlesex between 1899 and 1901, something I have not been able to confirm independently but the date fits in with him being in a clubmaking partnership with James Hepburn at nearby Surbiton.

He was undoubtedly professional at Newark from its establishment in 1901 until 1905 and where le laid out the course. On leaving Newark he was announced that he had accepted a position in Kingston-upon-Thames.

The Longcliffe club in Loughborough was formed in 1906 but had previously been a small private course belonging to Colonel E M P De Lisle who employed Hugh as his private professional. De Lisle promised the club an 18 hole course over his land. On advice from Hugh’s brother Tom, the initial target was reduced to 12 as the other acreage was arable land which had first to be planted with grass. De Lisle also hired Hugh and a gang of men ‘who were at work making bunkers and properly setting the ground out’. Once he had laid down his spade Hugh became the first professional and stayed there until 1910. He then moved to the Parkstone club in Dorset where he was professional until 1927.

Towards the end of his time in Dorset he became the principal of the Stadium Golf Manufacturing Company, in London. The company specialised in technical innovation, many of its clubs look “modern” even today. He had also patented his own golf club technology in 1924, a club with a separate hosel which screwed into the blade and reducing the weight of that hosel by using a lighter metal than used for the blade to concentrate more weight in the head and improve the balance of the club. Perhaps rhe popularity of the company’s clubs with collectors today was not matched by purchases at the time as it was dissolved in 1934.

Hugh did travel quite extensively to play in tournaments, to the 1902 Trafford Park tournament, effectively a Manchester Open, to the Baden-Baden tournament of 1912, which Tom also entered, and Open qualifying in, at least 1922 (when he did qualify and finished 46th) 1923, 1924 and 1926, without ever having the success his brother did. His tournament success came at the end of his career with a win in Switzerland. After his time at Parkstone there was a familiar arrangement. Tom designed a course in Zürich, Hugh did the digging and, when it was done, became professional at the club. Jackson records that Hugh won the 1928 Swiss Open. This is not the case as, for some reason, the Open was not held that year so I suspect it was a closed professional tournament in which he triumphed.

He was back in Nottingham playing an exhibition foursome with Tom in 1934 and described as ‘late of the Zurich GC’ and does not appear to have taken on any further professional engagements. He died in Swanage Cottage Hospital, Dorset, on 15 June 1935.

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