Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

Tom Dunn
London

Thomas Dunn was a son of Willie Dunn Snr, who played against Allan Robertson and Tom Morris in the famous match of 1849, described in the entry for Tom Morris.

He was born in Musselburgh on 29 December 1849. In 1870 he joined his father in Edinburgh at the Thistle Golf Club in Leith. Willie was listed as clubmaker and Tom as ballmaker in the Post Office Directory. From 1871 to 1873 he is listed as working from 7 Buccleuch Place but he must have juggled this with his time in London. He married Isabella Gourlay in 1870 and they went to London with Tom becoming professional at the London Scottish club on Wimbledon Common where he also established a clubmaking business.

The family returned to Scotland in 1881 and Tom was employed as Keeper on the West Links in North Berwick and as clubmaster by the New Club. The latter position was ended in 1886 after complaints from members that he was not carrying out his duties and, to make matters worse, had asked for his house to be redecorated. After suffering from blood poisoning, Tom was advised to spend some time in the south of France (why can’t we have doctors like that now?) and so left the North Berwick business in the care of his son, John, and spent the winter of 1887 with his brother, Willie, laying out the course in Biarritz. In 1889 he went to France again without telling the Greens Committee. They sacked him and his response in a letter which said he had been told to do so urgently because of his health and the recovery had taken longer than expected may or may not have been believed but the committee paid him and added a bonus of Ł20.

He returned to London again, as professional and clubmaker at Tooting Bec club where he laid out the Furzedown course. Tom was also commissioned to lay out a course in Bournemouth in 1894 which gave rise to the family business T Dunn & Son with William.

Brother Willie had gone to America in 1891 and William, Tom’s son, also emigrated. Tom joined them in 1899, and worked for the Oriental & Manhattan Hotel Group supervising their golf courses in Florida.

His health failing, he returned to England in 1901 as head professional and greenkeeper at Hanger Hill where he laid out the course. He died from consumption (tuberculosis) in April 1902 at the Nordrach-on-Mendip sanatorium in Somerset.

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