Horace and Robert Rawlins
A HISTORY MAKER
What has the winner of the US ‘Open’ golf championship and Shoreham College got in common?
so, where to start? Well, it was interesting to discover that a winner of the United States ‘Open’ Golf Championship had enrolled his son at Shoreham Grammar School; later renamed Shoreham College.
It was more than an ‘Open,’ it is famous for being the very first US Open and, not only that, it was won by an English golfer. The match was held on the 4th October, 1895 at the Newport Golf Club, Rhode Island in America. The young, 21 year old English golfer who worked as an assistant at the club, entered the competition, won the title plus a silver trophy, $150 prize money and a gold medal. His name is Horace Thomas Rawlins and thirty one years after this event, his son was a pupil at Shoreham Grammar School.
How did Rawlins become a world champion? It’s an interesting story. Hailing from the Isle of Wight, the 1891census describes him at the age of 16, working as a ‘golf caddie,’ carrying clubs for members, at the same time, learning his craft and probably playing a round of golf when he had the chance. By 1895 he was a professional golfer and crossed the Atlantic to take up the post as assistant at the Newport club. It was an amazing time for golf in America. The game of golf was in its infancy, and there were wealthy people who wanted to join a club and learn to play golf. Space was no problem, but the courses had to be designed and built. This was the time when people like Rawlins and many famous Scottish golfers of that period, decided to travel to America to try their luck and play their golf in America for a time. With their knowledge and expertise, the early professionals were much in demand in Britain and in America. They were involved in all aspects of the game, teaching, repairing and making golf clubs and the gutta-percha balls played with at that time. Contemporary American newspapers record how these professionals travelled around America working on golf course design and playing in tournaments. Although, Rawlins didn’t win any more major tournaments, he was runner up to the Scottish golfer, James Foulis, in the 1896 US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
When Horace Rawlins’s son, Robert, was registered as a pupil at Shoreham Grammar School in 1926, it was as aboarder and he stayed for two years under the headship of Mr Samuel Gregory-Taylor who founded The Old Shorehamers’ Association in 1927. We will never know exactly why the family decided to send their son to Shoreham, but it seems to have been a thriving school with about 300 pupils, some day pupils and some boarders and being situated near the sea, parents probably associated the school with fresh air and a healthy life. The boys, at that time, took their examinations, the Cambridge Locals, in December and often left the school afterwards. Robert Rawlins left in December, 1928. The headmaster, Samuel Gregory-Taylor died two years later. He had been headmaster from 1894 to 1930, a total of 36 years and through the dreadful time of the First World War when the Old Shorehamers’ Association lost many members in the conflict.
This is a brief history of a notable father who made the decision to send his son to school at Shoreham. It’s worth a look at the Museum website to see a photograph of the very impressive gold medal won by Horace Thomas Rawlins in 1895. Fortunately, it has survived and is now in the care of the United States Golf Association Museum. www.usgamuseum.com
Ann Read, MA
November 2011