Thanks to Michael Squires, Gary Lucas and Tony Dayman for their contributions.
In particular thanks to Tony for use of material from his excellent book ‘The History of The Bournemouth & District Bowling Association’ published in 2006.
For details of previous winners and runners up please visit the Past Finalists page.
Some bowls had probably been played in Bournemouth before 1900, but the formation of organised clubs and permanent greens did not happen until early in the 20th century. A Bournemouth resident Henry Newman had become interested in the game of bowls after visiting Scotland in 1898. Around 1900 after Henry had found others interested in playing the game, the local council allowed them to play on the tennis courts in Meyrick Park. As the numbers playing increased they were then allowed to play on the Meyrick Park croquet lawn, but only for one afternoon a week.
The Bournemouth Bowling Club was formed in 1903 and the croquet lawn was converted into a permanent bowling green, opening for play in May 1904. Henry Newman was the first president of Bournemouth BC. The council provided other greens and more clubs soon formed in Bournemouth including Alum Chine, Boscombe Cliff, Kings Park and Richmond Park. These five clubs were the founder members of The Bournemouth & District Bowling Association in 1906. By the time of the first open tournament in 1909 there were also bowls clubs at Argyll Gardens and Poole Park.
The idea to hold the first open tournament came in 1908 from Harry Miell, a member of Bournemouth BC who was also secretary of the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association. Initially there seemed little enthusiasm for the event from his club colleagues, but by March 1909 it had been agreed that Bournemouth BC would be organising an event with the title of ‘The Bowling Championship of the South Coast’.
Open bowls tournaments were being held regularly in Scotland at this time, but in England this was to be the first open tournament run to a definite programme and timetable. There was just a singles competition with 62 entrants and all the games were played on the single green at Meyrick Park between the 9 – 13 August 1909. The majority of competitors were local with at least 38 players from Bournemouth clubs, including 25 members of the host club Bournemouth BC. The other bowlers came from Southampton, Isle of Wight, Alton, Oxford, London, Devon, Leicester and Cumbria. The tournament was reported to be a success during a week of good weather. In the semi finals William Tod (Silloth BC) beat G Tidby (Bournemouth) 21-8 and D.C Brown (Alton) beat A Cripps (Oxford City) 21-12. There was an easy victory for William in the final winning 21-3. The winner received a £10 cup, the runner up a £5 cup and the two losing semi finalists a £2 cup each. The prizes were presented by Henry Newman, president of Bournemouth BC.
William Tod (1857-1931) won the Bournemouth singles again in 1910, one of only five players to retain the singles title in the competition’s history. He was born at Dunning Perthshire, on leaving school he went to work for the railway at Perth, moving to Silloth as a railway clerk in the late 1870s. Besides his railway job he ran a business called Silloth Sea-washed Turf well into the 1920s. With turf cut from the Silloth marshes loaded onto his lorry he laid out many of the bowling greens in the North of England and South and Central Scotland. He won a great many other bowls trophies and was an England International in 1904. It is known that he used to cut Silloth bowling green with a scythe! The original trophy presented to William Tod in 1909 was presented to Silloth BC in 2006 and is now played for as a Champion of Champions club competition trophy.
In 1910 the organisation of the open tournament was taken over by the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association and the number of entries was almost double that of 1909. The event took place on four greens from Monday 8 – Friday 12 August. William Tod again won the final convincingly 21-5 against H Smith of Bedford. In 1911 T Peters of Painswick Gloucestershire beat George Wright of Kettering 21-12 to take the 12 Guineas first prize. Entry numbers continued to increase and had reached 244 by 1914. The winner in both 1912 and 1913 was C.G (Dick) Gillespie (South London) an English international player in 1911 and 1912. The 1914 tournament saw the first local winner, Earnest Dean (Richmond Park) who beat another local bowler J Barnes (Argyll) in the final.
1911 saw the staging of the first Hastings Open Tournament which was to become the most popular of the south coast tournaments for many years. Although league bowls and local championships in Bournemouth did continue throughout the First World War, there was no Bournemouth Tournament between 1915 and 1918.
The tournament resumed after the First World War in 1919 with a slightly reduced field of 214. The winner was a well-known player of the time D Irvine Watson from South London, an English international skip who had won the EBA Singles in 1914. One change was that the finals were held at Richmond Park BC. The reason for this was that Bournemouth BC had fallen out with the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association and resigned their membership of the association in 1916. In fact, they did not rejoin the association until 1922. During the early 1920s there was some concern about the standard of the greens in Bournemouth with several requests made from clubs to Bournemouth council to relay greens. In 1925 due to the condition of the greens there was some doubt as to whether or not the tournament would take place that year.
In 1921 a pairs competition was introduced with 75 pairs entering. The final was an all-local affair with J Steele and E Dean (Richmond Park) winning 21-7 against W Felstead and R Hutchinson of Bournemouth.
A new singles trophy was presented to the tournament by the Bournemouth Chamber of Trade in 1923 – this original trophy has since been given back to the Chamber of Trade and now sits in a display cabinet at the Mayors Parlour at Bournemouth Town Hall. By now the format of playing early rounds at a number of greens and then the final stages at one green had been established. From 1923 onwards the final stages were back at Meyrick Park which continued until 2000.
By 1925 the number of singles entrants had not really increased and 234 entered that year. The winner’s prize was 12 Guineas, but there was also prizes down to the last 16 in the singles. In this year the Mayor of Bournemouth invited players and their ladies to take afternoon tea at the Town Hall on Friday 7 August “Tea will be served in the grand hall and his Worship The Mayor has promised to attend. Chars-a banc will convey from greens to the town hall.”
A consolidation rinks competition was introduced in 1926 which had 57 entries, but was relatively short-lived only lasting for three years. The number of competitors was slowly increasing with over 300 singles entries being received in 1932 and 182 pairs entries. That year saw the only overseas winner of the singles J.F Hosking of Auckland, New Zealand. The 1934 winner W Ruthven (Chiswick) had not previously won anything of note. In 1935 he won the Ealing & Southend tournaments and the Bournemouth singles again. In the Bournemouth tournment that year in the semi final he beat H.P Webber of Torbay, a former EBA Singles champion and in the final he beat W.J Jones of Crouch Hill, another former EBA Singles winner and an English international skip.
In 1935 the first ladies tournament was organised during the tournament week with 53 singles and 34 pairs. In the singles Mrs Barnsley (Bournemouth) won 21-7 against Mrs Homewood (Southbourne). From 1940 the ladies organised a separate tournament in July and this continued until 2002 when it was discontinued due to falling entry numbers for one reason.
In 1936 two new greens were laid in Meyrick Park to provide more greens in central Bournemouth, as a criticism of Bournemouth was that the greens used in the tournament were too widely spread compared to Hastings which had a large number of greens in a central location. Hastings however was still the most popular open tournament, being held over two weeks in August and in 1937 having 629 singles, 295 pairs and 208 triples entries.
The 1939 Bournemouth tournament saw a record entry of 339 singles and 194 pairs, the tournament was firmly established as one fo the most popular and prestigious of the English open bowls tournaments. Once again the War meant a break for the tournament until 1945.
The tournament saw steady growth in the 1940s and 1950s, but little detail is available on entry numbers currently. 1954 saw a donation of a trophy for the pairs, the Earnest Dean Trophy which is still in use today. In 1959 a triples competition was started and the entries received in that year were 376 singles, 204 pairs and 83 triples. A.W Hornby of Christchurch donated a silver trophy for the triples competition, the Ivor Rose Bowl.
Walter Phillips (Boscombe Cliff) an English international player won the singles in 1950 and 1954. Harold Shapland another English international from Tiverton, Devon won both the singles and the pairs in 1956 as well as winning the pairs again in 1960. The 1960s saw little growth in the tournament entry numbers. In 1964 the Bournemouth & District President Jack Galton donated a trophy for the runner up in the singles. Peter Line (Banister Park) had great success in the tournament winning the singles four times between 1964 – 1970. Another famous player from that period Percy Baker (Poole Park) never won the tournament, being a runner up to the 20 year old Ben Baker (Melcombe Regis) in 1960. Ben had been playing in tournaments with his father since 1947 when only aged 7 and was banned from playing in county competitions aged 10 when he was told he had to wait until he was 17!
By 1970 the prize for the singles winner was £100 and the entry fee was 7 shillings. There were 19 people on the tournament committee at that time. Competitors and their ladies were invited to attend the Mayoral reception 8pm-11pm on the Friday evening. At that time not all of the greens in Bournemouth were used – greens used in the 1970 tournament were Meyrick Park, Queens Park, Richmond Park, Swanmore and Southbourne.
The 1970s saw a rapid increase in the size of the tournament, compared to Hastings where numbers peaked in the 1960s before starting to fall. At Bournemouth by 1977 the number of singles entries was over 500 and reached a peak of around 650 during the 1980s and 1990s. Entries recorded in 1993 were 656 singles, 400 pairs and 240 triples. The tournament had become very popular indeed, so much so that if you did not put your entry in during the early part of the tournament week, you would not get in for the next year. This big increase in numbers also meant a big commitment from the local clubs involved, finding markers for 650 singles games must have been no easy task! With the increased numbers more greens were also needed to complete the tournament within the week, so all greens in Bournemouth were used as well as Christchurch, Iford Bridge, Branksome Park and Alexandra Park. In total 25 greens at 18 different sites were used.
By the late 1970s the association was also obtaining sponsorship for the tournament and sponsorship had been obtained in most years since then. Whilst this large increase in entry numbers had been happening, the prize money had remained relatively modest and it would appear that high prize money was not a factor in the increasing popularity of the tournament. The singles winner’s prize of £100 from the 1960s had not increased at all by 1980. The prizes then slowly increased and the singles prize had reached £1,000 by 1997. The tournament was still at this time attracting well-known bowlers with singles winners including David Ward (1981 and 1992), Tony Allcock (1990 and 1999), John Ottaway (1895) and David Gourlay (2000).
1997 was possibly a pivotal year for the tournament after which entry numbers rapidly declined. The tournament had no sponsor and the triples competition was cancelled due to rain affecting play and no prizes were given out. This lack of sponsorship occurred for several years which led to reduced prizes and for one year at least there were no prizes even for singles semi finalists. Also in 1997 the council started closing greens with the two greens at Spion Kop (Meyrick Park) being closed, more greens were to be closed within the next few years.
The ladies tournament had been reasonably well supported up to the 1990s with 128 singles entries for the 1995 tournament. The ladies tournament stopped being run in 2002, but was re-introduced in 2005 as part of the men’s tournament week with the competitions being held at Moordown BC where they have been held since then.
In 2000 a mixed pairs event was introduced with the first winners being Carol Ashby and Tony Allcock. The introduction of new events did not manage to stop the fall in entry numbers though. In 2006 the centenary year of the Bournemouth & District, the singles winning prize was boosted to £2,000 but the entry was down to 218.
In 2007 after several years of losses on the tournament, the Bournemouth & District Association announced that it was no longer prepared to run the tournament. A group of bowlers formed an independent committee to continue running the tournament. This new committee consisted of Ron Barclay, Geoff Jones, Mike Squires, Roy Bray, Alan Tavener and Brian Winmill. The 2008 tournament was a success financially. As with other tournaments the entry numbers have still continued to fall slightly over the last few years. The 2017 tournament committee consisted of George Webb, Mike Squires, Gary Lucas and Mike Sykes. Sadly Alan Tavener who was due to be the main tournament organiser for 2017 passed away late in 2016.
In 2010 and 2011 complaints had been received about the poor standard of the Meyrick Park greens so it was decided to move the final stages of the event to other greens. Since then Argyll, Boscombe Cliff and Southbourne have been used for the tournament headquarters and final stages. Southbourne BC was selected to host the 2017 final stages for the prestigious 100th Bournemouth tournament and sponsorship for the event meant a prize fund of over £10,000.
The 101st tournament was held in 2018 and was set to be the last tournament run by Mike Squires following his ten years service to the tournament. There were 611 entries for the tournament consisting of 151 singles (both men and women), 191 pairs (both men and women), 172 triples (both men and women) and 97 mixed pairs.
Following Mike’s departure another local bowler Chris Dowding (Bournemouth BC) took up the mantle of running the tournament and sought to return the headquarters to Meyrick Park as with years gone by. The 102nd tournament introduced the concept of open singles, pairs and triples encompassing both men and women, alongside the mixed pairs competition. The 2019 tournament saw a reduced field of entrants with only 126 singles entries, 67 pairs, 40 triples and 49 mixed pairs. Despite the lack of support of local players the tournament saw the most new entrants playing in the tournament for the first time. Unfortunately due to other circumstances Chris stepped down from organising the tournament after the one year.
In 2020 Neil Smith and his daughter Katy, two of the management from the successful Open Singles Circuit (OSC), took over the event alongside Tom Warner and Dan Steadman – both local bowlers with experience of the tournament over a number of years. Unfortunately due to the Covid-19 pandemic the tournament did not go ahead in 2020. Following a tough decision the Smiths stepped down from the committee, and also their roles with the OSC, to focus on other interests outside of bowls. Tom and Dan agreed to stay on and run the tournament and were grateful when Mike Squires agreed to come back into the fold to assist. The 103rd tournament will take place in 2021 and will hopefully carry on for many years to come.
Men’s Singles Winner (The Melbourne Cup)
The very first trophy awarded to William Tod was a cup worth £10. The first perpetual trophy was the Chamber of Trade Challenge Trophy presented in 1923 which cost 50 Guineas. This trophy was replaced by The Melbourne Cup in 2008 which was presented to the tournament by Ron Barclay. The Chamber of Trade Trophy was given back to the Bournemouth Chamber of Trade and now resides in a display cabinet in the Mayors Parlour at Bournemouth Town Hall.
Men’s Singles Runner Up (The Galton Trophy)
This trophy was presented to the tournament in 1964 by Jack Galton who was President of the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association in that year.
Men’s Pairs Winners (The Ernest Dean Pairs Challenge Cup)
This impressive trophy was presented in 1954 by Freda Dean in memory of her father Ernest Dean who had been a prominent figure in Bournemouth Bowls for many years. He was the President of the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association on two occasions and a winner of the tournament singles and pairs.
Men’s Triples Winners (The Ivor Rose Bowl)
Presented by F.W Hornby of Christchurch in 1959, the year the triples competition started.
Mixed Pairs Winners (The James King Challenge Vase)
Presented in 2001 by James King, a former president of the Bournemouth & District Bowling Association,