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HERBERT BEETHAM - IMMACULATE 'GREEN BAIZE' CHAMPION

The number of 'world champions' who have walked routinely in our midst here in Derbyshire is by definition quite limited. One of the most revered of that rare breed was Derby-born Herbert Beetham, whose prowess at billiards took him to the very top of that once highly-popular game. Here Peter Seddon - who himself had the rare pleasure of playing against the former world champion - pays tribute to a true gentleman of sport.

Derby-born Herbert Beetham (1909-92) with some of the trophies he won playing billiards

James ‘Herbert’ Beetham was born in April 1909 at 80 Havelock Road, Normanton, Derby – that was the factory house to the family soft drinks manufacturing business White Brothers which he was later to run for many years.

Apart from becoming a well-known figure in Derby business circles, Herbert Beetham’s lasting claim to fame was in the field of sporting achievement – he was three times English Amateur Billiards champion and won the World Amateur Billiards title on one occasion.

Herbert Beetham was educated at Derby Municipal Secondary School – the predecessor of Bemrose School – and spent the greater part of his childhood at 52 Derby Lane, where the family had moved when he was one year old.

None of his family was seriously interested in billiards, but his father James Beetham played for fun on a small-sized table and it was here that young Herbert discovered a natural talent for the game.

Yet he belied the ‘misspent youth’ stereotype so often attributed to billiards and snooker players, for he honed his skills not in seedy smoke-filled billiard halls but in the quiet and sober confines of St. Thomas’s Church Institute in the Pear Tree district of Derby.

Even then, he did not take to the game seriously until he was nineteen, but his progress thereafter was startling. And this was a time when billiards - not the ‘upstart’ pastime of snooker - was far and away the leading game played on the green baize.

In 1932 he entered the English billiards championships and three years later reached the final, where he was beaten by the narrow margin of only thirty points. By then he had married Maude Smith of Walbrook Road, and in 1934 the couple moved to Park Lane, Littleover, where Herbert remained until the end of his life.

He was runner-up in the English championship for a second time in 1946, and yet again in 1952 and 1959. But he pressed on undeterred and finally became English Amateur Billiards champion in March 1960, a triumph he repeated in both 1961 and 1963.

By then he had attained an even greater standing in the game by winning the World Amateur Billiards championship in Edinburgh in the summer of 1960, when he defeated the Irish champion Walter Driffield by 1,173 points to 845.

Naturally a player of such outstanding ability shone on the local scene also. By 1931 he was the Derby Institutes Association Billiards champion, and won the title on many occasions thereafter.

He was for many years a member of the St. Thomas’s Church Institute team - with Reg Barber, George Mumby, and Billy Keenan – which was top of the Derby Institutes ‘A’ Division Billiards League every year from 1936 until 1960.

He continued to dominate the local scene into his senior years, latterly entering knockout tournaments as the representative of the Beaconsfield Club in Green Lane.

Nor did he forsake the wider stage, for he entered the English Amateur Billiards Championship every year until his death, when he passed away on 22 April 1992, aged 82.

The name of Herbert Beetham rests in the world sporting annals as a leading figure in the once thriving and rather cerebral game of billiards, now largely superseded by the flashier and ‘more exciting’ spectacle of snooker.

Nor can his influence on the game locally be underestimated. He was a founder member of the Derbyshire Billiards and Snooker Association and its first president, who spent considerable time in organising and refereeing tournaments within the county. He was also Derbyshire’s representative on the Billiards and Snooker Control Council.

Notwithstanding his sporting ability and business acumen, Herbert Beetham was above all a thoroughly nice man. Those who made his acquaintance almost always spoke of him as ‘a true gentleman’, and invariably remarked upon his ‘immaculate appearance' and 'smart attire’ - in later life he seldom appeared in public without his trademark three piece suit, although in extremely hot weather he might have taken the considerable liberty of removing his jacket.

After his death a tribute in the Billiards Quarterly Review said of him: ‘No gathering of billiards enthusiasts was complete without Herbert Beetham’s kindly presence. Something in all of us has died with him.’

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County:  Derbyshire

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