Robert George Graham
Robert George Graham (born Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, 2 January 1845, died Hampton, Middlesex, April 1922) was a British sportsman.
Sportsman
Graham served as both secretary and treasurer of the Football Association from 1867 to 1870.[1] The future for the FA did not look promising at this time: only ten clubs were members,[2] resulting in low attendance at the 1867 annual meeting.[3] During the next year, Graham attempted to increase membership by writing to every known club in the country.[4] This increased membership to thirty by 1868, but did not prevent the association from running out of money, with the officers having to cover expenses out of their own pockets.[5]
After his resignation as secretary in 1870, Graham continued to serve on the FA's committee from 1870 to 1871.[1]
He was also a member of Barnes Football Club, and served as secretary of that club in 1868.[6]
In both these posts, Graham succeeded Robert Willis, who married Graham's elder sister Helen in 1867.[7]
Graham won the English pole jump championship in 1869.[8] In 1895, he invented a captive golf-ball game, known as "Linka".[9]
Career
Graham worked as a stockbroker, and later a company director. For the last 36 years of his life, he also served as volunteer captain of the fire brigade of Hampton upon Thames, where he lived.[10][11]
Family
Graham was the father of the prolific novelist and anti-Mormon campaigner Winifred Graham.[10][12] After Robert's death, Winifred produced two books supposedly communicated by her father via automatic writing.[13][14]
Works
- Graham, R. G. (1899). "The Early History of the Football Association". The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. viii: 75-87.
Notes
- n.a. [Geoffrey Green] (1953). History of the Football Association. London: Naldrett Press. pp. 82–84.
- Graham, R. G. (1899). "The Early History of the Football Association". The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. viii: 79.
- "The Football Association". Bell's Life in London (2341): 9. 2 March 1867.
- Graham, R. G. (1899). "The Early History of the Football Association". The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. viii: 80-81.
- "Football Association". Sporting Life. London (939): 4. 29 February 1868.
- "Barnes Football Club". Sportsman: 3. 19 March 1868.
- "Cambridge: Married". Bury and Norwich Post: 6. 3 September 1867.
- "Football Celebrities Pass to the Great Beyond". Athletic News: 4. 17 April 1922.
- "About 'Linka': The Newest Thing in Golf". Westminster Budget: 19. 18 January 1895.
- "Borough News". West Middlesex Gazette: 4. 12 January 1924.
- "[no title]". West Middlesex Gazette: 7. 15 April 1922.
- "A New-Old Home". Leeds Mercury: 4. 25 August 1923.
- Graham, Winifred (1923). My Letters from Heaven: Being Messages from the Unseen World Given in Automatic Writing to Winifred Graham by Her Father, Robert George Graham. London: Hutchinson & Co.
- Graham, Winifred (1927). More Letters from Heaven: Being Messages from the Unseen World Given in Automatic Writing to Winifred Graham by Her Father, Robert George Graham. London: Hutchinson & Co.