February 2018 H.F. Smith's Items

February 2018 Items donated by H.F. Smith's son to the Collection.

 

                                      

 

Peter Ainsworth was able to provide the following information :-

H.F. Smith is probably the best amateur billiard player you have never heard of. Being an amateur, I don't have much information on him, but he crops up in my records from 1930 when he first enters the English Amateur Billiards Championship, and he continues as a regular competitor in this event until 1960. His best results in the championship were to reach the semi-final on two separate occasions, in 1932 and 1937. I have a note of him playing exhibition matches with the likes of Claude Falkiner, and Tom Newman, in the 1930s, and the best break that I can find reported for him is 266.
 
The French magazine is interesting. This relates to an initiative which as far as I can tell from reports appearing in England, was set up in 1937 to include snooker and English billiards, and was essentially the forerunner to the European Billiards and Snooker Championships, having representatives selected by various National Associations for competition in Beaulieu-sur-mer, France, between 10th-19th April of that year. Smith was nominated by the Billiards Association and Control Council, along with Joe Thompson (English Billiards Champion), to represent England in the inaugural event, and although there was no official representative from England in 1938, when the competition was held in Marseilles, Smith again appeared, presumably in a private capacity.

In 1939 he was again selected for this tournament by the BA&CC along with the English Billiards Champion of that year, Tom Jones, when the event was again held in Marseilles. The war put an end to the development of this initiative, or it might otherwise have been more closely associated with the current European championships. The events weren't well covered by the press in this country and I suspect it may have been a multi-cue sport event, including the various Continental carom games.

My references to him stop in the early part of 1960. I might be able to find out more with a bit of digging, but presumably his relatives can fill in much of his background.

Acknowledgement - Peter Ainsworth for the information and picture of Jean Albert, Tom Jones & H.F. Smith