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
  1. n.a. [Geoffrey Green] (1953). History of the Football Association. London: Naldrett Press. pp. 82–84.
  2. Graham, R. G. (1899). "The Early History of the Football Association". The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. viii: 79.
  3. "The Football Association". Bell's Life in London (2341): 9. 2 March 1867.
  4. 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.
  5. "Football Association". Sporting Life. London (939): 4. 29 February 1868.
  6. "Barnes Football Club". Sportsman: 3. 19 March 1868.
  7. "Cambridge: Married". Bury and Norwich Post: 6. 3 September 1867.
  8. "Football Celebrities Pass to the Great Beyond". Athletic News: 4. 17 April 1922.
  9. "About 'Linka': The Newest Thing in Golf". Westminster Budget: 19. 18 January 1895.
  10. "Borough News". West Middlesex Gazette: 4. 12 January 1924.
  11. "[no title]". West Middlesex Gazette: 7. 15 April 1922.
  12. "A New-Old Home". Leeds Mercury: 4. 25 August 1923.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
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