BROOKES, Sir Norman Everard KBE

BORN ON NOVEMBER 14TH, 1877, at St Kilda, Victoria. Wimbledon tennis champion Norman Brookes not only competed in curling in Australia and New Zealand, he released the first stane to introduce curling to Australia in Melbourne in 1933. He was the foundation president of the Victorian Curling Club, formed in Melbourne in 1933, the first in Australia. They toured to New Zealand in 1934 where the sport had been played for 50 or 60 years, then New Zealand toured Australia in 1935 (see article at link below).

Bobbie Jackson, the foundation captain of the Victorian ice hockey team, played in these first tournaments. Other foundation players included Captain Moffat-Pender, Captain McCormick, Roughton, Hattrick and Arthur Grenbury Outhwaite, husband of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888 – 1960), the famous children's illustrator, whose drawings sometimes appeared in Glaciettes magazine produced by Glaciarium Ltd in Melbourne (pictured in 1925 article at link below). Her father Rev Jouhn Laurence Rentoul (1846–1926) was Presbyterian mininster of St George's, Southport, Lancashire, when the Southport Glaciarium opened coinciding with the foundation of the National Skating Association. The wealthy congregation of St George's on Chapel Street, East St Kilda neighboured Rev John Reid's church. When they sought to attract a minister from Britain and offered a stipend of £800 per annum, the noted London preacher Oswald Dykes nominated Rentoul.

Brookes' wife was president of the Queen Victoria Hospital of Women and Children (formerly in Lonsdale St, Melbourne), which received over £200 proceeds from the Glaciarium Gala on July 14th, 1932. The Melbourne Glaciarium had a policy of donating the entire proceeds of a Gala annually to one of the public hospitals. [124] Brookes was educated at Melbourne Grammar School from where he matriculated in 1895, then started work as a junior clerk with the Australian Paper Mills Co Ltd. His father was managing director and owner with Captain Archibald Currie, and Norman was a director of the firm by 1904. He had excelled at cricket, football and lawn tennis while at school, showing a precocious aptitude for all ball games. He was an AFL footballer and later took up golf, winning the Victorian foursomes championship once and the Australian twice. He often competed with Hal Reid.

Brookes' great enthusiasm, however, was tennis and he devoted much of his time to improving his game. He was the first foreign player to win the Wimbledon men's singles championship in 1907, which he won again in 1914. He was part of the Australian Davis Cup team that won the trophy in 1907 and held it until 1911, creating great interest in the tournament in Australia. He still holds the Grand Slam records for the oldest tennis champion, winning the Men's doubles in 1924 at the age of 46 years and 2 months, and one of the few left-handed singles champions (1911). He was president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Victoria from 1925 until 1937; it was largely due to his enterprise that Kooyong, purchased in 1919, was developed as a tennis centre. In 1926 he became president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia, holding the office for twenty-eight years. He married Mabel Balcombe Emmerton, author and community worker. Brookes died at his home, Elm Tree House, South Yarra, on September 28th, 1968 and was buried in St Kilda cemetery. Mabel and two daughters survived him. [87] The trophy for men’s singles at the Australian Open is named in his honour and he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.