Wilfred Eade Agar 1882-1951

Abstract

Wilfred Eade Agar was born on 27 April 1882, at Wimbledon, the seventh of nine children of Edward Larpent Agar and his wife Agnes, nee Henty. On his father’s side the family showed considerable legal ability. His father, a man of pronounced artistic talent, practised for a while as solicitor, but turned later to a more lucrative business career, and was able to retire quite early, devoting himself to various charitable enterprises. But especially will he be remembered as one of the founders—indeed the principal founder—of the game of hockey in its present form, and was chairman of a meeting of Hockey Clubs, held in the Holborn Restaurant, London, which in 1887 resulted in the formation of the Hockey Association in Britain. A great-grandfather was William Agar, K.C. (died 1838), of Elm Lodge, in the Parish of St Pancras, London, who was himself grandson of Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor, created Baron Talbot of Hensol. On his mother’s side he was related to the Sussex family Henty, noted for their pioneering in three Australian colonies. G. A. Henty, the best known writer of boys’ story books at the time, was a cousin of his mother. His earliest education in reading and arithmetic was undertaken by his mother, and it was not till the age of eight that he went to school—a ‘dame’ school—where all but the mysteries of Latin and football were entrusted to women. This school he left at the age of ten, to attend a private school for boys conducted by a Mr C. D. Olive. Teaching was strictly classical, and began daily with two hours of Latin and Greek, and some short Bible reading, and at the age of thirteen or fourteen the boys were already composing Latin verses in elegiac couplets. From here he went, at fifteen, to Sedbergh, and was admitted direct into the upper school, his proficiency in Latin being favourably commented upon. Of this period at Sedbergh he writes in later life: ‘I think I enjoyed my three years there as much as any normal boy can enjoy the restricted and disciplined life of a boarding school—especially a boy who combines the disadvantages of being better than the average in class work, with smallness of stature and incompetence at organized games. It was at Sedbergh that I first began to enjoy my school work, though I think what I really enjoyed was the intellectual exercise. So far as I can remember I did not find—and did not expect to find—that it bore any relation to my real interests. For them, I lived for my holidays.’