Source: Radio New Zealand
Marjorie Bain was the first NZ woman to compete at Wimbledon in 1922. Supplied
In 1922 Marjorie Bain set sail on the trip of a life-time to the motherland, became the first woman to represent New Zealand at Wimbledon, and spent a magical winter on continental Europe.
But when her year’s leave was up she wasn’t ready to return to New Zealand, and eloped with an Australian she met on the grass courts.
She was the envy of her friends, but little did they know the hardships she would come to face before she was rescued from poverty, and returned to New Zealand 13 years later.
Unfortunately Tennis NZ archives are sporadic at best and Marjorie’s Wimbledon appearance is not widely known but it’s what happened to her after the prestigious tournament that really shaped her.
Marjorie’s granddaughter Penny O’Connell said details had been pieced together over the years.
Marjorie Helen Bain was born in 1897 and grew up in Christchurch, where her family were of modest means but in the background was a wealthy widowed aunt, who lived in Queensland.
Marjorie flourished at tennis, playing for Christchurch Girls’ High, Canterbury University, and at the national lawn championships.
In her twilight years, Marjorie wrote a book for her family, full of her memories, and recounted going to Auckland to see US Davis Cup players compete against New Zealand “and our own Anthony Wilding who was so soon to be killed in France.”
Anthony Wilding (middle) in 1914; one of NZs greatest sportsmen. He was a world No.1 player and considered the world’s first tennis superstar.
Marjorie wrote about the black influenza that swept through New Zealand after the first World War ended.
The rich aunt
In 1922 the rich aunt offered to take Marjorie on the trip of a lifetime to England and continental Europe. She was in her mid 20s and her two sisters were married, so Marjorie was the obvious choice.
The aunt’s husband had found a nugget on the goldfields but died young while electioneering to be the Premier of Queensland, leaving her rich.
Her aunt travelled on cargo ships, which only took 12 passengers, and she ruled at elite roost at the captain’s table.
Some passengers called her the W.O.D. short for “wicked old devil” but Marjorie also saw her as a “veritable fairy Godmother”.
Marjorie was granted a year’s leave from her teaching job and the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association nominated her for Wimbledon.
In reference to her actual results at the tournament Marjorie later wrote – “I shan’t tell you want happened to me at Wimbledon.”
It wasn’t until 1951 that Evelyn Webster became the second New Zealand woman to compete at Wimbledon.
Marjorie Bain sent a postcard home from the 1922 Wimbledon Championships. Supplied
The 1922 Wimbledon Championships marked the tournament’s move to its current premises on Church Road, amid forecasts at the time that the place would become a white elephant.
The family still has Marjorie’s competitor card and postcards. In one of them Marjorie described the now iconic centre court grand-stand as a “huge circular concrete affair” and wrote “give me New Zealand climate every time”.
The 1922 Wimbledon Championships are widely considered the most disrupted tournament in its history with rain interruptions every day.
Marjorie fell in love with England and took in theatre productions and concerts in London’s West End, then travelled to the Continent with her aunt, where they visited France, Italy, Switzerland, and Paris.
The inventor husband
At the Wimbledon centre court her fierce aunt, who acted as a chaperone, warned her niece not to get mixed up with the Australian representative Herbert Tasman Ethelbert Davies, an official at the tournament.
Herbert was a metallurgist from Melbourne University, charming and clever. But the aunt warned that he was an inventor and called him a ‘rolling stone’. In today’s words, aunty believed that Herbert was a flake.
But Marjorie ignored the cautions and the pair eloped to Paris to get married in a registry office, thereby antagonizing the aunt who sailed back to Brisbane.
The couple returned to London and then in Marjorie’s own words “followed years of anxiety, mixed with a brave attempt at happiness …an erratic husband and a more than erratic livelihood don’t spell real happiness.”
Marjorie Bain and her 1922 Wimbledon competitors card. Supplied
Herbert, who floated companies for developments and patents, had no money sense whatsoever.
Sometimes there would be lots of money, then nothing. Unpaid bills, and frequent moving around England became the norm as the family tried to dodge the debt collectors.
In 1923 Marjorie’s first child John was born and in 1928 Barbara (Biddy) was born.
Decades later Marjorie’s daughter Biddy [Barbara] wrote down some early memories of those times.
At one of their brief addresses in England, Biddy described an old railway carriage at the bottom of the garden – “where occasional explosions occurred as my father continued his experiments.”
Marjorie sent this postcard of the new Wimbledon venue to her family in Christchurch. Supplied
Years later Marjorie reflected “I decided that my mission in life was to reform him. Alas, my dear, never flatter yourself you can reform anyone.”
For nine years Marjorie struggled on, forgiving Herbert and starting again. She pawned her last scraps of jewellery and earned what little she could.
Wrote Biddy – “At times we were rich, with a nanny and maids all in uniform, other times when the bubble burst there was no money at all. Then another woman entered the scene, and my mother grabbed her two children and left.”
That’s when the hardship really kicked-in.
Penniless
Perhaps pride prevented Marjorie from telling her family back in Christchurch that she had left Herbert because in true post-Victorian fashion it was a disgrace to have lost your man.
Marjorie, her two children, and their beloved dog travelled by train wherever she could find jobs, not easy in the depths of the Great Depression.
Biddy, who passed away in 2022, wrote that they moved frequently because her mother thought Herbert might try to retrieve his son if he found them.
Marjorie did all kinds of jobs – she was a cook, a housekeeper in a boarding house, made and sold bread, and read to the blind.
“Many years later my brother told me that during this period he used to worry that if she died nobody would know who we were and we’d be put in an orphanage,” wrote Biddy.
When Marjorie’s brother was on his O.E. he decided to find her and reported back to the family that they were living in appalling circumstances.
The aunt was consulted and was still smarting from her niece’s elopement, but reluctantly agreed to pick Marjorie and her two children up the next time round.
Marjorie’s children John and Biddy and their beloved dog. Supplied
One day they found two bailiffs waiting in the hall so they moved next door where Marjorie cared for an old man and the kids went to huge grey slummy London schools.
In 1935 the aunt rescued them. She didn’t like children, particularly girls and Biddy recalled that she didn’t talk to her for six weeks at sea.
The weary family disembarked at Cashel Street, Christchurch.
Peace and security at last
The aunt had offered the family a house near Brisbane, but while they were waiting to travel to Queensland, Labour won the 1935 election and for the first time five year-olds were to be admitted into school.
Old teacher friends begged Marjorie to stay to help alleviate the teacher shortage, so she offended the aunt again by staying there.
The family boarded for two years before Marjorie managed to procure a mortgage for her own home, describing it as “peace and security at last”.
Marjorie never mentioned Herbert but she kept her married name and was Mrs Davies to the hundreds of primary school students she taught in Christchurch.
John and Biddy were brought up to believe that their father had died, though much later the siblings found that neither believed it.
After Marjorie’s death in 1966 at the age of 69 her close friend told Biddy “…We were all green with envy when we heard that this lively attractive girl, popular with the boys, and a tennis star, had married. A few years later she arrived back home with two children; not a man in sight and never a word of explanation!”
When it came to the welfare of her pupils Marjorie used the direct approach, such as tackling the Education Board over the lack of fire exits at her school.
Marjorie represented Canterbury at the national lawn championships. Supplied
Penny recounts – “Mum used to tell me about how she marched into a Board meeting with an axe over her shoulder as a demonstration because she was so furious.”
Years prior, when her two young children went to a school in London, one was so stuffy that Marjorie threatened to throw a brick through a window if they didn’t open them.
In 1946 her son John was awarded the very first Ernest Rutherford scholarship, and eventually became a Professor and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Birmingham University.
During one of Marjorie’s return visits to Britain in the 1950s she taught under-privileged children in London schools.
Penny remembers several visits from Granny Marjorie – a “fun, kind, colourful” matriarch.
“She was a very strong character, headstrong in the face of tough times. It was hard being a woman on her own back then. My mother [Biddy] said those early years made them resilient and very loyal to each other,” Penny said.
For the record, Marjorie and her French doubles partner had a walkover in the first round of Wimbledon and then gave their opponents the next round (a walkover) so no tennis was played. In the singles, Marjorie lost her first round match 6-0 6-0.
The shortest women’s final ever recorded at Wimbledon happened in the same year when the legendary Suzanne Lenglen of France defeated American player Molla Bjurstedt Mallory 6-2, 6-0. The 23 minute record still stands today.
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