Snooker

I stumbled upon a bit of trivia a couple of months back.

As you probably know the game was invented in the nineteenth century by some British army officers in India. The man who is credited with inventing it was called Chamberlain. So what? you probably say. Did you know that he was the grandfather of Neville Chamberlain, the UK Prime Minister in 1939 who tried to appease Hitler and was eventually replaced, I think, by Winston Churchill?

Nice fact …. if it was correct. Unfortunately there is no connection between the two men.

Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain, of snooker fame, was born in 1856, and produced only one daughter, Nora Mary Chamberlain. She married Lord Wigram in 1912. Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister) was born in 1869, son of Joseph Chamberlain. The two Chamberlains were very nearly contemporaries.

Then I apologise unreservedly. It was in a book which I thought was a reliable source. I wouldn’t ever submit erroneous information to any site. There is already enough dubious stuff on the net. Maybe a moderator could oblige us all by deleting the entire thread.