Tebbutt Family

The Tebbutt Family can probably be called the world's first notable "hockey family". Their efforts in propagating the sport in their native Fens (where they played for the Bury Fen Bandy Club), other parts of England, and even Europe as a whole, were tireless and significant.

Charles Prentice Tebbutt (1824-1910) was the patriarch of the family. He was born in Bluntisham and was a landowner and farmer for all his entire life, although he did also become a bank manager in St. Ilves in 1856. Charles Prentice was active in the community and served in numerous capacities both with the parish and the church. At his funeral, the minister described him as "one of the purest, humblest, and most Christian men" he had ever met.

He was also an avid bandy player who captained the Bury Fen club during the 1850s and continued playing the sport well into the 1870s. Charles Prentice had five sons: Neville (1852), Sidney (1854), Arnold (1858), Charles Goodman (1860-1944) and Louis (1862), all of whom took up the sport his well. His daughter Alice Mary (1868) also played, but obviously not to the same extent as her brothers.

The Goodman Family were also prominent bandy propagators. Neville Goodman (1831-1890), who also served as captain of the Bury Fen team, was among the founders of the National Skating Association in 1879. The Goodmans and Tebbutts shared a family connection - Neville's sister, Mary (1828-1901), was married to Charles Prentice Tebbutt. So Neville Goodman was uncle to the five Tebbutt sons, which explains Charles' middle name of "Goodman" and the first name "Neville" being given to the firstborn son (b. 1852). Neville Goodman's own son, Roger Neville (1862-1941), also played for the Bury Fen club and captained the team in 1891.

In December 1860, Neville Goodman and Charles Prentice Tebbutt visited London in an attempt to better acquaint the city with the sport of bandy (although bandy/hockey had been played there informally since at least the 1790s). Neville Tebbutt wrote of this event in 1896: "One afternoon in the bitterly cold winter of 1860-61, the late Mr Neville Goodman, of Cambridge, one of the best and most enthusiastic players, and Mr C. P. Tebbutt of Bluntisham, picked up players from the chance skaters on the lake at Crystal Palace, and improvising goals, played a game after a fashion."

Together with Frederick Jewson (another Bury Fen club player), Arnold Tebbutt wrote the first ever codified bandy rules which were published in the Handbook of Fen Skating in 1882. Following the famous 1891 match between Bury Fen and the Virginia Water Hockey Club, the National Bandy Association was created, and formal rules were adopted for all of England. Four of the Tebbutt brothers were present at the first ever meeting where it was formed. Arnold Tebbutt served as chair while Charles Goodman was captain of the Bury Fen team at the time.

Arnold moved to Winchester in the winter of 1890-91 and formed the first bandy club in the city. Charles Goodman Tebbutt spearheaded an effort to introduce bandy to the Netherlands in 1891, and he visited the country, playing three games with the Bury Fen team. Charles Goodman also made efforts to introduce the sport to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In 1899, the Bury Fen team visited Berlin.

Possibly the most significant contribution made by the Tebbutt's (at least from a historian's perspective), specifically Charles Goodman, Neville, and Arnold, was their writings on the sport. Charles Goodman wrote an article on bandy in Skating (1892), and the three brothers all contributed to the writing of A Handbook of Bandy; or, Hockey on the Ice in 1896 (although Arnold was credited as the author). Without these and several other lesser works, much of the history of bandy in the Fens and throughout England, would be lost today.