Charles Victor Lisle Hooman (3 October 1887 – 20 November 1969), often known as Chubby Holman, was an English amateur sportsman who played

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

between 1907 and 1910.Charles Hooman

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2017-03-10. He won

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

for

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

rackets Racket may refer to: * Racket (crime), a systematised element of organized crime ** Protection racket, a scheme whereby a group provides protection to businesses or other groups through violence outside the sanction of the law * Racket (sports equ ...

and cricket and later represented the Great Britain and Ireland golf team in the Walker Cup in 1922 and 1923. He served in the

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the

RAF Volunteer Reserve The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) was established in 1936 to support the preparedness of the U.K. Royal Air Force in the event of another war. The Air Ministry intended it to form a supplement to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF) ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Early life and education

Hooman was born at

Ditton, Kent Ditton is a large village and civil parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. The village is west-northwest of Maidstone and east of West Malling. The parish, which is long and narrow, straddles the A20 (the old Dove ...

in 1887, the only son of

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

and Louisa Hooman. His father had been a

shipbroker Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators (i.e. brokers) between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers and ...

and manufacturer of

Portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th c ...

and had played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

for Wanderers, appearing in the

1872 FA Cup Final The 1872 FA Cup Final was a football match between Wanderers and Royal Engineers on 16 March 1872 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the final of the first staging of the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA C ...

, and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

.Lewis P (2013) ''For Kent and Country'', pp.209–211. Brighton: Reveille Press.Warsop K (2004) ''The Early FA Cup Finals and the Southern Amateurs'', pp. 89–90. SoccerData. The family moved to

Torquay Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton ...

and he was educated at

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

from 1901 where he played in the Cricket XI from 1903 to 1906, captaining the side in his final year, and won the Rackets Pairs competition at the Public Schools Championships in 1906.
Charterhouse Register, 1872–1910
', 1910 p.688. Godalming:

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

.Public Schools Championship
, Tennis and Rackets Association. Retrieved 2017-11-12. He went on to

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...

in 1906 to study Law. He played rackets, golf and cricket for the University winning

in all three.Hooman, Charles Victor Lisle
Obituaries in 1969, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1970. Retrieved 2017-11-12. He was Captain of the university golf club in 1909 and President in 1910 and played for England against Scotland in 1910 and won the 1907 University Rackets Pairs with Geoffrey Foster.Oxford and Cambridge Rackets Doubles
, Tennis and Rackets Association. Retrieved 2017-11-12.

Sporting career

Hooman played cricket for

Devon County Cricket Club Devon County Cricket Club (Devon Cricket) is one of 20 minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Devon. The team is currently a member of the National Counties Champion ...

in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

between 1906 and 1909 and made his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

debut in May 1907 for Oxford University Cricket Club against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

at the University Parks. He played for the University against the touring South Africans later the same season, but played no cricket in 1908 before appearing regularly in 1909 and 1910, including playing in the

University Match The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. From 2001, as part of the reorganisation of first-class cricket, ...

in both seasons and topping batting averages for the University.Charles Hooman
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-11-12. He played for the Gentlemen again the Players in 1910 and, after completing university, for

during remainder of the 1910 season. Kent won the County Championship for the second successive year and Hooman scored 1,070 runs in all first-class matches during the season, including 567 for Kent. He was awarded his county cap but did not play first-class cricket after the end of the 1910 season due to the pressure of his career. He played in a total of 38 first-class matches, including 21 for the University and 15 for Kent. He played for MCC against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

at the end of the 1910 season and made his final first-class appearance for Kent in the

Champion County match The Champion County match is a cricket match, traditionally played between the winner of the previous season's County Championship, and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The match was played at Lord's Cricket Ground for many seasons, but from 201 ...

later the same month. Hooman was described as "really outstanding cricketer" Darwin B (1922
Our Chances – in which the Well-Known Golfer and Writer Discusses the British Amateur Team
, ''Golf Illustrated'', September 1922, p.13. Retrieved 2017-11-12. and, in his obituary, as a "splendid batsman". He scored a total of 1,758 runs and made three first-class centuries with a high score of 117. After giving up cricket, Hooman continued to play golf regularly. He played for the British and Ireland team in the inaugural Walker Cup in 1922 and in

1923 Events January–February * January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory). * January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...

. He also represented England in their annual match against Scotland in 1910 and 1922. He was described as a strong driver of the ball and

Bernard Darwin Bernard Richard Meirion Darwin CBE JP (7 September 1876 − 18 October 1961) a grandson of the British naturalist Charles Darwin, was a golf writer and high-standard amateur golfer. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Biography ...

, writing ahead of the 1922 competition considered that "when he is at his best there is no more dangerous or more brilliant player". During his 1922 Walker Cup singles match he was level with

Jess Sweetser Jesse William Sweetser (April 18, 1902 – May 27, 1989) was an amateur golfer, best known as the first American-born player to win the British Amateur. Early life Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Sweetser later attended Phillips Exeter Academy and ...

after 36 holes and the pair, with no instructions as to how to resolve the match, played an extra hole to decide the winner. Hooman won the match, but this is the only time in Walker Cup history that an extra hole has been played – drawn matches are awarded no points. Ouimet F (1948
Walker Cup Memories
USGA Journal, August 1948, pp.5–8. Retrieved 2017-11-12.Janke K (206)
Firsts, Facts, Feats, & Failures in the World of Golf
', p.105. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. He was eventually forced to stop playing golf after suffering from health issues in his legs.

Military service

After the start of

Hooman volunteered for the

in February 1915. He served on HMS ''Stephen Furness'', a merchant armed boarding steamer in the auxiliary fleet employed to board ships to enforce the trade

blockade of Germany The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. The prolonged naval blockade was conducted by the Allies of World War I, Allies during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods t ...

, as Assistant Paymaster. In 1916 he transferred to HMS ''Thalia'', an ex-troop ship being used as a shore base on the Cromarty Firth, before serving as Assistant Paymaster on the

armed yacht An armed yacht was a yacht that was armed with weapons and was typically in the service of a navy. The word "yacht" ("hunter"; Dutch "jacht"; German "jagd", literally meaning "to hunt") was originally applied to small, fast and agile naval vessels ...

''Eileen'' operating patrols out of

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

until 1919 when he ended his service as acting

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

and was awarded the Victory Medal and

British War Medal The British War Medal is a campaign medal of the United Kingdom which was awarded to officers and men of British and Imperial forces for service in the First World War. Two versions of the medal were produced. About 6.5 million were struck in si ...

. During

he volunteered for the

as a

Pilot Officer Pilot officer (Plt Off officially in the RAF; in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly P/O in all services, and still often used in the RAF) is the lowest commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countri ...

. He was promoted to

Flight lieutenant Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the India ...

and then

Squadron leader Squadron leader (Sqn Ldr in the RAF ; SQNLDR in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly sometimes S/L in all services) is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also ...

before resigning his commission in 1944, aged 57.

Personal life

Hooman was married three times. His first wife, Adelaide Porcelli-Cust whom he married in 1912, died in 1925 and he married again in 1930 to Evelyn Margaret Gavin (née Ryder). She died in 1947 and he married his third wife, Alice Jarrett. Hooman died in a nursing home at

Palm Beach, Florida Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida. Located on a barrier island in east-central Palm Beach County, the town is separated from several nearby cities including West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach by the Intracoas ...

in 1969 aged 82. The death notice for him in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' refers to him as Charles Victor Lisle ("Chubby") Hooman, a nickname he had acquired at school and was used throughout his golfing career.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooman, Charles 1887 births 1969 deaths English cricketers Devon cricketers Oxford University cricketers Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Gentlemen cricketers English male golfers Amateur golfers People educated at Charterhouse School Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford People from Ditton, Kent Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I Royal Navy officers of World War I Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Royal Air Force squadron leaders Royal Naval Reserve personnel Military personnel from Kent