Kathleen Mary 'Kate' Nunneley (16 September 1872 – 28 September 1956) was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player and librarian. She was the best woman tennis player in New Zealand in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and possibly still the best New Zealand woman player ever.

Early life and career

Kathleen Nunneley was born in

Little Bowden Little Bowden is an area on the edge of Market Harborough and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Market Harborough, in the Harborough district, in the county of Leicestershire, England. As a village it was formerly part of North ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

, England on 16 September 1872, the daughter of John Nunneley, a wholesale grocer, and Kate Young. Her father committed suicide in 1893 and she emigrated to New Zealand with her mother and siblings in 1894 where she joined the Thorndon Lawn Tennis Club in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

. She won the national singles title 13 times in a row from 1895 to 1907, winning in total 32 national titles. She defeated Blanche Hillyard the Wimbledon champion, and won two mixed doubles titles with

Anthony Wilding Anthony Frederick Wilding (31 October 1883 – 9 May 1915), also known as Tony Wilding, was a New Zealand world No. 1 tennis player and soldier who was killed in action during World War I. Considered the world's first tennis superstar, Wildin ...

; unfortunately there were fewer opportunities at Wimbledon for women players. In May 1896 Nunneley won the singles title at the New South Wales Championships in Sydney, defeating Mabel Shaw in the final. The following year she lost her title in the challenge round to Phoebe Howlitt. Nunneley worked as a librarian for 30 years, retiring from her position as assistant in charge of the reference department at the

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in 1935. She had her tennis gold medals made into a trophy for interprovincial women's tennis, the Nunneley Casket. She was inducted into the

New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame The New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame is an organisation commemorating New Zealand's greatest sporting triumphs. It was inaugurated as part of the New Zealand sesquicentenary celebrations in 1990. Some 160 members have been inducted into the Hall o ...

in 1995.

References

Sources

* ''Profiles of Fame: The stories of New Zealand's Greatest Sporting Achievers'' by Ron Palenski (2002, New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, Dunedin) 1872 births 1956 deaths New Zealand female tennis players New Zealand librarians New Zealand women librarians English emigrants to New Zealand Tennis players from Leicestershire {{NewZealand-tennis-bio-stub