On 30 October 1880, Teddington Hockey Club convened a special committee meeting to accept a new member. In attendance were the president, captain and two senior club representatives. All to appoint one member! The president proposed the member, which was a high honour, and the captain seconded.

A page from the minute book of Teddington Hockey Club detailing a special meeting in October 1880.
The new member was formally voted in. His name was W Trevenen Esq. His residence was recorded as “The Palace, Hampton Court”. At the time, Teddington HC were situated in Bushy Park, just opposite Hampton Court Palace in what was once the royal hunting grounds of King Henry VIII. On the surface, this seems innocuous enough – a member of the palace staff, perhaps? – but when you go search for this gentleman in the public records, he does not appear! Was W Trevenen a pseudonym?

Photograph taken in 1891 of Prince Albert Victor Duke of Clarence (1864-1892). From the Royal Collection. Public domain.
At the time John Barton was the captain of Teddington HC. Barton’s father was the Deputy Ranger for Bushy Park and lived in a grace-and-favour house in the park. He had been appointed ADC (aide-de-camp), a form of equerry or senior attendant, to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. The prince was the eldest son of the future King Edward VII and the grandson of Queen Victoria.
Ken Howells and other hockey historians have claimed that the mystery member of 1880 was Prince Albert Victor and that it was Teddington HC that introduced him to the sport of hockey.
The Holy Grail of Hockey History has been Found: The Ken Howells Collection – The Hockey Museum
Supporters of this claim point out that when the prince entered Trinity College, Cambridge University, he immediately wanted to start a hockey club. Where would he have gained knowledge of hockey if he hadn’t played it with his ADC at Teddington? Howells also claims that Teddington only played inter-club matches between the appointment of the mystery member in 1880 and 1883 when the prince started at Cambridge. Assuming Trevenen was the prince, this would make sense from a position of security and privacy.

An engraving of Prince Albert Victor playing hockey. Published on his going to Cambridge University in The Illustrated London News, 1883.
As with most mysteries, there is an alternative explanation. One that connects the dots in a straighter line than the circuitous, hypothetical route suggested by the Teddington scholars of old.
Our archivist Marcus Wardle has been researching this mystery player and there are definite puzzles. The name Trevenen is very rare and nobody can be found living in the Hampton Court area at this time. Not yet anyway.
What has emerged from Marcus’s research is that Prince Albert Victor’s life can be closely followed through media reporting. Newspaper archives are available today that would not have been available to historians in previous generations. We now know that the prince was not even in the country at the time. He and his brother (the future King George V) were sent on a three-year world tour aboard Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Bacchante between 1879-1882. One of the possible inspirations for the prince’s later enthusiasm for hockey at Cambridge could have been the Royal Navy game of ‘deck hockey’, which he may have witnessed during this trip. Of course, the prince need not have been present at the vote to appoint him a member of Teddington HC and Mr Trevenen is not recorded as being so. However, it would have been odd to appoint a member who could not then play for two years until his return from the tour, which suggests that it was not the prince.
We have also learned that no royal was officially living in Hampton Court Palace in 1880. The prince’s father was born at Buckingham Palace and stayed there to raise his own children. Prince Albert Victor was born at Frogmore House in Windsor and lived between there and Buckingham Palace. There is no record of him officially living at Hampton Court Palace. However, it was, and it still is, a royal residence, so he could have stayed there at any time he pleased. In 1880, other members of the gentry did live at Hampton Court including Lady Georgiana Grey, who had children and grandchildren at the palace. So, there are other candidates for the mystery Teddington member.
Prince Albert Victor would later become the first president of the Hockey Association (HA), founded in 1886 as the governing body for men’s hockey in England. This appointment was likely more to do with his playing hockey at Trinity College. The newly formed HA would have wanted a high-profile figure to raise the status of their sport. His Royal Highness remained president of the HA until his death in 1892 from pneumonia following the ‘Asiatic flu’ pandemic.
In the 1970s, long after his death, conspiracy theories began to emerge that linked the prince to the ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders of the 1880s. These have been largely dismissed. You can read about his alleged involvement and that of another hockey-playing suspect elsewhere on our website.
Montague Druitt: Blackheath’s Ripper? – The Hockey Museum

An engraving of Prince Albert Victor playing hockey. Published as part of a report into his funeral in The Illustrated London News, 1892.