History of the Mellin Tournament

How it All Began

As the first sixteen schools to enter the Halford Hewitt had become established in an ‘over-fifties’ competition (the Bernard Darwin) prior to 1960, I decided to initiate a tournament for the second sixteen schools by inviting representatives of the Old School Golfing Societies concerned to a gathering at my office in London. There was an enthusiastic welcome for the idea and a unanimous vote for its introduction was followed by the acceptance of my offer to present a salver, as well as of my proposal that it should bear the name of G. L. Mellin, known to his friends as ‘Susie’. 

Susie Mellin was an old Malvernian and a Cambridge Golf and Soccer blue. In the early twenties, in conversation with his friend Halford Hewitt (an Old Carthusian), he mentioned that he would like to start the equivalent of an Arthur Dunn cup for golf. Hal said – “You do just that and I will give the Cup” – and so it was that the first ‘Halford Hewitt’ was played in 1924. Having founded the competition, Susie Mellin organised it completely right through until some years after the war and we are greatly indebted to him for all those years of Public School Old Boys’ golf, the enjoyment of which has played such a part in the golfing lives of so many of us. What better name, therefore, could we have associated with our tournament?

I approached Susie Mellin (photographed opposite) at his home in Sussex and he was very happy for us to use his name; when I took the engraved salver down for him to see, he was delighted with it. We lost a great friend when he died in 1961 and so it is fitting that his name should be perpetuated in the sphere of the game which he loved so much. 

Tom Parry (Sherborne)