Bertrand Milbourne Clark (29 April 1894 – 30 March 1958) was an all-round, amateur Jamaican sportsman, who excelled in golf, cricket and tennis, and was the first black person to compete at Wimbledon, in 1924.
Clark was born on 29 April 1894.[1] He was descended from Thomas Milbourne Clark, his great grandfather, and Eleanor Fitzgerald, who married in 1824.[2] Thomas was later described as "a free person of colour".[2] Bertrand was the second son of Clementina Louise, née Sanguinetti, and Enos Edgar Clark, a dentist in Kingston.[2][3]
He was educated at Kingston High School and then Jamaica College.[3][4]
Clark was a sporting polymath, and competed as an amateur.[2] He represented his school at high jump at the first Inter-Secondary Schools Championship Sports at Sabina Park in 1910, where he came first.[2][3] He subsequently became known in Jamaica as a top golfer.[2]
He played for Melbourne Cricket Club alongside his brother Ronald[a].[4][2] He also played soccer.[5]
He served as Secretary of the Jamaica Golf Association from 1941 to 1951.[3]
In seven consecutive years he was the All Jamaica tennis champion.[2] In all, he won seven singles, seven doubles and five mixed titles at the championships.[4][5] His male doubles partners were Charlie Brandon, H. V. Alexander, H. A. Lake and O. V. A. Lindo; and in mixed doubles[b] Mrs William Wilson, Mrs C. C. Calder (later Mrs. Cy Elkins), Edna DaCosta and Olive Wilson.[4]
He beat the American Tally Holmes to take the American Tennis Association title, for African American players, in 1920.[2]
At Wimbledon in 1924, where he was the first black player to complete,[2][6] he was defeated in the first round by Vincent Burr. In his only other recorded appearance there, in 1930, he was beaten in the first round by Herman David.
During a royal tour of the British Empire in 1927, Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI) partnered Clark in a game of doubles; this was unusual at the time and was seen as a display of equality between races.[3][7]
With his brother, he wrote several books on cricket.[2] He also wrote about golf and tennis.[5]
From 1911, Clark worked as a civil servant,[2] retiring as medical secretary of the Island Medical Office.[4][5] He was twice married but had no children.[2]
He was listed in the Jamaican Who's Who for 1946.[2]
He died on 30 March 1958.[3] An obituary was published in the Sunday Gleaner, which said that Clark was "perhaps the greatest all-round Jamaican sportsman of our time".[2][4]
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