Florence Nancie Colling MBE (née Whalley) also Nancie Evans (19 April 1919[1] – 1 July 2020) was an international lawn bowls competitor for England.[2]
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth name | Florence Nancie Whalley | |||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | British (English) | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | 19 April 1919 Colwyn Bay, Wales | |||||||||||||||||
| Died | 1 July 2020 (aged 101) Seaton, Devon, England | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Lawn bowls | |||||||||||||||||
| Club | Frome Selwood BC | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Bowls career
editBorn in Colwyn Bay her family relocated to Somerset. She started bowling in Frome during 1948 and was Secretary of the Frome Selwood Club and the Somerset Ladies Bowling Association.[3] In 1956 she won the first of her four National titles when winning the singles championship.[4][5] Just two years later she won her second title in 1958,[6] again bowling for Somerset, this was the same year in which she married Harold Evans and then played as Nancie Evans.[7] The third title was the 1965 two wood singles.[8][9] Widowed in 1959 she remarried to Coryndon Colling in 1967, playing as Nancie Colling afterwards. Remarkably she won the fourth of her National singles titles in 1970, four years after a spine injury had temporarily paralysed her.[10]
In 1973 she was selected for the England team at the 1973 World Outdoor Bowls Championship in Wellington, New Zealand and won a silver medal's in the fours with Phyllis Derrick, Eileen Smith and Joan Sparkes, in addition to winning a bronze medal in the team event (Taylor Trophy).[11]
Bowls administration
editIn 1976 she became President of the English Women's Bowling Association and four years later served as Secretary of her National Association, a role that was performed for 22 years. She was also the President of the International Women's Bowling Board.[5]
During the 1996 Birthday Honours she was awarded an MBE for services to bowls.[12] [13] Colling was recognised on her 100th birthday in 2019 by Bowls England[14] but she died the following year in 2020 at her care home in Devon.[5]
References
edit- ^ "Nancie Colling obituary".
- ^ "Profile". Bowls Tawa.
- ^ "OBITUARY: NANCIE COLLING MBE (SOMERSET)". Bowls England. 3 July 2020.
- ^ "Frome Woman Wins Bowls Title". Somerset Guardian and Radstock Observer. 31 August 1956. Retrieved 18 August 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ a b c "Death Of An Icon". Bowls International.
- ^ "Miss Whalley makes history despite an injury". Birmingham Daily Post. 30 August 1958. Retrieved 18 August 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ Hawkes/Lindley, Ken/Gerard (1974). the Encyclopaedia of Bowls. Robert Hale and Company. ISBN 0-7091-3658-7.
- ^ "Gradndmother of a Battle". Daily Mirror. 28 August 1965. Retrieved 18 August 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "Past Records". Bowls England.
- ^ ""Women's Bowls." Times, 29 Aug. 1970, p. 12". Times Digital Archives.
- ^ Newby, Donald (1990). Daily Telegraph Bowls Yearbook 91. Telegraph Publications. ISBN 0-330-31664-8.
- ^ "The London Gazette of Friday, 14th June 1996". The Gazette.
- ^ "THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY HONOURS". The Independent. 23 October 2011. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022.
- ^ Bowls England (24 April 2019). "Nancie Colling MBE celebrates 100th birthday". Retrieved 27 October 2019 – via Twitter.