Harry Tancred

Harry Tancred

Full name	Henry Eugene Tancred[1]
Date of birth	(1897-05-25)25 May 1897[1]
Place of birth	Balmain, NSW[1]
Date of death	15 November 1961(1961-11-15) (aged 64)[1]
Place of death	Bellevue Hil, NSW
Height	6'2"
Weight	15 st (210 lb; 95 kg)
School	St. Joseph's Rozelle
Notable relative(s)	Arnold Tancred Jim Tancred Peter John Tancred
Spouse	Myra Kathleen Bresnahan
Occupation(s)	Wholesaler/Exporter Meat Industry
Rugby union career
Amateur team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 1914-1921 Petone Rugby Club Glebe-Balmain () National team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 1919-1921 1923[1] All Blacks Waratahs ? 2[1] (0)[1]

Henry Eugene "Harry" Tancred (25 May 1897 – 15 November 1961) was a rugby union player and administrator who represented for New Zealand and Australia. He was an entrepreneurial businessman influential in meat wholesaling and exporting who together with his brothers, built Tancred Industries to become one of Australia's largest wholesale butchering firms. He was active in the thoroughbred industry as a racing administrator and racehorse owner.

Early life

Born in Balmain, New South Wales, Henry was the sixth of ten children born to Thomas Tancred, a butcher from California, United States of America, and his Victorian-born wife Anna, née O'Connor.^[2] He was educated by the Christian Brothers at St Joseph's School, Rozelle in Sydney before his father took the family to New Zealand pursuing opportunities in the meat trade. There while still a teenager Tancred worked as a drover and a slaughterman.^[2] Tancred returned to Sydney in the 1920s along with a number of his six brothers.

Rugby career

Tancred, a number eight played with the Petone Rugby Club from 1914.^[2]

Upon his return to Sydney in the 1920s he was active as a player at the Glebe-Balmain club.^[3] He made representative appearances for the New South Wales state side. In 1923 the New Zealand Māori rugby union team visited and Tancred appeared in two games of the three match series in which the Waratahs were undefeated. With no Queensland Rugby Union administration or competition in place from 1919 to 1929, the New South Wales Waratahs were the top Australian representative rugby union side of the period and a number of their 1920s fixtures, including Tancred's two appearances in Sydney in June 1923, were decreed in 1986 as official Test matches. Tancred thus claimed a total of two international rugby caps for Australia. His brothers Arnold and Jim were also Australian national rugby representatives both making the 1927–28 Waratahs tour of the British Isles, France and Canada. Harry would later be involved in the administration of both the Randwick and Drummoyne Rugby Clubs.^[2]

Businessman

Tancred's great-grandfather was a butcher. His grandfather Peter established himself as a wholesale butcher in Kent St Sydney in 1844 before travelling to the USA to further his prospects. Peter's son Thomas, Henry's father, branched out in 1869 and started a wholesale and retail meat business on Glebe Island in Sydney^[4] before taking the family to New Zealand. In the 1920s Henry and his six brothers returned to Sydney. Under Henry's leadership, they established the Tancred Bros meat business which by 1956 was the listed company, Tancred Bros Industries Ltd one of Australia's largest wholesale butchering firms.^[2] Henry was founding Chairman and Managing Director of the business from 1932 till 1959 and from 1946-61 was a member of the Meat Board, the national producer-owned company that regulates promotes the meat industry in Australia.^[2]

Racing interests

He was elected to the Committee of the Sydney Turf Club in 1941, appointed Vice-Chairman in 1945, served as Chairman from 1953–59, and retired from the Committee in 1961.^[5] He owned the champion New Zealand bred stallion High Caste. In 2007 Tancred was inducted into the Sydney Turf Club Hall of Fame as an associate.^[6]

References

Footnotes

Online

• Harry Tancred at scrum.com
• ADB entry HE Tancred
• STC Hall of Fame
• Harry Tancred at RacingVictoria