Thelma Kingsbury

Thelma Kingsbury
Thelma Kingsbury
	Kingsbury, circa 1942
Personal information
Country	England; United States
Born	12 January 1911; Portsmouth, England
Died	27 August 1979 (aged 68); Los Angeles, United States

Thelma Kingsbury (1911–1979), (later, in succession: Thelma Scovil, Thelma Welcome, Thelma Lougheed) was an English-born, naturalised American sportswoman who won major badminton titles in the British Isles and then in the US from the early 1930s to the early 1950s.

Badminton career

Equally adept in singles and doubles she won two women's singles titles and four women's doubles titles at the prestigious All-England Championships between 1933 and 1937.^[1]

In the 1935–1936 season, she achieved a British "Grand Slam" by winning the open singles titles of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.^[2] After emigrating from Britain to the US, she won the U.S. women's singles title in 1941 and shared the U.S. women's doubles title with Janet Wright in 1941, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950.^[3] Though reaching 40 in the early 1950s, she continued to play highly competitive singles matches against such formidable opponents as Ethel Marshall, Margaret Varner, and a teenage Judy Devlin (Hashman). Thelma Kingsbury was among the initial class of players elected to the U.S. Badminton Hall of Fame in 1956.

Personal life

Her sister Leoni Kingsbury was also a leading badminton player.

References

^ Pat Davis, The Guinness Book of Badminton (Enfield, Middlesex, England: Guinness Superlatives Ltd., 1983) 106, 107.
^ Herbert Scheele, The International Badminton Federation Handbook for 1971 (Canterbury< Kent, England: J. A. Jennings Ltd., 1971) 163, 209, 273, 317.
^ Scheele, 312, 313.