Nancie Colling
| 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
| ||||||||||||||||||
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]
Bowls career
[edit]Born 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
[edit]In 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.