Jack Karnehm

Jack Richard Horace Karnehm (18 June 1917 – 28 July 2002) was a British snooker commentator, who was regularly heard on BBC television from 1978 until 1994, and a former amateur world champion at the game of English billiards. Karnehm was also a professional snooker and billiards player.

Besides his commentary, perhaps his major contribution to snooker was his development of swivel-lens glasses, later referred to as snooker glasses, which enabled Dennis Taylor to continue playing the game at a professional level. These were spectacles which were set at a compensatory angle, so the player could look along the shot through the optical centre of the lens. The originals had been designed by Theodore Hamblin, and pioneered by Fred Davis in 1938. Karnehm, who had served a five-year spectacle-making apprenticeship, made many pairs in his family business, but his upside-down design was a considerable improvement, for it offered wider peripheral vision. Taylor went on to win the World Snooker Championship in 1985.

In 1980, Karnehm beat Williams to win the UK Billiards Championship, his only professional title. He died suddenly in 2002, aged 85, after an afternoon working on his garden during extremely hot weather.

Tournament wins

English billiards 1969 IBSF World Billiards Championship 1980 UK Billiards Championship