John Moyer Heathcote

John Moyer Heathcote (12 July 1834 – 3 August 1912) was an English barrister and real tennis player. He was one of the committee members at the Marylebone Cricket Club responsible for drafting the original rules of lawn tennis and is credited with devising the cloth covering for the tennis ball.

Early life John Moyer Heathcote was born on 12 July 1834 in Westminster, London. He was the eldest son of John Heathcote of Conington Castle, Huntingdonshire, and his wife the Honourable Emily Colbourne (daughter of Nicholas Colborne, 1st Baron Colborne). He was a descendant of Lord Ancaster of Conington Castle. He was educated at Eton College and was admitted at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 8 October 1851. He was awarded an MA in 1856, but also began playing real tennis at Cambridge.

Career Heathcote was admitted at Lincoln's Inn on 27 March 1856 and was called to the bar on 17 November 1859. He served on the Northern Circuit.

Heathcote became an Honorary Colonel in the 3rd Volunteer Battalion Suffolk Regiment and became Honorary Colonel of the 1st Administrative Battalion of the Cambridge Rifle Volunteers in 1880. He was chairman of the Huntingdonshire Quarter Sessions and was JP and Deputy Lieutenant for Huntingdonshire, and JP for Sussex and the Liberty of Peterborough. and Volume 18: Skating & Figure Skating (1892), co-authored by Charles Goodman Tebbutt and illustrated with photographs and with wood-engravings by Charles Whympe

Personal life John Moyer Heathcote married Louisa Cecilia MacLeod (d. 1910), the eldest child and only daughter of Norman MacLeod of MacLeod and his wife Louisa Barbara St John, on 18 December 1860 in St James Westminster. She was born on 24 May 1838 in Marylebone London. They lived at 24 Brunswick Square, Hove, and Conington Castle. They had four children:

Emily Louisa Heathcote (16 February 1862 – 21 May 1880), buried at Conington. John Norman Heathcote (21 June 1863 – 16 July 1946), was a writer about St Kilda, buried at Conington. Evelyn May Heathcote ( 17 November 1865 – 15 April 1957). Arthur Ridley Heathcote (14 February 1877 – 13 April 1951). He owned the advowson and the right of patronage and presentation to the rectory of Chingford Essex, which he willed to his son John Horace Broke Heathcote. He married Margaret Georgina Broke ( January 1878 – 1 March 1944) on 18 December 1909 in Dunmow Essex, they had three children:

Arthur Ridley Heathcote and his wife Margaret Georgina lived in Switzerland from 1928, they both died in Montreux Switzerland.

Grave in churchyard All Saints Conington, headstone inscription: "John Horace / Heathcote / 28th December 1910 / 30th May 2003." A further monument is inscribed: "In loving memory / of / Dorelle Geraldine / Heathcote / wife of / John Horace Heathcote / Born 13th March 1913 / Died 11th May 2007 / together again."