Christopher Grose-Hodge

Christopher Grose-Hodge’s father was the headmaster of Bedford School between 1928-51. He decided his own son, however, would be educated at Scaitcliffe school in Surrey. He went to Eton College in 1941, where his sporting interests were Eton Fives, boxing and fencing, in which he had an interest from an early age. He was made school captain at boxing and fencing in 1948. Upon going to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Grose-Hodge won his fencing Blue and was regarded as an outstanding épéeist, but was equally at home with foil and sabre. His first major honour came in 1941 when he won the Public Schools Sabre Championship, a title he retained the following year. Grose-Hodge was both the 1947 National junior épée champion and Universities Athletic Union (UAU) foil champion, and in 1948 he was the UAU foil and épée champion. The following year he was National junior foil champion and third in the Amateur Épée Championship. In 1950 Grose-Hodge won the coveted International Miller-Hallett Challenge Cup at the London Fencing Club. Grose-Hodge went to the Helsinki Olympics as a member of the British épée team, but they were eliminated at the quarter-final stage.

In 1944 Grose-Hodge joined the Army and was involved in bomb disposal. After the War, however, he returned to Cambridge before starting a distinguished career in the Civil Service, which included a posting to Hong Kong in 1952. During his time there he, and fellow Britons living in the area, formed the Hong Kong Fencing Club.

Grose-Hodge was then posted to India in 1962 as First Secretary to the British High Commission, in New Delhi. Upon returning to England, Grose-Hodge fenced at the Lansdowne Fencing Club before joining the London Thames Fencing Club, and remained a member until shortly before his death in 1998. He became president of the Épée Club in 1989.