New Zealand Golf Club

The land at Woodham, on which the New Zealand Golf Club now stands, was originally part of the great Royal Forest of Windsor. When the 7th Lord King died, his second son, the Hon. Peter John Locke King (1811-1885) inherited vast tracts of land in Devon and Surrey. In the early 1850s, when he built two cottages on the land at Woodham and required a name for the area, he called it ‘New Zealand’ to mark the family’s special links with the Colony during the preceding decade. Peter the 7th Lord King had become an active member of the House of Lords, where his contemporary Robert Browne held the Parliamentary office of Gentlemen Usher of the Black Rod. In due time, Robert Browne’s son, Thomas (1805-1877), became General Sir Thomas Gore Browne K.C.M.G, C.B.E. and served as Governor General of New Zealand from 1855-1861. In that office, he had occasion to hold a number of meetings with Captain Henry King, one of whose functions was that of ‘Protector of Aborigines’. The King family’s link with New Zealand was further reinforced when, in 1884, Ethel Gore Browne, the former Governor’s daughter, married Hugh Fortescue Locke King (1848-1926), the grandson of Peter, 7th Lord King. The couple made their home at the family estate, Brooklands House, Weybridge...Golf continues to be enjoyed at this fantastic Member's Club today!