Champion Skater of Canada - ELEANOR KINGSFORD
ELEANOR AGNES LETITIA KINGSFORD was born in Toronto on May 31, 1886 and was the seventh of nine children of Rupert Etherege Kingsford (1849–1920) and Alice Laura Marion Kingston (1852–1934). It is known that while her father Rupert was born in Montreal, he followed his parents — William Kingsford (1819–1898), a civil engineer and a noted Canadian historian and Maria Margaret Lindsay (1820–1913) — to Toronto as early as when he was twelve years old. Her father at age 28 was a barrister practicing law, retired as a magistrate at age 59, and died in Toronto eleven years later.
When Eleanor was six, she, along with two older sisters, moved to Ottawa to live with their grandparents William and Maria. Eleanor became interested in figure skating, inspired by the graceful skating of Lady Minto, wife of the Governor General, who had been taught skating at a London club with artificial ice.
Lord and Lady Minto were keen skaters, and when a new skating club was formed in Ottawa, it was named the Minto Skating Club in honour of its patron, the Governor General. One of his recommendations was that a certain level of skating skill be required for membership. To achieve this objective Lord Minto arranged to bring to the club Arthur Held, a professional skating coach from Germany. When Kingsford joined the club, the nature of skating was changing, from emphasis on the execution of “figures” to other forms of skating, such as the skating in unison of pairs and foursomes, and the practice of skating to music. Competitions between clubs became an important part of the sport, and under guidance of the Minto Club’s coach, Kingsford became a skilled skater and competitor.
In 1905, Eleanor Kingsford was among the five competitors who contended for the very first Women’s title at the Minto Skating Club. After first teaming up with Philip Harvey Chrysler (1883-1948), she won the silver medal in the pairs event at the 1911 Canadian Championships.
The following year, with Douglas Henry Nelles (1881–1960), they were pair’s gold medalists. In 1912 and 1913, Kingsford was the Canadian champion of ladies’ skating. Kingsford, with Lady Evelyn Grey (1886–1971), daughter of the Governor General who succeeded Lord Minto, and two male skaters formed the “Minto Four” who, as a team skating in unison, won the Connaught Cup in 1914.
The First World War brought great change to Kingsford’s life. She married Captain John Crawford Law (1876–1919) — a civil engineer — at Toronto in 1917 but became a widow two and a half years later and returned to Ottawa with her daughter Margaret, also known as “Peggy” (1918–2006). Learning of a need in Europe for skating teachers, she moved there and spent several years in France and Switzerland teaching skating and giving exhibitions. Eleanor returned to Canada just as the Second World War commenced.
Eleanor Kingsford Law died on December 11, 1975 at the age of eighty-nine and was buried in Beechwood Cemetery, along with other members of her family. The cross monument over her grave, in Section 41, bears the fitting epitaph, “Champion Skater of Canada”.
