Eustace Miles

Eustace Hamilton Miles (22 September 1868 – 20 December 1948) was an English real tennis player, author and restaurateur. He competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics and was a vegetarian who disliked that label and made his name selling health products and health advice to Edwardian Britons.

Early life and education

Miles was the grandson of Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet by his son Captain William Henry Miles, J.P. (1830–1888) and Mary Frances Miles, née Charleton. He was born at Hampstead and was educated at Eastbourne College, Marlborough College and King's College, Cambridge. In 1906, Miles married Dorothy Beatrice Harriet Killick (nicknamed Hallie).

Career

In 1908, he won the Olympic silver medal at the age of 39, after losing the final to Jay Gould II, the bronze medal was won by The Hon Neville Bulwer-Lytton, later 3rd Earl of Lytton. Miles had, in fact, coached the much younger Gould during his stay in America from 1900 to 1902 when he became the first non-American winner of the US Championship in 1900. He won further the amateur racquets championship of the world in singles in 1906 and in doubles in 1902, 1904, 1905 and 1906; and of England in doubles as well as becoming amateur squash racquets champion of America in 1900. He was amateur real tennis champion of England in 1898–1903, 1905, 1906, 1909 and 1911 and amateur real tennis champion of the world from 1898 to 1903 and 1905.

Miles was a prolific author, including collaborations with lifelong friend E. F. Benson with whom he may have had a college romance, on diverse subjects including health (e.g. "Fitness for Play and Work" 1912), athletics ("An Alphabet of Athletics"), diet ("The Failures of Vegetarianism" 1902), ancient history ("A History of Rome up to 500 AD, with Essays, Maps and Aids to Memory" 1901) and Classics ("Comparative Syntax of Greek and Latin"). His wife, also an author, and him both engaged in philanthropic works including providing free food and clothing to the poor of London, available during winter months near Cleopatra's Needle, a charitable exercise supported strongly by Queen Alexandra.