British China diplomat Alexander Robert Campbell Johnston
Alexander Robert Campbell Johnston was a British diplomat who served “many years in China under H.M. Foreign and Colonial Offices.” He visited Los Angeles in 1883, where he bought the 2000 acre San Rafael Ranch, subdividing the first part of it as the Annandale Tract in 1886.
He was the son of Sir Alexander Johnston of the Clan Johnston who was Chief Justice of Ceylon. He married the daughter of Sir William Campbell of the Clan Campbell who descended from the Duke of Argyll, and who was the last British Governor of South Carolina. Together they had ten sons and two daughters.
Alexander Campbell Johnston left three of his sons, along with their cousin Robert Lindsay, to manage the San Rafael Ranch. Other sons were dropped off in Canada, Australia, Liberia, Fresno, and South Africa.
Led by number one son Conway and Robert Lindsay, the Campbell Johnston’s were the first to bring coursing, hunting, riding, driving, horse racing, tennis, cricket, croquet, polo, and golf, to California in the 1880’s, founding the Pasadena Hunt Club and its Rose Parade, and the Southern California lawn tennis association in Santa Monica.
Alexander Robert Campbell Johnston died at San Rafael Ranch, Los Angeles, January 21st 1888.
The new Annandale Golf Club course and club house at San Rafael Heights was formerly opened on April 10, 1907. The 18-hole golf course was 5,417 yards long, and ran north from the new club house following the routing of the existing Campbell-Johnston golf course before crossing Eagle Rock Road (Colorado Blvd) and heading further up into the foot hills.
A drawing of the Annandale course layout, circa 1907
“The opening was most auspicious and the finest club house and the finest golf course on the Pacific coast were liberally praised by the hundreds who attended the opening.” (L.A. Herald –April 11, 1907)
The new Annandale Golf Club was three years in the making and the third attempt by hotel and real estate men to take over the Campbell-Johnston’s historic San Rafael Ranch golf course, the first golf course in California and possibly one of the first in the United States. The oil and sand-green links was laid out before 1890, and was counted as one of Pasadena’s five pre-1900 courses, even though the ranch was in Los Angeles at that time. When the new club chose to be supplied with electricity and gas from Pasadena, rather than from the L. A. Gas & Electric Co., the course was set for its future annexation to Pasadena.
By 1906, the Pasadena Country Club course at Oak Knoll and Pasadena’s Hotel Green links were being lost to residential development. A new golf course was badly needed for the throngs of millionaire tourists visiting Pasadena.
The Hotel Green, Pasadena, circa 1895
A new organization, the Pasadena Golf Club Association, was a land company formed in 1906 by Hotel Green manager J.H. Holmes and owner G.G. Green, Colin M. Stewart and Colonel Wentworth of the Hotel Maryland, D.M. Linnard of the California Hotel Co., Conway S. Campbell-Johnston (land owner), the C.L. Hunter golfing family of Chicago, Pasadena real estate men E.H. Strafford & James Campbell, and R.H. Hay Chapman and E.B. Tufts of the Los Angeles Country Club.
The Annandale Golf Club house, circa 1907
$100,000 was raised to buy 127 acres from the Campbell-Johnston’s to build a club house and expand the old course to 18-holes. Once completed it would be leased to the new Annandale Golf Club, which was made up of the same directors and officers as the Pasadena Golf Club Association, but with Colin Stewart the club president, and James Campbell the secretary and head of the promoting company.
The association hired Hotel Green Golf Club professional Al Naylor, George O’Neil of Pasadena Country Club and Arthur Rigby of Los Angeles Country Club to lay out the links. Charles Orr and E.H. Strafford led the of the Annandale Golf Club green committee.
Bob Thomas was the publisher, editor, writer, and historian, of the Southern California Golf Association’s, FORE magazine, and the SCGA‘s director of communication for over 25 years until his retirement in 2009.
Sadly, he passed away last week at only 72 years young. Rest in peace.
Bob was very kind to me in my early days of researching Rancho Golf Club, and George Von Elm, and he always had a good answer for my “green” questions, never once discouraging me.
I was very proud to have my photo taken with Bob at that inaugural SCGA Hall of Fame ceremony in 2007.
JIB Jones and Bob Thomas at the 2007 SCGA Hall of Fame
