Sir Philip Game

Sir Philip Woolcott Game, G.B.E., K.C.B., K.C.M.G. was Governor of New South Wales from 1930 to 1935. Born in Surrey on 30 March 1876, he had a distinguished military career in the Royal Artillery and Royal Air Force before his appointment to New South Wales.

He married Gwendolen Margaret Hughes-Gibb in 1908 and they had three children.

Game and Lady Game first visited Lightning Ridge on 21 November 1933. The programme included an official reception at the Imperial Hotel, a visit to the Bush Nursing Association Branch, lunch for approximately one hundred attendees, a display of opal cutting and polishing, and a trip to the mines. Game met with a number of significant locals, including Pappa Francis and Ronald McDonald.

Lord and Lady Game returned in May 1934 as part of a broader tour of the north-west. Their itinerary included New Angledool, Goodooga and Walgett, where Sir Philip reopened the Walgett Show after it had been closed for twenty years. Lady Game was praised for her support of the Children’s Far West Health Scheme and the Bush Nursing Association.

Sir Philip’s governorship is most widely remembered for his dismissal of Premier Jack Lang in 1932.

Lord Game died at Sevenoaks, Kent, on 4 February 1961, aged 84.

• Sir Philip Game @ Wikipedia.

• Sir Philip Game @ Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘The Governor’s Tour in the Far North-West’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 1934, p. 8; ‘The Governor at Lightning Ridge: A Study in Democracy’, Sydney Mail, 23 May 1934, p. 5; ‘The Governor Meets the Oldest Inhabitant’, Sydney Mail, 23 May 1934, p. 26; ‘Gossip - Gouger and Polisher’, Smith’s Weekly, 20 July 1935, p. 13; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 23; Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8 , 1981; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 26.