Researching John Clifton

Clifton became the first player to start a match and win a point in the open era of tennis when he played Owen Davidson in the first round of the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth played on 22 April 1968. Clifton lost the match in four sets.

With partner John Paish, Clifton was a doubles runner-up at Newport in 1971.

He made the second round of the singles at the 1971 Wimbledon Championships and the third round of the men's doubles at the 1973 Wimbledon Championships (with Stanley Matthews).

Clifton played a tie for the Great Britain Davis Cup team in 1970, against Austria. He took part in singles rubbers against Peter Pokorny and Hans Kary, but was unable to win either.

He was born the son of Thomas Henry Clifton of Lytham Hall, Lancashire and his wife Madeline Agnew and was educated at Eton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He succeeded his grandfather, John Talbot Clifton (1819–1882), who had been MP for Lancashire and High Sheriff of Lancashire for 1853, as owner of the Lytham estate at the age of 14.

He became a compulsive traveller who explored Canada, Siberia, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Africa and South America, and was known for shooting wild animals and eating them. Some of the animals he shot were species new to science and were named after him, such as a type of wild Siberian sheep (Clifton's bighorn) and a Canadian marmot. He once dined on mammoth recovered frozen from the Arctic permafrost.He married Violet Mary, the daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and granddaughter of the William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans on 1 February 1907 at Brompton Oratory. They had met in Peru, where she was also travelling. They lived at Lytham Hall and had two sons and three daughters. Talbot served as a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire.

After the First World War, during which Talbot had volunteered as a dispatch driver, the couple bought Kylemore House in Connemara, Ireland. There he shot and injured a member of the IRA in an argument over the requisition of his car. In 1922 they bought and moved to live at Kildalton Castle on the Scottish island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides where his passion for shooting wildlife continued unabated.

After several more foreign expeditions he set off on a final journey to Timbuktu with his wife, but fell ill en route. They turned back in Mali but in 1928 he died in the Canary Islands on the way home. Violet had his body embalmed and took it back to Scotland for burial at Cnoc Rhaonastil. She later wrote a biography of her husband, published under the title The Book of Talbot, which won the 1933 James Tait Black Prize.

He was born into a prestigious Lancashire family, the son of Thomas Joseph Clifton of Lytham Hall, Lytham, Lancashire and his wife Hatty Treves. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford and succeeded his father to the Lytham estate in 1851.

He served as a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Lancashire and was Colonel of the 1st Royal Lancashire Militia (The Duke of Lancaster's Own). He was elected to Parliament as MP for North Lancashire for 1844–1847, but was a losing candidate in the 1859 election for Preston. He was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire for 1853.

Clifton died in Algeria in 1882 and was buried at St Cuthberts church, Lytham. He had married Lady Eleanor Cecily Lowther, daughter of Col. Henry Cecil Lowther and was succeeded by their only son, Thomas Henry, who was also MP for North Lancashire.

A grade II listed drinking fountain as a monument to his memory now stands in Lytham's Sparrow Park.