The Incredible Story of Ivor Montagu: The Godfather of Chinese Table Tennis

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This year’s World Table Tennis Championships, in Hungary, are sure to be dominated by Chinese players, just as they have been for the last 60 years. But it’s thanks to an Englishman (an aristocrat and socialist called Ivor Montagu) that China is so strong in the sport. Ian Valentine tells his amazing story.

Born into one of England’s few millionaire families at the start of the 20th Century, the Honourable Ivor Montagu could have chosen a conventional path through life. As a boy, he played around the ankles of kings and queens, prime ministers and generals. A career in banking, politics or the military was waiting on a silver platter.

His older brother Ewen made his family proud. He was called to the criminal bar, and then served with distinction for British military intelligence during the Second World War. Little Ivor was equally bright. He possessed the same energy and generous nature. Yet, he was anything but conventional.

As a teenager, Montagu was captivated by George Bernard Shaw’s Socialism for Millionaires, forming a lifelong devotion to the ideals of communism that ran contrary to his class and wealth. This was 1917. Lenin’s revolution had swept aside the Russian monarchy. Could the same happen in England? The threat sent a chill through the Establishment. For the rebel Montagu, this subversive philosophy was thrilling.