Clarence Bruce , 3rd Baron Aberdare Clarence Napier Bruce , 3rd Baron Aberdare , GBE ( 2 August 1885 – 4 October 1957 ) , styled The Honourable from 1895 to 1929 , was a British military officer , cricketer , tennis player , and also an excellent golfer . He was the second son of Henry Bruce , 2nd Baron Aberdare . Bruce received his education at Twyford School , Winchester College and at New College , Oxford , and was admitted as a barrister of the Inner Temple ; however , when World War I broke out , he decided to enter the British Army . His elder brother was killed in action in 1914 , making him heir apparent to his father ' s barony . Lord Aberdare , who would rise to the substantive rank of captain ( and would become an honorary colonel ) in World War I , served variously in the Glamorgan Yeomanry , the 2nd Life Guards , the headquarters of the 61st ( 2nd South Midland ) Division and in the Guards Machine Gun Regiment ; in 1919 , immediately after the armistice , he was promoted to captain . He inherited the barony in 1929 . He served as the honorary colonel of the 77 ( later 282 ) ( Welsh ) Heavy AA Brigade , RA from 1930 to 1952 ; during this period , he additionally served as major of the 11th Battalion , Surrey Home Guards during World War II . Between the two world wars , he was an active tennis player . Bruce was U . S . A . Amateur Champion in 1930 and of the British Isles in 1932 and 1938 . He played eighteen times for Great Britain in the Bathurst Cup and six times won the Coupe de Paris . He carried off the M . C . C . Gold Prize on five occasions and nine times won the Silver Prize . In 1937 , Aberdare was appointed chairman of the National Fitness Council , the first attempt at a Sports Council in England . It quickly established 22 area committees to help with its aim of promoting a fit population . It was funded by the Department of Education and provided capital grants for new facilities and other grants to help with the appointment of trainers and leaders . It had a difficult two years before being dissolved in October 1939 . These included liaison with existing statutory and voluntary organisations . In absorbing the Juvenile Organisations Committee and its local committees it alienated many who had worked towards bridging the gap between recreation provided at school and to the wider community ( 14 – 20 age group ) . In addition there was much support for compulsory physical training as opposed to the Council ' s approach of a voluntary ethos . Simultaneously , Aberdare played an active role in the organisation of the Olympics ; he served on the International Olympic Committee , and on the organising committee of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London . He served in many physical education and sportsmen ' s clubs , and was also be a member of the New College Society . In 1948 , he was created a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem , and a Commander of the British Empire a year later . In 1954 , he was additionally created a Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire . His death was caused by drowning after his car fell over a precipice in Yugoslavia into three feet of water in a river bed on 4 October 1957 at the age of 72 .