Sidney Lee

Sir Sidney Lee (5 December 1859 – 3 March 1926) was an English biographer and critic. He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1890 he became joint editor, and on the retirement of Sir Leslie Stephen in 1891 succeeded him as editor.

Lee himself contributed voluminously to the Dictionary, writing some 800 articles, mainly on Elizabethan authors or statesmen. His sister Elizabeth Lee also contributed. While still at Balliol he had written two articles on Shakespearean questions, which were printed in The Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1884 he published a book about Stratford-on-Avon, with illustrations by Edward Hull. His article on Shakespeare in the fifty-first volume (1897) of the Dictionary of National Biography formed the basis of his Life of William Shakespeare (1898), which reached its fifth edition in 1905.

Sydney Lee (snooker player)

Sydney Lee (April 1911–1986) was an English professional billiards and snooker player. He was four times a quarter-finalist in the World Snooker Championship during the first half of the twentieth century.

Career

Lee enjoyed considerable success as an amateur billiards player. He was runner-up in the Empire Billiards Championship in Sydney in 1931 and winner when the event was next held, in London in 1933. He was also runner-up in the English Amateur Billiards Championship in 1929 and won it 4 times in succession from 1931 to 1934.

Lee turned professional in 1934 and first played competitive professional snooker in 1935, entering the 1936 World Championship. In his first match, he faced Clare O'Donnell, and having trailed 4–8, recovered to lead 15–13; however, O'Donnell won the next three frames to prevail 16–15.

His effort at the next World Championship concluded similarly, Lee losing his first match 11–20 to Horace Lindrum, and the same followed in 1938, when he lost 7–24 to Joe Davis.