Fancourt was a cricket fan, an avid golfer and a fine bridge player and was popular among his colleagues. By the late 1940s, his health began to fail, and in 1950 he gave up the role of Mountararat. In his last year, he continued to perform although he was very ill. Fancourt received the OBE in June 1953 in the Coronation Honours shortly after announcing his forthcoming retirement. "The Illustrated London News" commented, "He will be the greatest loss to professional Gilbert-and-Sullivan since Henry Lytton retired … Besides his voice and presence, he has the priceless gift of attack. To watch him attacking "The Mikado" is to watch high tide flooding across the beach: it is an irresistible surge and swell." Fancourt was too ill to make his scheduled final appearance, and as a last gesture he asked a friend to take his make-up to his successor, Donald Adams.