REALLY Ancient History

Poor old Mrs Wood at Boulogne has to cope with the return of the rainy weather that has plagued the British season. She is also missing her defending champion, Charles Lacy Sweet. However she does have a new ladies’ event or two, a whole clan of Arbuthnot sisters to fill the draw and, most importantly, Roy and Charlie Allen to attract the gate.

Unfortunately, as is their wont, once both of the twins reach the final, Charlie withdraws in favour of his brother, depriving the tournament of its main finale. However, the ladies step gamely into the breach and Miss M Arbuthnot takes victory after an exciting three setter.

Mrs Wood has further reason to gnash les dents when the Allens withdraw mid-event from the doubles, as they have a boat to catch back to England. Zut alors, indeed!
 
Henry Hub said:
Now, I promised @Arrie that we’d catch a bit of the action in the international tournament at the Bataaf LTC. Here is the Pastime match report.

https://imgur.com/a/IZ6SLeA

It’s awfully prosaic compared with this informative and only mildly offensive article on Dutch tennis and some of the clubs. The Haagsche LTC still seems to exist, I haven’t checked for the Bezuidenhout club (“considered by Dutch matrons a desirable club for marriageable daughters to join”) or Wittebrucke LTC.

https://imgur.com/a/Oe3GLUZ
Click to expand...
Many TXS. English also much more developed in journalism.... I have not found anymore info on Bezuidenhout tennis. It was meant Hotel Cafe Wittebrug ( white bridge) adn found info since 1886. And in 1890 Laming situating in Kralingen Rotterdam. In my search I found info on Lawn Tennis club existing arleady in 1883 being older then current known Tennis Club. Will try to dig deeper and find more info. TXS!!
 
We are off to Australia in a second but let’s stop off briefly at the Transvaal championships in Johannesburg.

It sounds quite an eventful fixture. The courts are wretched, a dirt patch that has laughed off a bit of sprinkling and light rolling and which unsurprisingly has false bounds everywhere. The umpiring, as Pastime’s correspondent so pithily puts it, is “beneath contempt”. The weather is portentous, the play ponderous.

There are very few decent players who attend. Of these, some are promptly struck down by cramp or fever. Others have total Safin-like meltdowns and smash all of their rackets, probably improving the court surface in the process.

So, all in all, much like a modern Challenger Tour event.

https://imgur.com/a/dlxa1ee
 
Wilberforce Eaves scooped up the Grass Court Championships of Victoria earlier in 1891. He follows this up in May by winning for his home state the intercolonial fixture against New South Wales, the fixture being held at the ACG in Sydney.

He then goes on to weather the odd storm and to win the NSW championships in singles and doubles, defeating an out of practice Webb in the challenge round of the former.

Eaves writes to Pastime in July with some views on Australian tennis. He echoes Pastime’s and NSW journalists’ views on the uncovered balls used in Victoria.

https://imgur.com/a/Sa5J3Lz

Happy to find someone in lockstep with its views, Pastime wastes no time in wedging a supportive paragraph on this letter in its Varia column.

https://imgur.com/a/UnoSQSf
 
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By September, the issue of the uncovered Melbourne ball has been thoroughly ventilated in sports pages around the world. Perhaps the home advantage the ball brings is now outweighed in the eyes of Victorian tennis grandees by the embarrassment of being seen as antediluvian remnants of a pre-Heathcote age.

https://imgur.com/a/YPvRZk1

The move to the covered ball is confirmed by Norman Bayles, Hon Sec of the Melbourne LTC in November. He uses this opportunity to invite British players to visit Australia for a spot of tennis. After the “summer” most of them have endured, there may have have been a tussle to get on the first boat going south.

https://imgur.com/a/p4Vc9p2

So, well done Wilberforce Eaves. He contributes to Victorian tennis’s emergence from the dark ages, he puts on master classes of top quality tennis to crowds of 2000+ at the ACG and he later teaches Norman Brookes how to hit his famous topspin serve (rated by Lawford as the greatest serve in tennis). He is a magnificent servant to Australian tennis.
 
Someone else who has done great things for tennis is Henry “Dit” Ditson, one of the founders of Wright & Ditson. The great evangelist of US tennis dies unexpectedly in November.

https://imgur.com/a/dA3Tk3g

An indication of Ditson’s success in spreading the word about the game may possibly be found in the number of clubs featuring in this directory of US tennis clubs.

https://imgur.com/a/E71xvoA
 
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The Germantown Cricket Club is one of those listed above. The “Cricket” magazine dedicates a long-form article to the history and facilities of the club. Interestingly, from a tennis perspective, the Germantown and Young America (for whom the Clark brothers played) clubs combined in 1890.

https://imgur.com/a/fiwSpfI

What is being built at eye watering expense in Manheim is truly an edifice to all things sporting. The club promises the ultimate in luxury social, sporting and dining entertainment.

So I was delighted to find this brutally concise description of the club in the French Davis Cup chef de mission’s report to the FFT in 1926.

https://imgur.com/a/d9ny2kD

This report causes quite a storm in a teacup in the US. Amusingly, though, it also later transpires that every club cook responsible for the “impossible food” is French.
 
Just before the end of the season in September, The Queen magazine publishes an article on ladies’ tennis. This one contains the usual advice on selecting a racket (go with Tate, Slazenger, Ayres or Gray’s; 13.5 oz is appropriate for a woman), swinging it (hold it at the end of the grip, give the ball a good biff) and positioning (middle of the baseline unless you are feeling intrepid and fancy a volley).

However, what gives this article real value is that a top (unnamed) lady player details what she and her contemporaries in the British and Irish game wear on court.

https://imgur.com/a/5JkeFH0

Back in the 1880s, players were festooned with layer upon layer of petticoats under their skirts plus blouses, corsets, aprons and the remaining contents of a drama class wardrobe.

The mystery player has no truck with this, which she dismisses as garden party tennis wear. For tournaments, the top players of 1891 wear under their skirts the new combination chemise and drawers (light in summer, heavy in winter) and, instead of bulky petticoats, a pair of loose knickerbockers laced below the knee. Our insider suggests that these knickerbockers are made of serge, flannel or Zouave (the last is new to me - I am guessing this is a material rather than a style?).

This player favours a light skirt of 2.5 yds width and 5-6 inches of ground clearance. On her top she wears a light blouse and an elasticated riding or opera stay instead of a full corset. She suggests that she knows of only 2 or 3 ladies who play without a corset.

She also confirms the much maligned (by the Pastime editorial team) Mabel Cahill’s observations that most top ladies occasionally play practice matches in their light gym kit. It’s quite clear that she yearns for a sporting costume for ladies that allows them the same freedom of movement as they get in their gym kit but maintains their modesty in public.

Finally, our player gives 10 tips for ladies to improve their play. The tenth is an adaptation of the grave warnings to men not to lie around in wet flannels after a match that we have seen since the early 1880s. Apparently wearing silk that has been freshly played in is a recipe for all sorts of maladies.
 
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Just as we wind up for 1891, the indoor season restarts in November in Brighton. After a flying visit to Monte Carlo in October, Ernest Renshaw is back in the country and ends the year as he started it. He is in devastating form, sweeping aside his opponents in short order and making mincemeat of poor Harry Barlow in the final.

One of Barlow’s victims en route to the final is George Hillyard. Hillyard is just back from a cricket tour to the US, playing against a Boston XI that included Tom Pettitt in the team.

https://imgur.com/a/NpHdrkq

Gratifyingly for all Renshaw fans, he doesn’t end up injuring himself again on the Brighton court. Maybe he wasn’t playing in coloured socks this time?

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/really-ancient-history.246089/post-18357030

That’s not to say that the injury lists are empty. While Ernest Lewis continues his convalescence, there’s another candidate for physicians healing themselves over in Dublin. House surgeon to a Dublin hospital, Dr Joshua Pim is suffering from typhoid fever, a condition shared with his compatriot Manliffe Goodbody.

https://imgur.com/a/T83ChBL
 
To put a cap on news for 1891, the LTA sub-committee tasked with scrutinising the embarrassing Cheltenham farrago recommends that LTA members be recommended not to participate in any tournament organised by the Montpellier Gardens lessees in direct opposition to one scheduled the same week at the East Gloucestershire Cricket Ground. Their report is adopted, no doubt much to the annoyance of one Nicholas Lane Jackson.

The same week, tantalising news breaks that two-time US national champion Ollie Campbell will be wintering in Cannes and will play some of the main English events.

Roll on 1892!

https://imgur.com/a/kidZhNJ
 
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Finally, we end 1891 with the usual defence of tennis against the tirades from blowhards who occupy column inches with their predictions of the game’s imminent demise. Our soothsayer this time round is an Andrew Tuer, his attempted coup de grace delivered via a letter to The Times.

The context to his claims is made abundantly clear by his letter, having recently returned from the Home of Golf, St Andrews (on a personal note, the apostrophe in the below gives me the heebeegeebees).

Nick Jackson’s editorial decimates Tuer’s letter.

https://imgur.com/a/jG7sIDL

I hope you share my enjoyment of the 19th century burn that is the sentence “That was the golden age of lawn-tennis” after the extract that precedes it.

Anyway, this closes the book on 1891. Apologies again for cluttering up this forum - back in a bit.
 
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Before looking at the paltry number of patents and racket reviews I’ve found for 1892, yet another brief-ish sidetrack.

So yesterday I saw on the news that Just Stop Oil protesters threw soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in the National Gallery. Presumably it wasn’t a gas-pacho (insert laugh track here).

Anyway, there is some connective tissue between this protest and one of the more famous bits of attempted criminal damage in tennis history.

Back in 1914, a painting of Scottish man of letters Thomas Carlyle was defaced in the National Portrait Gallery by a cleaver-wielding suffragette by the name of Margaret Gibb. This is her Wikipedia page:

en.m.wikipedia.org

Margaret Skirving Gibb - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

And here are a couple of photos of Margaret and her handiwork.

https://imgur.com/a/9cUoSAR
 
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So far, so non-tennis related.

As it turns out, Gibb was by 1914 quite the old hand at political protest. She had done a spell in the clink earlier in the year for hitting a policeman with a dog whip and had been involved in a number of suffragette events in the preceding years.

In late February 1913, an arson attack on the Centre Court is foiled by the groundsman, Joseph Parsons. Parsons is doing his rounds at 10:30 pm when he sees a lady emerge from the hedges next to the railway line and walk onto the court. He chases her, she falls and is apprehended. After the police arrive, they find a couple of bags stashed in the covered stand, containing paraffin, fire lighters, matches and a scrap of paper bearing the legend “No peace till women have votes”. It’s not exactly one for Poirot.

Here’s the Wimbledon News’s article on the matter as it comes before the police court. Do note the description of the accused and maybe cast an appraising eye at the photo in the post above…

https://imgur.com/a/LeJA6nQ
 
The accused becomes an instant celebrity. Evidently there wasn’t much else going on in March 1913. Her refusal to engage with the judicial process, not making any statement, offering any evidence or calling any witnesses, both annoys the Chairman of the hearing and cements her mythical status as the “Silent Suffragette”.

She is sent to Holloway Prison to serve two months. Just after the sentence is handed down, a correspondent to “The Suffragette” paper arrives to bail her out. Unfortunately, it is too late - however we do get a report of a conversation with the convict.

https://imgur.com/a/w2lVp0L

Her reaction to having to go on the tube is entirely relatable.
 
The Suffragette knows a good story when it sees one and returns to the Silent Suffragette in April 1913 upon her release from Holloway.

Unfortunately they ruin her hard-earned anonymity by blabbing her name all over this article.

https://imgur.com/a/oyqJM4x

The Silent Suffragette is, as you will have already guessed, Margaret Gibb.

The accounts of her hunger strike and forced feeding are pretty harrowing.
 
Incidentally, it is clear that Gibb did not act alone but her accomplice was never caught.

Maybe one or both of them were involved later that year when another unsuccessful attempt is made to torch the stands, this time immediately before the Davis Cup finals are held at Wimbledon.

https://imgur.com/a/erBPjGc

Finally, spare a thought for the poor groundsman Parsons. The next year he enlists in the army, along with his brothers, and they are all killed in service during WW1.
 
With any luck, the Patent Office didn’t bolt on a tennis department after the glory days of the 1880s. By 1892, there would be a few people nervously looking over their shoulders and some creative completion of timesheets.

There’s precious little as far as racket patents are concerned. There is an innovation to handles but it is really intended for cricket bats, inserting a rubber or canvas layer between the strips of cane that make up the bat handle.

https://imgur.com/a/ASzmNBy

Demonstrating once again the eternal inability of tennis players to do mental arithmetic, the umpteenth racket-mounted scoring device is patented.

https://imgur.com/a/iCiCgsu
 
Of a little more interest is this idea of wrapping the head of the frame in reinforcing parchment (a standard design at the shoulders for rackets starting in the mid/late-1890s) and having a recessed channel around the outside of the head to provide further protection for the stringing.

https://imgur.com/a/c8gEJZ9

The only other racket patent for 1892 is an American one and even that’s not covering original subject matter. Charles Malings has exiled himself from Britain following his bankruptcy, ending up in Chicago. He casts an eye around the offerings from Wright & Ditson, Spalding et al and spots a possible gap in the racket design market. He obtains a US patent for the spliced handle design that he patented in the UK in 1885 and produced commercially as the “Dovetail” model.

https://imgur.com/a/aLEC1XR
 
Henry Hub said:
Finally, spare a thought for the poor groundsman Parsons. The next year he enlists in the army, along with his brothers, and they are all killed in service during WW1.
Click to expand...

A most sobering post-script to your interesting sidetrack, given what we are experiencing today. That, and the retrospective acknowledgement that these committed trouble-makers and "terrorists" of yore were fated to succeed, through perseverance and societal evolution, in service of a cause they believed to be righteous, to become revered heroines long after they are gone.
 
If there’s little new in the world of tennis patents, it’s even worse when it comes to rackets. Pastime doesn’t even bother commissioning its usual article on the new tennis products coming onto the market. In fact, we won’t see another one of their “tours of the manufactories” until 1894.

For what it’s worth, here we go…

Ayres continue to advertise the “Central Strung” and “F.H. Ayres” models. There’s been no discernible update made to these frames (including no indication that the bloody collar is going to come off the “Central Strung” any time soon), the latter still sporting the 1891 cemented bumper guard.

https://imgur.com/a/F4cJ6Dx

Fred dedicates much more advertising acreage to the trusty “Championship” ball, which continues its Wimbledon dominance in 1892. He boasts that Harburg’s finest is now the regulation ball in Australia after the Victorians were shamed by Wilberforce Eaves into finally adopting the covered ball.

https://imgur.com/a/QlIlejE
 
Ralph Slazenger is hardly setting the racket world alight either.

The only rackets they seem to advertise themselves are the “Slazenger” (25s) and the “Demon” (either 15s or, in “Special” form, 21s).

https://imgur.com/a/W1fG9Hh

A more fulsome list of Slazenger rackets will be set out a bit further below.

Like his Aldersgate Street rival, Slazenger is equally, if not more keen on promoting his tennis balls (and at 11s a dozen, I’d imagine that’s where the real margin is to be made).

https://imgur.com/a/E7CWODu

Ralph boasts that his ball was used in the “largest tournament in England” in 1891. To the general public and probably most of the tennis cognoscenti, this would be taken to mean Wimbledon. It’s entirely in character that this is a bit of a cheeky try-on. The tournament in question is Eastbourne, which drew a field of over 300 in 1891.

Do note the illustration of Slazenger’s Deptford works in the ad above - I can’t recall seeing another picture of this facility.
 
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The sails hang slack at other firms too.

Below are ads from Lunn, Lillywhite Frowd, Prosser, Holden, Gardiner, Bryan, Elvery and Deverell Brothers. Diligent followers of this thread (you poor buggers) would be forgiven for experiencing a violent sense of deja vu.

https://imgur.com/a/sP3GyJl

The Gardiner “Special” still commands a breathtaking 30s price tag, riding high after a positive Pastime review in 1891 (see above).
 
A wider range of 1892 English racket model names feature in adverts from regional sports shops.

https://imgur.com/a/hkp6vlU

Unfortunately, this is pretty much a carbon copy of this company’s advertising from 1891, the only differences being the inclusion of Slazenger’s “Lawford” and the “Fantail” (Bussey?) and the omission of the “Acme”, “Wood Street”, “Grooved Handle” and the “Belle” (all Slazenger I think other than the “Grooved Handle”).

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/really-ancient-history.246089/post-18337757
 
Over in Boston, Horace Partridge is touting around its range of “American Tate” rackets. The top-end frame is the “Expert”, with English red and white gut strings. The next in line is the “Prize”, whose strings are US-made.

The “New Standard” is a middle of the pack frame, listed at $3.

https://imgur.com/a/C9FiMSU

A very unusual ad appears the same month (June 1892) in “Christian Union”. Partridge admits that the cold weather at the end of 1891 left him with an excess stock of rackets. He now wants to shift these frames, offering them at a discount in places where no Horace Partridge retailer is located.

This seems a pretty good deal, given that there doesn’t seem to have been a fat lot of changes made to the range since 1891. I think, but am far from sure, that the rackets are offered individually rather than as a bloc of 1000.

https://imgur.com/a/1YzAEPX
 
Glory be! Peck & Snyder bring out a new racket in 1892. The “Hobart All Comers” is a top of the line model, retailing at a hefty $7.

https://imgur.com/a/xHt3uTu

It sports an 18*24 stringing pattern and a checkered handle. Apart from that, it’s fairly unremarkable.
 
The big news at Spalding, if this ad is anything to go by, is the release of a fluted-handle racket called the “Oval Handle Tournament”.

https://imgur.com/a/jZFv9mk

I may be blanking on this but I cannot recall seeing another US-made fluted-handle racket. Jeanne Cherry’s hugely useful index of Spalding rackets at the back of her book doesn’t mention this one but does refer to an oval handled “Slocum Oval” which she dates to 1896-1899.

Elsewhere, Wright & Ditson’s 1892 guide contains exactly the same rackets as are listed in the 1891 annual.

There is one new frame, however. This ad gives pride of place to the Sears Special (and why not, given the units it has shifted over the past few years) but also draws the reader’s attention to the new “Country Club” model.

https://imgur.com/a/uMf7Qjo

They also advertise a mouth-wateringly bumper lawn tennis boxed set.

https://imgur.com/a/39bcdx9
 
Wow, happened onto this now treasure trove of antique tennis rackets and related post from @Henry Hub.
I have not seen much discussions lately on the old racquets and stringing patters and am pleasantly surprised.
Sure wish there were more in the audience, only notice @Sanglier
In any event, I will try to look more often again.
Also wish there were more collectors, just seems that many of us old schoolers are downsizing.
Not even sure if the TCA, tennis collectors of America are still active.
Henry, are you using this forum to document lots of this history?
Cheers, Joe
 
joe sch said:
Henry, are you using this forum to document lots of this history?
Cheers, Joe
Click to expand...
Thanks Joe, glad you are enjoying it. I did a spot of reading during covid on 19th century tennis history and unfortunately this forum is now getting the brunt of that. For everyone’s sake, once we get to the end of 1899 I will leave this forum in peace for a good while!

I am far from an expert on the technical side of these old rackets, so thankfully @Sanglier , @retrowagen and @Grafil Injection among others have been doing the hard yards in interpreting the raw data I’ve been merrily regurgitating on this thread. I have also frequently been visiting your woodtennis website for pointers and inspiration!

There’s a few interesting bits and bobs I hope for the reader in all of this but, as long as this is some kind of gateway drug for people to get into the magna opera of Jeanne Cherry, Herr Kuebler Eng. and Messrs Hillway and Everett, I’ll be happy.

There’s also this passage that rounds out Herbert Chipp’s “Lawn Tennis Recollections”. It has stuck in my mind since I first read it and increasingly I’m seeing it as a pretty good mission statement for this whole thing. It holds as true today as when old Herbie wrote it back in 1898.

https://imgur.com/a/ZtzCfUP
 
Henry Hub said:
Thanks Joe, glad you are enjoying it. I did a spot of reading during covid on 19th century tennis history and unfortunately this forum is now getting the brunt of that. For everyone’s sake, once we get to the end of 1899 I will leave this forum in peace for a good while!

I am far from an expert on the technical side of these old rackets, so thankfully @Sanglier , @retrowagen and @Grafil Injection among others have been doing the hard yards in interpreting the raw data I’ve been merrily regurgitating on this thread. I have also frequently been visiting your woodtennis website for pointers and inspiration!

There’s a few interesting bits and bobs I hope for the reader in all of this but, as long as this is some kind of gateway drug for people to get into the magna opera of Jeanne Cherry, Herr Kuebler Eng. and Messrs Hillway and Everett, I’ll be happy.

There’s also this passage that rounds out Herbert Chipp’s “Lawn Tennis Recollections”. It has stuck in my mind since I first read it and increasingly I’m seeing it as a pretty good mission statement for this whole thing. It holds as true today as when old Herbie wrote it back in 1898.

https://imgur.com/a/ZtzCfUP
Click to expand...
It is nice to have a mission statement and I think Chipp's reflects the changes over the last century from fashion and style to performance and execution. Baseball may still cling onto the more of the vintage style than tennis and golf with the wood bat requirements still in the majors. I love the antique woods and history of the pre-open tennis tours. The transitional rackets were also a very interesting era and we have some real knowledge bases of human intel for those rackets visiting these forums. Keep up the outstanding work and best regards.
 
1892 is the first year where I found an advert from one of the big two early French tennis manufacturers (Mass & Co being the other). This ad is for Williams & Co of the Rue Caumartin in Paris. Williams later makes the frames of choice for “La belle Suzanne”, the “Bounding Basque” and the somewhat more prosaic MJG Ritchie. More on Ritchie later in 1892.

https://imgur.com/a/CfM9V5A

This ad is a bit of a head scratcher. I doubt there was a Parisian shop called “Lawn Tennis” so maybe the nameless retailer thought it was only necessary to give their address?

Whoever they are, they certainly pick the right year to claim that they manufacture better rackets than any in England.

https://imgur.com/a/W1uCNsm
 
Henry Hub said:
1892 is the first year where I found an advert from one of the big two early French tennis manufacturers (Mass & Co being the other). This ad is for Williams & Co of the Rue Caumartin in Paris. Williams later makes the frames of choice for “La belle Suzanne”, the “Bounding Basque” and the somewhat more prosaic MJG Ritchie. More on Ritchie later in 1892.

https://imgur.com/a/CfM9V5A

This ad is a bit of a head scratcher. I doubt there was a Parisian shop called “Lawn Tennis” so maybe the nameless retailer thought it was only necessary to give their address?

Whoever they are, they certainly pick the right year to claim that they manufacture better rackets than any in England.

https://imgur.com/a/W1uCNsm
Click to expand...
I do have a Williams & Co racquette circa 1890s and it is very high quality and beautiful construction. Surely on par with the UK rackets from the same era but "better rackets than any in England" is a bias claim or maybe just some attitude française
 
Henry Hub said:
1892 is the first year where I found an advert from one of the big two early French tennis manufacturers (Mass & Co being the other). This ad is for Williams & Co of the Rue Caumartin in Paris. Williams later makes the frames of choice for “La belle Suzanne”, the “Bounding Basque” and the somewhat more prosaic MJG Ritchie. More on Ritchie later in 1892.

https://imgur.com/a/CfM9V5A

This ad is a bit of a head scratcher. I doubt there was a Parisian shop called “Lawn Tennis” so maybe the nameless retailer thought it was only necessary to give their address?
Click to expand...

Henry Hub said:
Whoever they are, they certainly pick the right year to claim that they manufacture better rackets than any in England.

https://imgur.com/a/W1uCNsm
Click to expand...
The 3 racket logo is of Forester & Sons 30 Newington SE.think in London.
Presume they made the rackets and finished in France and the shop
claiming french made.... I tried to upload via Imgur. Not lucky till now...
 
Over in Germany, there is the same Perry & Co ad we saw in 1890. At this point, Perry & Co is a London (specifically, Holborn) department story that has a German wing.

As @Arrie said previously, by 1899 this company has joined up with Küster to form the Frankfurt-a-M powerhaus that is Küster Perry.

The naive Teutonic consumer may have been rather disappointed when he unpacked his Perry tennis set and found the net to be half the height of that depicted below. Note also the Ayres 1870s ball hoppers in the picture.

https://imgur.com/a/xw1vNmY

The same issue of the Illustrierte Zeitung also includes a tennis ad from Schütze of Berlin. I would love to know whether “Crockets” and “Crickets” both referred to cricket. From a quick squizz at Wikipedia, it would appear that cricket was played in Berlin from at least the 1850s, albeit initially by British and Americans.

https://imgur.com/a/44kNP3H
 
I’ve written a bit (way, way above) about the tennis manufacturers of Sialkot and how their workshops were already turning out rackets by 1880, far earlier than other authorities suggest.

There is a steady supply of Ayres and Slazenger rackets making their way to the Punjab alongside domestic production.

The James Turner ad below gives an indication of some of the models stocked. The “Union” is certainly from Ayres (you might recall that it is one of the early dual laminate frames), as are the “Champion”, “Julian Marshall” (possibly the first chequered-handled racket), the “Triple-Handled” (using the OE Woodhouse patent), the “Hammer Handled” and the “Handicap” (unless this is the earlier Feltham racket with the same name). The “Demon” and the “Renshaw” are obviously from Slazenger while I have not a clue who made “The Dragon” and the “Excelsior”.

One of the biggest names in Sialkot is Uberoi & Co so here is an early ad under the full name of Ganda Singh Uberoi & Co.

https://imgur.com/a/bC0eWuB
 
I’m afraid there’s not much new in the world of tennis footwear in 1892 either.

Manfield’s of Cheapside have a great big ad that doesn’t give much away in terms of design.

https://imgur.com/a/qRULipg

Much more like it is this offering from Randall’s, whose “Tenacious” shoe continues its enduring popularity with apparently over 300,000 pairs having been sold over the years.

The innovations this year, as you will see, are versions of the shoe with metal or rubber studs taking the place of the steel spikes or points that are the saviour of players and bugbear of groundsmen.

https://imgur.com/a/ISsc3gd
 
In March, a little company by the name of Struthers & Co cough up for an innocuous little ad in Pastime for their “Regal” tennis combination shirt.

As you’ll see below, this conjoins a normal canvas or flannel shirt with a “divided skirt” or a set of shorts. It looks like some kind of formal romper suit.

https://imgur.com/a/1cgZRyg

Struther’s claim is that this arrangement prevents men’s tennis shirts from riding up and working loose, an issue that has not been adequately addressed by the belts and wide sashes that adorn fashionable players’ waists. Incidentally, later in the year we will see an American player sporting a sash belt that wouldn’t be out of place on a WWF wrestler.

Anyway, while this would seem quite the bagatelle to modern eyes, the Regal Combination causes quite the stir.

Pastime waste little time in publishing a warm review of this novelty.

https://imgur.com/a/gwXyK2n
 
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You’d expect that to be the last we hear of the Regal. But no!

The very possibility of one’s shirt blousing up or even, horror of horrors, flying free and exposing some timid epidermis is evidently haunting some Pastime readers’ nightmares.

Letters are fired off to Pastime on the topic.

https://imgur.com/a/r9EELjx

One correspondent lauds the Regal design but doesn’t think it goes far enough. This bold predecessor to Anne White suggests that players should go full romper suit, with a single shirt and trousers combo, broken up with a sash at the waist.

This is a little extreme for other supporters of the Regal Combination, who quite rightly point out that going full romper would lead to the shoulders having to bear the weight of the whole outfit.

https://imgur.com/a/jsFatOK

Incidentally, E Burford Morrison becomes one of the great turn of the century tennis internationalists, refereeing and playing all the main European tournaments. His favourites seem to be Heiligendamm and Stockholm but he even wins the Portuguese national doubles championship in 1906.
 
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Henry Hub said:
I’ve written a bit (way, way above) about the tennis manufacturers of Sialkot and how their workshops were already turning out rackets by 1880, far earlier than other authorities suggest.

There is a steady supply of Ayres and Slazenger rackets making their way to the Punjab alongside domestic production.

The James Turner ad below gives an indication of some of the models stocked. The “Union” is certainly from Ayres (you might recall that it is one of the early dual laminate frames), as are the “Champion”, “Julian Marshall” (possibly the first chequered-handled racket), the “Triple-Handled” (using the OE Woodhouse patent), the “Hammer Handled” and the “Handicap” (unless this is the earlier Feltham racket with the same name). The “Demon” and the “Renshaw” are obviously from Slazenger while I have not a clue who made “The Dragon” and the “Excelsior”.

One of the biggest names in Sialkot is Uberoi & Co so here is an early ad under the full name of Ganda Singh Uberoi & Co.

https://imgur.com/a/bC0eWuB
Click to expand...

The Slazenger Demon and Imp fishtail racquets have always been sought after by the collectors.
Displayed below, two different models, a concave and convex throat wedge.
I do have a few others that are also quite lovely.
imp_demon_fishtail_1.jpg
 
“Pa” Jackson has his fingers squarely on the pulse of the British tennis public and he knows the opportunity to fill some column inches when he sees one.

There aren’t many 19th century editorials on men’s tennis clothing so this one has curiosity value if nothing else. He touches on previous trends in men’s tennis wear, Herbert Lawford obviously being the unnamed devotee of the striped football jumper and knickerbockers. The doubles player who sported sleeveless singlets (the proto-Nadal in his pirate era?) is more difficult to pin down. I seem to recall reading that Ernest Renshaw would wear this get-up in doubles but I wouldn’t put the farm on it.

Do enjoy Jackson’s desperate efforts to avoid straying into a discussion of feminine fashion and the topic of corsets in particular.

https://imgur.com/a/9x5nx5k
 
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joe sch said:
The Slazenger Demon and Imp fishtail racquets have always been sought after by the collectors.
Displayed below, two different models, a concave and convex throat wedge.
I do have a few others that are also quite lovely.
imp_demon_fishtail_1.jpg
Click to expand...
Beautiful rackets! Is the “Imp” a Slazenger frame? I seem to recall Kuebler had it as an Atlas model?

The shoulder wrapping on the “Demon” started at some point between 1895 and 1899. Does the logo on the wedge have the “Regd” wording in the little Devil’s neck? That’s a sign of an early 1890s number (once the patent had been expunged after the 1888/9 legal cases)
 
Henry Hub said:
Over in Germany, there is the same Perry & Co ad we saw in 1890. At this point, Perry & Co is a London (specifically, Holborn) department story that has a German wing.

As @Arrie said previously, by 1899 this company has joined up with Küster to form the Frankfurt-a-M powerhaus that is Küster Perry.

The naive Teutonic consumer may have been rather disappointed when he unpacked his Perry tennis set and found the net to be half the height of that depicted below. Note also the Ayres 1870s ball hoppers in the picture.

https://imgur.com/a/xw1vNmY

The same issue of the Illustrierte Zeitung also includes a tennis ad from Schütze of Berlin. I would love to know whether “Crockets” and “Crickets” both referred to cricket. From a quick squizz at Wikipedia, it would appear that cricket was played in Berlin from at least the 1850s, albeit initially by British and Americans.

https://imgur.com/a/44kNP3H
Click to expand...
great..This Castle on Perry add. Any idea which?
 
Henry Hub said:
The naive Teutonic consumer may have been rather disappointed when he unpacked his Perry tennis set and found the net to be half the height of that depicted below. Note also the Ayres 1870s ball hoppers in the picture.

https://imgur.com/a/xw1vNmY
Click to expand...

But not as disappointed as they would have been two years earlier!

tJ669Dy.jpeg



The illustrator must have traveled 134 years into the future, learned to use a computer and surf the web, seen what you had posted in July, and taken our comments into consideration when he went back to his own time to revise the drawing. :) Also, the castle in the background has changed.

As for the 'Regal' shirt, it is truly amazing to think that it would take many more decades for civilizational decay (and rising temperature) to reach a point where the very obvious solution of shortening the shirt and wearing it untucked could even be contemplated.
 
Sanglier said:
But not as disappointed as they would have been two years earlier!

tJ669Dy.jpeg



The illustrator must have traveled 134 years into the future, learned to use a computer and surf the web, seen what you had posted in July, and taken our comments into consideration when he went back to his own time to revise the drawing. :) Also, the castle in the background has changed..
Click to expand...
Let’s just hope he didn’t spend a bit of time cruising the other fora on this board for sports results or we could be in for a nasty Biff Tannen/ Sports Almanac scenario!

Keine Ahnung about that castle, @Arrie old son - apart from the details you and @Sanglier have identified, the draftsman seems to have had the same slavish devotion to his past work as the Disney crew who did the Jungle Book and Robin Hood…
 
Henry Hub said:
Beautiful rackets! Is the “Imp” a Slazenger frame? I seem to recall Kuebler had it as an Atlas model?

The shoulder wrapping on the “Demon” started at some point between 1895 and 1899. Does the logo on the wedge have the “Regd” wording in the little Devil’s neck? That’s a sign of an early 1890s number (once the patent had been expunged after the 1888/9 legal cases)
Click to expand...
Nice recall on the Imp being an Atlas model. This picture shows the opposite side view and the "A" as part of the Imp logo and Atlas trademark. Both of these models are early 1900s.
 
Just to mop up the rest of the adverts in 1892, the clever little ball cleaning machine from Ramsden appears to have been a hit with the clubs. According to this ad, a bunch of big tournaments have been using it. That said, it’s a bit cheeky to refer to both the Queen’s and London Championships tournaments, as these are both held by the Queen’s Club…

https://imgur.com/a/urJJib1

A ball-cleaning device is just about the only mechanical novelty not coming out of Osmond’s workshop down in south-east London.

https://imgur.com/a/0F7HLeq

Finally, lime cordial, the aquae vitae of generations of British children, is vividly advertised in this number from Rose. Not much about the picture screams tennis, mind. It’s a far cry from their 1889 campaign.

https://imgur.com/a/3dM0sDz
 
So where were we at the end of 1891?

Dod had returned, yes - but only for a triumphant Boudicean sweep through Wimbledon, not even playing her beloved Northern.

Blanche Hillyard had been enticed back onto court in the vain hope of getting one over her youthful nemesis. She was laid low for much of the year with illness and only played sporadically after her return.

While Dod and Hillyard are absent, Ireland’s May Langrishe and Louisa Martin hoover up the principal remaining titles.

Maud Shackle and Miss Austin lead the new players on the fringe of the ladies’ game.

In the US, Mabel Cahill had claimed the title which injury had denied her in 1891. The Roosevelt sisters are the main contenders to her throne.

On the men’s side, the ingenue Wilfred Baddeley had upset the odds with his Wimbledon singles win. Although he elected to play a bit after Wimbledon, wisely departing from William Renshaw’s refusal to play aught else than his “annual single”, Wilfred hadn’t really kicked on to cement his position.

Pim and Barlow were the other main contenders in the big events, though the former had been unlucky with illness. By the end of 1891, both Pim and Goodbody were struck down with typhoid fever. With Hamilton’s return starting to look a forlorn hope, is this the end of the brief flourish for Irish tennis?

The Renshaws are still in and around the scene. After his abject humiliation at the hands of Baddeley at Worple Road, Ernest only played handicap singles and open doubles for the rest of the season. William hasn’t even been doing that. The 7-time champion only plays the odd society handicap at Homburg and Cannes.

Both Lawford and Wilberforce have hung up their boots, while Chipp still plays on but has never really recovered from his bout of pleurisy.

Mahony and Chapman are among those viewed as most likely to take the step up to the top level.

At Newport, Ollie Campbell had defied his erstwhile iffy form and had defended his title against Clarence Hobart in some style. Like Alexander, Campbell had no kingdoms (Stateside at least) left to conquer so is on his way to the French Riviera and then to England to take on the cream of Britain and Ireland.

Off court, there is still no entente, cordiale or otherwise, on whether quarters or the old real tennis system should be used for handicap events. The South and Scotland favours the former, Northern England the latter. The US couldn’t give a flying fig, handicap events being almost unknown there.
 
What is in store for 1892?

We see the antecedent of the Davis Cup as the first international contest is organised.

The handicap dispute rears its head again, with the usual ill-feeling and bizarre Pastime fever dream long forms. New scoring methods are proposed for the game, which give an insight into how we would now be playing in a parallel universe.

Against all expectations, a Wimbledon ex-champion pulls off a major win that’s up there with Sampras at the 2002 USO.

On the ladies’ side, there is an upset for the ages.

While an ex-champion returns briefly on the men’s side, 1892 marks the debut of a future great in each of the men’s and ladies’ game.

Meanwhile there is enormous interest in Ollie Campbell’s tour of the main English events.

Finally, Pastime again goes in to bat against reports of tennis’ demise.
 
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As Ollie Campbell heads across the ocean, his Wright & Ditson Sears Special rackets packaged carefully up as a precaution against the damp and cold, Outing in the US publishes an obituary of one of the firm’s founders.

We saw that Henry Ditson unexpectedly died in November 1891. Outing gives him an appropriate send-off.

https://imgur.com/a/LlMkRkP

Outing notes that Ditson had visited Wimbledon in 1891, which is corroborated in the Pastime editorial on the relative merits of US and British / Irish players that conjured up a conversation between “Dit” and “Roddie” Beach.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/really-ancient-history.246089/post-18381553

What was not mentioned in that editorial was that Ditson was also on Worple Road to bend the ears of the top local (male?) players in the hope of enticing them to come to America and play an international event against their US cousins. It’s pretty clear that there was a commercial angle to this, with Outing suggesting that W&D would have stumped up almost anything in order to make this happen.

Ditson was ultimately unsuccessful in this endeavour but perhaps he was one of those who laid the tracks for the first international contest later in 1892?
 
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