From catch to lawn tennis

Please note, this talk will follow on from the Birmingham & Midland Institute's AGM.

Robert Holland is a former Honorary Secretary and Chairman, now a trustee, of Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society, the oldest lawn tennis club in the world, and a former council member of the Warwickshire LTA. He is also the founding trustee of the Harry Gem Project which, among other activities, raised the funds and commissioned the restoration of Harry Gem’s grave in Warstone Lane Cemetery in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. In 2019 the Project arranged for blue plaques to be erected at the homes of lawn tennis pioneers Harry Gem and Augurio Perera in Royal Leamington Spa.

Robert’s talk will encompass the casual ball play of ancient times through to the emergence of organised games such as royal tennis and its equivalents around Europe. He will tell of the popularity of rackets, a Victorian game for everyman and the arrival, in 1874, of lawn tennis in the form of Walter Wingfield’s Sphairistike and Gem and Perera’s Pelota.

Host or Publisher The Birmingham & Midland Institute