The tennis inventor who you never knew

THE concept of a court-based game played with balls and rackets had been around for centuries by the time Walter Clopton Wingfield was born on October 16, 1833.

Yet, in 1873 it was he who would paten a game, which he called Sphairistike after the Greek term for a “ball game”, that is now recognised as Modern Lawn Tennis.

Born the eldest son of Major Clopton Lewis Wingfield at Rhysnant Hall, Montgomeryshire, Walter found himself an orphan under the charge of his great uncle by the age of 13.

His mother, Jane, had died giving birth to a second child in 1836, whilst his father followed a decade later of a bowel obstruction.

It was under the influence of his uncle, a Colonel, that Wingfield would join the military and gain a place at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. His second attempt after an initial failed application.

From Sandhurst, Wingfield was commissioned a Cornet in the 1st Dragoon Guards, promoted to Captain by 1858.

As a member of the Dragoons, Wingfield’s career took him across the globe, with deployments in India and China and at the 1861 capture of Peking.

On his return to Britain in 1861, Wingfield retired from the Dragoon Guards to his family estate at Rhysnant and it was there that the Welshman would secure his place in posterity.

Wingfield fancied himself as something of a Victorian Gentleman at a time in the 19th century when a growing demand was murmuring among the middle classes for the development of gentile outdoor activities with which they might occupy their leisure time.

An amateur inventor himself, Wingfield came up with the concept of a portable box, containing the equipment required to play his new game of Sphairistike – a name which never caught on.

Included in the box were four rubber balls, vulcanised so as to enable outdoor use, four bats, a net, poles, court markers and a rulebook titled “The Game of Sphairistike”.

The actual birth date of Wingfield’s game is unknown. While Lord Lansdowne made later claims that he was granted a demonstration in the garden of his house at Berkley Square, other accounts name a Christmas Party held at Nantclwyd in 1873 as having hosted the first competitive match.

Either way, Sphairistike was an instant hit. Given the subtitle: “or Lawn Tennis” on the advice of Arthur Balfour, his friend and later Prime Minister, Wingfield patented the game in London, 1873.

Sphairistike spread much quicker than he could possibly expect.

Boxes were priced at five guineas and, within a year, over a 1,000 had been shipped to 10 countries across the globe.

It was here that Wingfield’s involvement would conclude.

By 1877 his patent had expired and a green in Wimbledon owned by the All England Croquet Club had taken over.

The club altered its name, and courts, to encompass the new game and become the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club.

On August 11 1902, King Edward VII invested Wingfield as a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order. His importance in the history of Tennis has not, however, been forgotten. In 1997, Walter Clopton Wingfield was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

A blue plaque remains at the London dwelling in which he died in 1909, whilst under a statue of his likeness in the the headquarters of the Lawn Tennis Association reads the epitaph: “Inventor of Lawn Tennis”.