Description:'The lovers of lawn-tennis will perhaps be surprised to learn that Major Gem was the first to bring that game before the public, but it is an unquestionable fact'.
An obituary for Major ‘Harry’ Gem in December 1881, in Edgbastonia magazine proudly proclaimed that lawn tennis was invented in Edgbaston, by Gem and local resident Augurio Perera. Gem liked to play rackets, which needed a four-sided court (rather like the modern squash court), and tennis was developed as an alternative that needed a simpler court. ‘The first game was played by Messrs Gem and Perera in the garden attached to the latter gentleman’s residence, Fairlight, Ampton Road, Edgbaston’. The subtitle to this obituary is ‘Edgbastonian Origin of Lawn Tennis’ – a testament to the speed with which the new game had caught on.
Lawn tennis was taken up by the Edgbaston Archery Society. In 1876 it had resolved to permit Lawn Tennis only Monday to Wednesday after 5 pm as an addition to the core activities of archery and croquet.<small><sup>1</sup></small> Within a year, however, the Society had restyled itself the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society (EALTS),<small><sup>2</sup></small> and can now claim to be the oldest surviving tennis club in the world.
The new fangled game seems quickly to have become an accepted part of middle-class life for Edgbaston residents:
'As days shorten […]as lawn tennis becomes impossible, and folks return home from pleasant trips and health-giving sea-side resorts, the mind begins to look forward to indoor occupations and amusements. Garden parties, archery, flower shows and all the delightful out-of-door recreations of summer must soon give way to more social if more artificial relaxations and pastimes'.<small><sup>3</sup></small>
We soon find advertisements for tennis equipment appearing. For example, in 1885 lawn tennis ‘perquisites’ could be obtained from the Household Supply Association.<small><sup>4</sup></small> This photograph of tennis being played in 1908 at the Botanical Gardens (where the EALTS was based from 1878) shows both men and women in action, wearing the white flannels and long white dresses expected of players.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society Minutes, 1876
<sup>2</sup> Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society Minutes, 1877
<sup>3</sup> Edgbastonia (September 1881)
<sup>4</sup> Edgbastonia (April 1885)</small></font>