Yesterday, May 10, Wiltshire Lawn Tennis Association celebrated its centenary with a special afternoon tea at Marlborough Golf Club. In honour of the occasion, Geoffrey Owen, President of the Wiltshire Lawn Tennis, has written a history tracing its early beginnings with just 10 clubs through the turbulent years of WW2 to the present day with 43 clubs. Wiltshire has, it seems, always played a very important part in national tennis and produced many talented players.

Below is a summary of Geoffrey Owen’s history of Wiltshire tennis. For the full history click here.

Summary

Credit: Sue Round – Marlborough News

“Wiltshire celebrated an unusual event this weekend – Wiltshire Tennis is a hundred years old. The first meeting was held in Trowbridge on March 14 1924 with ten affiliated clubs, marking the start of what has proved to be  an impressive record of achievement in British tennis.

Each club was asked to pay a membership fee of 10s 6d; ladies and gentlemen who were not club members could join as personal members with an annual fee of 3s.

As set out in a new history of Wiltshire tennis, (which was presented at the celebration tea), the county has produced a stream of talented players, both men and women, who have helped Wiltshire keep pace with larger and better endowed counties in the annual inter-county lawn tennis tournament.

A notable example from the early days is Henry Billington, a Devizes-born farmer who began playing for the county in the 1920s and continued to do so after the war. Billington, who was a member of the British Davis Cup team in 1946 and 1948, captained Wiltshire in 1948 when the county reached Group One in the inter-county competition for the first time in its history. Remarkably, Henry was also in the team when we reached Group One for the second time in 1960.

Among the ladies, the outstanding player in the early post-war years was Viola White. One of five sisters who lived at Zeals, near Warminster, Viola played in the ladies singles at Wimbledon every year from 1947 to 1961, a record that is probably unequalled. She led the Wiltshire ladies team that reached Group One in the inter-county tournament in 1953. 

In the years following the creation of the Wiltshire LTA the number of affiliated clubs continued to grow, reaching 26 by 1939 when activities were terminated for the duration of the war. 

For aspiring players an important event during this period was the annual county championship, played every summer in Trowbridge on courts rented from the county cricket ground. That tournament was revived in 1947; by running a large number of events for players of all ages and abilities it was a popular venue for tennis-playing families. 

Meanwhile Wiltshire clubs were soon back in action, including long-established clubs such as Salisbury (founded in 1895) and newer ones such as Swindon Hard Courts. The latter, despite having only three courts and not much in the way of clubhouse facilities, was the training ground for several of the best young players in the early post-war years; this was in large part due to the inspiring leadership of Swindon-based Bob Clanchy, who as a player and then as non-playing captain was a key figure in Wiltshire tennis during those years. 

When tennis became a professional sport at the of the 1960s the character of the game changed in many ways – much more competitive and much more difficult for part-time players to make a mark in top tournaments like Wimbledon. But Wiltshire has continued to play an outsized role in national tennis, despite the lack of large city-based clubs of the sort which exist in counties such as Surrey and Middlesex. Along today’s rising stars is Swindon-born Giles Hussey, who, following in the footsteps of Henry Billington, was selected to join the British Davis Cup team to play Japan earlier this year.

At the heart of county tennis are the clubs. There are now 44 registered venues in the county; most of the clubs have at least one coach, some of them three or four, catering for players of all ages and abilities. There are also several local leagues, which run inter-club competitions in different age groups. Some clubs have taken up two new versions of tennis – padel ball and pickleball – which add to the attractions that they can offer their members. In these and other ways Wiltshire tennis is continuing to evolve and thrive, building on the initiative that was started a hundred years ago.”