In a Class of Its Own? The Origins and Early History of Tennis in the 19th-Century Cape Colony

Abstract

This article endeavours to awaken a scholarly interest in the origins and early history of tennis in the city of Cape Town and the Cape Colony more broadly. By drawing on newspaper accounts and other supplementary materials, the article maps out a social, political and cultural landscape that shaped this particular history prior to 1892, the year that tennis was established on a national basis in the region that would become the Union of South Africa in 1910. Much of this history has disappeared or has been erased from public consciousness and therefore events are called up that may appear insignificant to the modern reader. In recovering this history, this article seeks to demonstrate that the history of this sport matters because of its place in the social and political unfolding of 19th-century Cape colonial society. It then unpacks this history as it evolved predominantly among the English-speaking colonial middle class, in elite private residences, hotels, schools and clubs within the culture associated with these institutions.

Keywords:

• Cape Colony
• 19th-century South Africa
• tennis
• class
• race
• gender
• clubs
• culture

Why Tennis History Matters

A detailed recording of tennis-related historical events, however insignificant it may seem to the reader, is an important act of recovery and reclamation of archival and political history.¹ Tennis emerged as a recreational activity around the same time that Cape Town was in transition from a rural town to a modern industrial city. By examining the early days of tennis in the city we therefore get a glimpse into new power relations of race, gender and class in Cape colonial sports settings. Tennis in the 19th-century Cape Colony was predominantly played by white men and boys. However, women’s sport in Cape society followed the feminist assertion that physical activity could be good for girls as well as boys and a number of games were introduced for girls at the Good Hope Seminary and at Rustenburg Girls’ High School.² Similarly, tennis was also played by members of the mission-educated African elite, although this remains a topic that requires further research. Colonial tennis history has the same social and political significance as the histories of rugby and cricket – the more popular attractions for sports historians. By the time a white South African had reached the Wimbledon men’s double final, with an English partner, in 1884, black players in various parts of the Cape Colony had founded men’s and women’s tennis clubs.³ Therefore, a tennis history provides historians with a wider lens for exploring the appeal that 19th-century organised sport had among settlers and colonised communities alike.

Another important reason that tennis history matters is that the game was part of the social make-up of the ruling class. Therefore, when Prince Victor Albert and his entourage visited Cape Town in 1881, they were entertained on the property of Alexander van der Byl,⁴ where they could get ‘a glimpse of colonial life … with lawn tennis’.⁵ By the 1880s, tennis had become part of the local industry of Cape colonial society. For example, H. Hawkins who advertised himself in the job-hunting columns as ‘a practical gardener’ was able to have ‘tennis courts made and old ones recoated’.⁶ The game also had an established history in colonial society. According to a 19th-century visitor to the Cape, James Stanley Little, tennis was known to Capetonians ‘many a long day before it became a pastime in England’.⁷ Cape newspapers also carried reports of international developments, keeping locals abreast of the latest trends in the game.⁸ It was an aspect of colonial ‘civilising’ processes, drawing the attention of both writers and scientists with an interest in studying human movement. For example, ‘a [medical] authority’ commented in a newspaper in 1884 on how ‘[t]ennis … is amongst the most powerful agencies by which muscles regulating the eyes can be strengthened and improved’.⁹ Tennis was a supplement to medical interventions for all sorts of ailments, and the mineral baths at Caledon were fitted with a tennis court for this purpose.¹⁰

Tennis was also a game that affirmed one’s eminence in ‘cultured’ English society (see Figure 1). Therefore, John X. Merriman, the colonial prime minister, could state: ‘[w]herever Englishmen made their home, tennis was played with vigour’.¹¹ Since Queen Victoria’s ascent to the British throne, the dominance of the aristocracy in public life started faltering and middle-class society grew in influence, especially when slave emancipation was announced in December 1838.¹² Middle-class society in England sought cultural markers to distinguish themselves from the working classes who, according to Matthew Arnold, ‘were raw and half-developed, marched where they liked, met where they liked, bawled what they liked and broke what they disliked’.¹³ The anglophone middle class in Cape society also sought cultural markers to distinguish themselves from the working classes, who were largely black. One of the ways in which they did this was through various sporting associations and sporting events to form a sense of identity among themselves.

Figure 1. An early post-Victorian postcard indicating the class, race and gender bias of tennis. (Source: National Library of South Africa, Cape Town Division.)

The game was also regularly reported on in the local newspapers which would have increased the awareness and popularity of the sport among newspaper readers.¹⁴ Despite being technically clumsy, these newspaper articles offer insights into colonial leisure experiences such as lawn tennis.¹⁵ When sports were organised into clubs, it was not uncommon for an individual to hold office in different sports, thereby cross-pollinating values from one to the other.¹⁶ Another reason why South African tennis history should matter to historians is that it had a presence in most urban and rural centres. In addition, it is necessary to debunk the myth that tennis was merely an ‘objectless pastime … and an excuse for flirtation … in [19th-century] modern garden parties’.¹⁷ These tennis parties were noted more for transmitting social aspects of Victorian domesticity, often with servants in attendance, than for actual player performance.¹⁸ According to the Cape Times, ‘lawn tennis paved the way for the fair sex to other sports’.¹⁹ It became one of the earliest sports that made provision for special sportswear for women.²⁰

The game was also part of a class and cultural mapping of a settler society that drew a distinction between ‘the [rural] ex-farmer and other men who came to play lawn tennis at the foot of Table Mountain’.²¹ This became more visible after the discovery of diamonds along the Orange and Vaal rivers in 1867. From then on, a predominantly – although not exclusively – English-speaking middle class emerged that came to consider ‘race’ as a distinguishing factor for civilisation. This led to a social and workplace environment exclusive to white colonials which in turn helped to determine that a definition of ethnicity based on darkness of pigmentation would become increasingly likely among Cape Town’s lower classes.²² From the 1870s onwards, the majority of Cape Town’s dominant class, mainly English and imbued with a class consciousness of their counterparts in Britain, increasingly controlled and explained lower classes in ethnic and racist terms. They sympathised with poor white people and blamed black poverty on black inferiority and welcomed segregation of public and private institutions.²³ Therefore, lower classes were excluded from the emerging game of tennis.

Artificial identities were also marked by tennis clothing. In towns, ‘the proper tennis attire [for men] were … striped flannel … cap, shirt and coat with the trousers of an entirely different material’.²⁴ Away from the towns, men were allowed to wear wide-brimmed hats, rather than the toppers of the townsmen.²⁵ Tennis in the British colonial world was a game ‘played by anyone … who had pretentions of being anybody… a game that was not played by the less cultivated classes’.²⁶ Therefore, when Sir Donald Currie (who donated trophies for national rugby, swimming and soccer competitions) arrived in the Cape Colony on 4 November 1887, the welcoming celebrations included lawn tennis matches.²⁷ The game could also be invoked to emphasise differences between colonial settlers and indigenous societies. In an 1881 Cape Times editorial column, the columnist made it clear that

[if] we … as a civilized and dominant race … attempt and desire to change and model the whole scheme of kafir [sic] life … on a European pattern … we [have to be] determined to substitute the beer feast and war dance for … lawn tennis.²⁸

An understanding of tennis history is therefore an indispensable aspect of coming to terms with 19th-century colonisation. Lastly, tennis was a game that confirmed a player’s amateur status in colonial society.²⁹

Tennis Origins

Lawn tennis, as opposed to the older royal or real tennis, is generally traced back to 1858, when Major T.H. (Harry) Gem, J.B. Perera and two friends marked out an open-air tennis court in Birmingham.³⁰ In 1872, another court came into existence on the lawns of the Manor House Hotel in Leicestershire, England, where a plaque records: ‘[o]n this lawn, in 1872, the first lawn tennis club in the world was founded’.³¹ Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, however, introduced a version of tennis to the broader British public in 1873, what he called sfairistiké. It was played on a court the shape of an hour glass, with a net of 1.5 metres high on each side (due to the influence of badminton) and with a diamond-shaped serving area on either side of the net.³² In 1875, the Marylebone Cricket Club, the governing body for regular tennis, convened a meeting in an attempt to set up suitable tennis rules.³³ Out of this meeting, a lawn tennis championship was held in 1877 to raise funds to contribute towards replacing a broken pony roller. This was the inaugural Wimbledon lawn tennis championship.³⁴

Wingfield received a fair amount of support from England’s upper classes who started to move away from badminton, croquet and archery.³⁵ Later, in 1881, Wingfield was recognised by the British government for giving girls an athletic game they could play in summer in healthy open air, a game more exciting than curate croquet and full of charm.³⁶ The acknowledgment of and support for the game in Britain was diffused into tennis in the colonies.

A History of the Origins of South African Tennis

The evidence of tennis diffusion into Cape colonial society is best obtained through newspapers. In order to construct this particular history, the National Library of South Africa (Cape Town Division), with its vast collection of colonial newspapers, was consulted. However, the South African press has been a sectional press throughout its history. Race rather than language, religion or culture, has proved to be the dominant factor affecting this sectionalism.³⁷ In addition, newspapers strive to build loyal readerships through stories with a particular angle on specific regional affiliations, cultures, social classes and gender.³⁸ Therefore any historical narrative focusing on a sport such as tennis needs to be aware of this bias and to proceed with caution when making statements of a general nature. In addition, the newspaper sources that were consulted for this study were overwhelmingly from the western parts of the Cape Colony. Further research that draws on newspapers from Grahamstown, King Williams Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Kimberley and other areas in the Cape, will provide new and enriched data. As these sources had a white readership as their target audience, the vast reservoir of newspapers edited and read by African people, like Imvo Zabantsundu [Black Opinion] and others, were also consulted to add to a more comprehensive narrative.

According to an earlier study on the history of South African sport, lawn tennis was introduced into South Africa by a Mr Nevill and a few other English players.³⁹ However, as with the William Webb Ellis myth, namely that rugby started with one individual picking up a soccer ball and running with it, the emergence of organised tennis was not due to an individual effort, but rather the result of a combination of business ventures, colonial culture, club culture and private enterprise.⁴⁰ In 1873, P. Hayman & Co.’s, located in St. George’s Street, Cape Town, advertised, among other items, tennis balls.⁴¹ From then onwards, newspapers carried regular advertisements for tennis equipment.⁴² Clothing companies also responded to an increased interest in tennis and, in 1878, Riddelsell & Co. advertised ‘Ladies Lawn Tennis Shoes’.⁴³ While it is not possible to state with certainty when the first tennis game was played in South Africa, the word ‘tennis’ was known to settlers by 1834. In 1836, a writer described in De Zuid-Afrikaan how he witnessed ‘a street preacher, in Cape Town on the Grand Parade, being jostled about by a few lads, like a tennis ball’ (emphasis added).⁴⁴ By 1862, ‘tennis balls’ were advertised in the eastern parts of the Cape Colony and in 1875, lawn tennis toys were advertised in a shop in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha).⁴⁵ From the 1880s onwards, sport became an increasingly spectator-based activity within the confines of stadiums. In this way, the faster-moving game of tennis replaced ‘the dismal game of croquet’.⁴⁶ A game closely linked to tennis, fives (similar to handball), was also popular in the Cape, with a couple of courts at the main barracks of a military regiment at Caledon Square.⁴⁷ However, by 1898, this game was no longer well known in Cape Town, probably because of its Irish rather than English character.⁴⁸ Badminton was also popular in Cape society at the time.⁴⁹

In 1878, a Cape Town newspaper reported that the most popular ball game in Cape Town and surrounding villages was lawn tennis.⁵⁰ From 1881 onwards, South Africans started playing international tennis when a schoolboy, E.L. Williams, played in the Wimbledon tournament.⁵¹ According to secondary sources, South Africa’s first two tennis clubs were established in the following year: at Berea in Durban and at Wynberg in Cape Town.⁵² Tennis flourished in bourgeois circles in the urban and rural Cape Colony. A Cape Times correspondent in the Transkei reported on an excellent tournament held there.⁵³ In 1883, a newspaper correspondent from Stellenbosch wrote that ‘croquet en tennis zijn aan den orde van den dag’ [croquet and tennis is the order of the day].⁵⁴ By 1885, the game was played from Malmesbury in the west to Graaff-Reinet (and possibly further) in the east.⁵⁵ There were also reports of tennis players in Richmond and Hanover in the present day Northern Cape by 1889.⁵⁶ By 1892, colonial championship tournaments were held in Natal, East London and Johannesburg.⁵⁷ In the same year there were also colonial tournaments in Kimberley and Johannesburg.⁵⁸

Although there have been attempts at writing the histories of South African tennis, these have not reached the level of sophistication and depth of the histories of rugby and cricket.⁵⁹ Yet, the origin of tennis has a 19th-century Cape colonial history that is closely entwined with those of the other ‘muscular Christian’ or ‘manly’ sports – football and cricket.⁶⁰ It was an age when Victorian society laid down defining character traits for what an exclusive English gentleman should be. In 1878, the Cape Times mentioned one such trait: ‘it is a sin for a country gentleman to be inside reading a book … on rainless afternoons’.⁶¹ Most outdoor sports were played by young white men to the exclusion of women. The Wynberg Tennis Club, for example, only allowed women as members some years after it was established.⁶² The game was as popular as cricket, especially among the bourgeoisie, and the Cape Times carried an article in 1889 entitled ‘In Praise of Lawn Tennis’.⁶³ Not surprisingly, an early meeting of the Western Province Lawn Tennis Association (WPLTA) in 1884 was held in the Masonic Hall⁶⁴ where plans were made to arrange a tournament in conjunction with a cricket tournament in Port Elizabeth.⁶⁵ A similar occurrence took place in Richmond the following year, when a cricket tournament was arranged there alongside lawn tennis matches.⁶⁶

School Tennis in the Cape Colony

Prime works on 19th-century South African education generally ignore the role of games and sport.⁶⁷ In England, the three sports codes that gripped the enthusiasm of public schools were rugby football, cricket and rowing.⁶⁸ However, public school graduates who practised their own unique sports activities sometimes invented or improved sports to the benefit of millions for future generations. For example, Walter Wingfield (who pioneered a form of tennis) attended Rossall School, where there was probably an environment for creative sporting invention.⁶⁹ Tennis in the Cape Colony emerged at a time when elite and exclusive schools, such as Victoria College in Stellenbosch, emphasised the importance of recreation above book learning. Here the student newspaper admonished students who ‘shut themselves up in their dormitories cramming formulae and reading trash’.⁷⁰

The Stellenbosch College Times even appealed to theology students ‘to expatiate upon the benefits of training upon both mind and body and maintain the famous old adage mens sana in corpore sano’.⁷¹ Given the elitist culture of tennis, it appeared in the exclusive schools first before children in mission schools were exposed to the game. By 1876, the All Saints School in Wynberg, Cape Town, provided tennis participation for learners and teachers (see Figure 2). Strikingly, the first known photograph of Cape Town’s early tennis players features women and girls.

Figure 2. Teachers and learners from All Saints School, Wynberg, Cape Colony, 1876. This is the earliest known Cape Town tennis photograph to date. (Source: Western Cape Archives and Records Services, AG 13414.)

Four years later, a report surfaced of a suburban tennis club in Cape Town.⁷² This club was associated with Diocesan College (known as Bishops School), but had an ‘uncertain future’ the following year.⁷³ The club did however continue and in 1883 it planned a match against Claremont Club.⁷⁴ In 1881, a report of the South African College (SAC) (later the University of Cape Town), also an elite colonial school, bemoaned the absence of tennis courts.⁷⁵ Not surprisingly, one of the earliest interschool tennis matches, as reported in the Cape Times, was between past and present boys of SAC and Bishops in 1884.⁷⁶ Between 1884 and 1892 (and possibly beyond), a SAC tennis team played against Sea Point Club.⁷⁷ One of the early Cape colonial tennis champions, Barney Fuller, played for the SAC team.⁷⁸ Another prominent player was the SAC old boy, W. Watermeyer.⁷⁹ Between 1884 and 1888, the WPLTA men’s singles championship was won by a former SAC old boy.⁸⁰ By 1890, Dale College in King William’s Town had an enclosed tennis court.⁸¹

Tennis at Private Properties in the Cape Colony

The period under review was one where respectability and gentility were manifested in wealth; namely, private material possessions.⁸² It was rare to find any house, with any pretensions to spacious grounds, without a tennis court.⁸³ An important aspect of these private courts was that it afforded women (who may have learned the game at school) an opportunity to play sport in the privacy of private grounds. There are records of luxurious estates such as Silwood in Rondebosch having tennis courts on the property.⁸⁴ Another notable estate with a court was the six-bedroomed house of Daniel de Villiers in Beaufort West.⁸⁵ A spacious estate in Swellendam belonging to the Barry family had a court in 1888.⁸⁶ The Duminy family’s farm Sea View in the 19th-century rural suburb of Bellville also boasted a court.⁸⁷

Some private properties with courts in Cape Town matched prime estates in England. One such estate was that of a Dr Payne from Wynberg, Cape Town, in 1880. Here was an ‘eight roomed house with an additional kitchen, pantry, store-room, stable, coach-house, stable, servant’s room and woodhouse with a grassfield adjoining the lawn tennis ground – shaded by a large canopy of oak and pine trees’.⁸⁸ Another case in point was the property of a certain A.G. Jones in upmarket Orange Street. In 1883, the fixed property on this estate, Headley House, formerly called Mount Pleasant, was

built by the late Edward Hull, in the most perfect style and [with] every modern convenience and comfort … [T]he house contains a drawing room, breakfast room, study, spacious hall with large kitchen, two pantries, four large bedrooms with dressing rooms, upstairs bathroom with water and gas laid on. Besides the above, there is a double storied house at the back of the main house, containing four rooms which can either be let or used as servants’ rooms, bathroom, storeroom, outdoor nursery … It has a magnificent stoep and verandah, which can be used in all weathers … a large extent of garden ground (front and back), vineyard, vegetable and flower garden, coach house and stable, summer and winter fruit trees, fountain in front of house, large fowl run and a lawn tennis ground.⁸⁹

This was also a period where ‘modernization and change were in the air as some older [Dutch colonial-styled] properties were demolished … and new houses in a more modern style were built, usually on the same site’.⁹⁰ Some of these new estates were used for lawn tennis tournaments. One such example was the Renaissance-styled 30-room mansion of Captain Spence, acquired in 1882 in Wynberg, called Hawthornden. This mansion was built over the foundations of the original Oude Wijnberg homestead and had a ‘terraced garden … where a tennis tournament was held in 1884’.⁹¹ When the property was put on public auction the following year, it was advertised as one with ‘parterres of flower beds, lawns, fruit groves and tennis grounds’.⁹² In 1886, a seven-roomed St. George’s Villa in Green Point with large grounds and a full-sized tennis court was advertised for sale.⁹³ Another imposing property was Salston in Ottery Road, Wynberg, belonging to an ostrich feather merchant, Mr Ponder, which consisted of a seven-roomed house with a tennis court.⁹⁴ Properties such as these belonged to a Victorian-era leisured class who hired out their estates, with tennis courts, when going on holiday.⁹⁵

Throughout the late 19th century, tennis remained popular in middle-class society and participation in the game became a sign of ‘progress’ and ‘success’. When Barney Fuller left Cape Town for England in 1887 to study medicine, local newspapers mentioned his credentials as, among others, ‘having held the Lawn Tennis Championship Cup against the best players of the district, both civilian and military … for three consecutive years’.⁹⁶ By then, the game was associated with middle-class whiteness and a newspaper correspondent from Port Elizabeth expressed dismay at ‘Een blanke predikant … met gekleurde susters tennis speelde’ [one white preacher … playing tennis with a coloured sister].⁹⁷ From the early years, black people had a presence in tennis either as players or as ball catchers.⁹⁸ Black sports participation, however, was always depicted as peculiar. This is well illustrated in the following extract from the Cape Mercantile Advertiser of 1883:

The Native Lawn Tennis Club in Natal is something to be amazed at. There the native ladies and gentlemen have their own lawn tennis ground. First, they had a cricket ground; but the game involved too much muscular exertion and as a coloured gentleman observed – the ladies could not very well join in it. They converted the Native Cricket Club into a Native Football Association and admitted the ladies. Prudes remonstrated and said the sight of a kafir [sic] girl kicking a football in the air was not aesthetic but the rule is established and in Natal the coloured persons have their lawn tennis and football clubs – ladies admitted as members. An archery club for kafir [sic] ladies is to follow.⁹⁹

No evidence could be found of black people playing in matches with or against white people, although future research may identify rare instances. Tennis therefore remained a segregated affair during the 19th century. This was unlike athletics where, on occasion, some provision was made for black people to participate separately in white-controlled events.¹⁰⁰ Similarly, cricket occasionally breached racial divides. André Odendaal and his colleagues have recovered a history of cricket matches between white and black teams in a number of towns in the eastern Cape in the 1880s.¹⁰¹ There is evidence, however, that missionaries sometimes used tennis as part of their ‘native mission work’, and that mission-educated African women as well as men took up the game.¹⁰²

The Rise of Tennis Clubs and Federations

A multiracial franchise was introduced by the Cape Colony’s Constitution Ordinance of 1853.¹⁰³ By then, an emerging middle class made up of building artisans, tailors, printers, bakers, wagon makers and boat builders was earning enough to qualify for the vote.¹⁰⁴ There was an accompanying diffusion of bourgeoise sport to these middle and later working classes.¹⁰⁵ The bourgeoisie responded in different regions of the British empire by institutionalising sport in clubs and federations. This happened in Cape Town too. In 1883, the WPLTA was established by three clubs (Gardens, Rondebosch and Wynberg)¹⁰⁶ and a military unit (the Garrison)¹⁰⁷ based on the Marylebone Rules, with headquarters in Newlands.¹⁰⁸ A Cape Times columnist reported in 1887 that ‘the number of minor clubs which have of recent date sprung into existence in our midst seems to point to a quickening interest in matters athletic’.¹⁰⁹ That year, players from Cape Town played against players from Port Elizabeth in a tournament in Grahamstown.¹¹⁰ The Eastern Province Lawn Tennis Association was established at this tournament.¹¹¹ Such institutions were used ‘to control illegitimate sport’.¹¹² Tennis soon became a game that could be used to contribute to the cementing of a middle-class culture across different racial groups. Middle-class spokespersons such as John X. Merriman, a future Cape colony prime minister, saw tennis as a ‘means to bring together [class and race] representatives of both sexes and old people more than any other game’.¹¹³ He highlighted this in a speech at a WPLTA function in 1885, saying how he observed ‘kafir [sic] ladies play a game with gentlemen’.¹¹⁴

By 1884, Paarl and Ceres had clubs, presumably for men.¹¹⁵ The following year, the Cape Town Gymnastic Society played a second team of the Wynberg Club.¹¹⁶ The same year, the Natal Tennis Association was established with six of its own tennis courts.¹¹⁷ During the same year, a match was arranged between ‘Mother Country and Colonial-born’ players but was postponed and replaced by civil service versus all-comers.¹¹⁸ In 1886, there were reports of established clubs in Molteno.¹¹⁹ There was also a tennis tournament held in Uitenhage that year.¹²⁰ The following year, tennis competitions were played between Paarl and Stellenbosch clubs and Simonstown and Rondebosch clubs.¹²¹ Occasionally, clubs from different centres combined when playing against other clubs. For example, in 1889, Paarl and Worcester tennis clubs combined in a match against Cape Town.¹²² By then the Stellenbosch Lawn Tennis Union had already been established. In Stellenbosch village there were more than a dozen tennis courts, with ‘six belonging to regular clubs, each of which sends a representative to meetings of the Stellenbosch Lawn Tennis Union when a tournament in the village or a match against some other village has to be arranged’.¹²³ However, tennis was still played outside the organised club movement and by 1887 there was a Royal Navy tennis court in Simonstown. Here a match was played between the visiting HMS Raleigh and Simonstown garrisons.¹²⁴ By 1888, Sea Point and Mouille Point clubs were affiliates of the WPLTA.¹²⁵ Very little information about the early WPLTA officials exists other than on Frank Watermeyer (chairman),¹²⁶ Sir Leicester Smith (president)¹²⁷ and R. Rusk (secretary).¹²⁸ In 1889, the officials were T.E. Fuller (president), John Steytler (vice-president) and A. Syfret (secretary).¹²⁹ When Syfret resigned as secretary in 1889 due to work commitments, the association struggled with organisational issues.¹³⁰ Clubs affiliated to the WPLTA still played against institutions outside this association. In 1889, Rondebosch club played a match against the Commercial and Athletic Recreation Society.¹³¹ That year, a tennis match was played between the towns of Montagu and Robertson.¹³² There were also reports of return matches between the Riversdale and Ladysmith clubs that year.¹³³ Once colonial federations were established, administrators started to seek opportunities for inter-colonial competitions under the umbrella of a representative organisation. Therefore, a newspaper reporter urged the WPLTU to invite players from Kimberley and other parts of the colony for tournaments.

The leadership of these clubs was drawn from the affluent classes in colonial society. Officials of the Wynberg Tennis Club in 1888 included prominent government and law officials, namely Charles Abercrombie Smith (president), T.L. Graham (captain) and Malcolm Searle (delegate to the WPLTA).¹³⁴ In addition, the secretary of the WPLTA in 1892, L.H. Cavy, had his work office in the Legislative Council.¹³⁵ For much of the 19th century, tennis was arranged by those who could afford travel and time off from work. In March 1891, for example, Ms Mabel Grant proceeded from Durban to Port Elizabeth for the first ladies inter-colonies championship.¹³⁶ Players at this tournament, who came from the Boer republic of the Orange Free State, as well as from the western Cape, eastern Cape and Natal, represented towns rather than provincial federations.¹³⁷ A second national tournament of this nature was again held in Port Elizabeth the following year with representatives from Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London.¹³⁸

The establishment of clubs allowed the middle classes to cooperate and advance their material interests. For example, when the WPLTA raised funds for the building of a pavilion, they decided to donate the money to the Western Province Cricket Club, which in turn allowed them the use of their accommodation.¹³⁹ Newly formed tennis clubs and federations did, however, unlike free-for-all ‘folk’ games, place financial incumbrances upon their members especially when there was a lack of a paying class of spectators. The WPLTA secretary reported in 1890 that the previous season had been a dismal financial failure due largely to a lack of gate fees at matches.¹⁴⁰ However, by 1888, the WPLTA had expanded to the extent that it could suggest that steps be taken to arrange an intercolonial tennis tournament.¹⁴¹ When this took place, it mirrored racial and class divisions within the colonial culture.

Tennis, Class and Club Culture

The WPLTA was English in character and maintained close links with Great Britain. In 1884, for example, it was ‘waiting for a Challenge Cup on its way from England [to be displayed] at an upcoming dinner’.¹⁴² A Cape Times reporter also called upon the WPLTA to imitate the home country [England] by staging a tennis meeting over the Christmas and New Year period.¹⁴³ By 1887, the WPLTA was following a tradition of cricket and football federations and staging a Mother Country versus colonial-born match.¹⁴⁴ The military also had an influence on club culture, as can be seen by the presence of the [army] band that played in front of a large group of spectators at a match between Gardens and Mowbray Clubs on the grounds of the 58th Regiment.¹⁴⁵

Clubs also made it possible to have socially exclusive fundraising efforts and in 1886, the WPLTA held a successful fancy dress ball where £33 was raised.¹⁴⁶ When tennis clubs finally allowed women to participate in their fixtures, they were not given full membership.¹⁴⁷ This was also a time when colonial elites were becoming increasingly concerned about ‘[working] classes aiming at the kind of life which wealthy classes have been living without question for generations’.¹⁴⁸ Matthew Arnold, an English school inspector and poet made use of these concerns in advocating for compulsory state education for the working classes.¹⁴⁹ On his retirement in 1886, Arnold stated: ‘[u]pper class society ought to contain [the working classes] through the institutionalization of sport through amateur club culture’.¹⁵⁰ The 19th-century media reported on tennis games as ‘gentlemen’s matches’.¹⁵¹ At the same time, clubs allowed social elites to socialise in grandeur to the exclusion of working classes. Therefore, the Cape Times could report in 1886 on a ‘fancy dress ball … organized by the WPLTA … where the dresses were splendid and fantastical’.¹⁵² Social events like these were often given official patronage by the Cape governor, his wife or other social elites.¹⁵³ When the Wynberg Tennis Club staged a financially successful fundraising concert in 1888¹⁵⁴ in the Claremont Hall, it could solicit the patronage of prominent public officials and military people such as Sir David Tennant, General Smythe, Captain Baden-Powell, Colonel Dugdale, Colonel Dooner and officers of the Inniskilling Fusiliers.¹⁵⁵ Concerts provided more than mere entertainment for successful fundraising – they also acted as colonising propaganda instruments. At this concert, Baden-Powell, in front of a receptive white audience, ‘instructed them of his original and interesting experiences in Zululand’.¹⁵⁶

In order for clubs to remain sustainable, it was necessary to have a steady flow of new members. If not, the club and eventually the sport would die. This was a real fear of the early WPLTA in 1890. Here the secretary, A. Syfret, complained that ‘the entries for championship matches were exceedingly few … and the contests did not provide as much interest as in former years … the reason is that very little new blood has been infused into tennis’.¹⁵⁷ It was not only exclusive social functions that became a hallmark of ‘civilisation’, but also the ability of a sports federation to have a central venue for provincial and national games.

Private and Public Enclosed Tennis Facilities

From the latter part of the 19th century, villages in the colonies became more populous and land became scarcer and pricier. Middle-class Capetonians and those in surrounding areas started agitating for enclosed sports grounds. With this came the construction of tennis courts that became a profitable venture for contractors such as W. Kemm, who advertised: ‘[t]ennis courts with the very best material and smoothness and finished off in first class playing order’.¹⁵⁸ Grass courts were now replaced by gravel.¹⁵⁹

The late 19th-century newly formed sports clubs, unlike previous years of ‘open playing fields’, needed ‘habitation’.¹⁶⁰ The middle classes gradually turned to local municipalities to provide enclosed recreation spaces where they could practise their sport, separate from the working masses and supported by the state. An extract from the British St. James Gazette, reprinted in the Cape Mercantile Advertiser, bears testimony to this: ‘[t]he tennis fever is eating like a cancer into the great heart of the nation and if the disease remains much longer unchecked, parliament will find itself forced … either to make lawn tennis a penal offence or to place it under strict control of the City Councils’.¹⁶¹ The middle class responded to this by forming sport clubs.

Access to enclosed sports grounds was only available if requests came through clubs or formal institutions. An early record of a tennis facility dates to 1879, when the magistrate in Ceres allowed the laying out of a lawn tennis court provided that a club be formed.¹⁶² The same year, a lawn tennis ground was laid out at the Exhibition Building in Cape Town.¹⁶³ In 1883, matches were advertised between the Wynberg and Sea Point clubs on the Sea Point Assembly Ground¹⁶⁴ and in Wynberg.¹⁶⁵ When the Commercial, Athletic and Recreation Society was established in 1888 in Cape Town, with cricket, swimming and tennis as its codes, the secretary immediately informed the local press that it was negotiating for a private ground.¹⁶⁶ In 1892, the Attorney-General’s department was allowed to play a match against the Railway department on the enclosed courts of the Sea Point Club.¹⁶⁷

Municipalities in the Cape Colony were introduced for the first time in 1837 after an ordinance was passed the previous year that gave effect to this institution. Beaufort West was the first town to take advantage of this ordinance that year, followed by Somerset East, George, Grahamstown and Cradock. Two years later, Cape Town created a municipality.¹⁶⁸ From the 1880s onwards, tennis was increasingly played on enclosed municipal grounds. Access to these enclosed grounds was usually only possible through clubs that applied to municipalities. However, the bourgeoisie, in search of exclusivity, sought out private property. A Mouille Point tennis club, with two of its own tennis courts, featured in the Cape Times in 1886.¹⁶⁹ The WPLTA also had its own courts built and inaugurated on 18 December 1886 with capital from fundraising efforts.¹⁷⁰ Newspaper reports went to great lengths to explain the importance of having these courts enclosed for the purposes of generating funds.¹⁷¹ The inauguration of these courts was accompanied by a tournament where colonists born in England played against players born in the colony.¹⁷² By 1888, the WPLTA had facilities that were ‘in capital condition’ and regional competitions such as ‘Town versus Country’ were taking place.¹⁷³

Such enclosed spaces made it possible to generate income from gate takings.¹⁷⁴ These enclosed spaces allowed for a controlled spectator presence that enjoyed the spectacle of tennis. A Cape newspaper’s report is interesting in its coverage of the rules and techniques involved:

[a renewal of] the framing of rules to make the rallies as long as possible but as practical skill increases it will be found that every point is decided in one or two strokes and if no measures are taken to prevent that, interest in the game will decline … [T]o make scoring slower, we shall have to diminish the size of the courts, or increase the height of the net for either expedience would make it more difficult to place a ball out of reach or put such pace on it to stop a return except by a fluke. But there is a third means of scoring which will be more difficult to deal with. The peculiar upward stroke, introduced by the present English champion is rapidly becoming common. [It] puts a forward spin on the ball which causes it to increase in pace as soon as it touches the ground and also makes it leave the ground at an acuter angle than at which it reached it. If this knack is developed to such an extent that the ball could be made scarcely to leave the ground at all, no rally could last more than a stroke or two. This could only be met by increased elasticity in the balls or a change in the surface of the court.¹⁷⁵

There were also private enterprises, mainly hotels, that controlled enclosed recreation spaces.

Hotels

A Gardens Tennis Club existed in 1883, which had a home ground at the International Hotel in Cape Town.¹⁷⁶ This hotel, with its lawn and tennis grounds, was advertised as far as Port Elizabeth.¹⁷⁷ The following year, the Wynberg and Mowbray tennis clubs held their annual general meetings at the Royal Hotel in Wynberg.¹⁷⁸ Besides these hotels, the Kenilworth Hotel, the Queens Hotel in Sea Point and the Grand Hotel (formerly known as Rathfelder’s Hotel) in Diep River also had tennis courts.¹⁷⁹ One enterprising Cape Town hotel proprietor had taken advantage of the newly extended tramway to the Gardens to turn his grounds into a ‘promenade’ and attracted customers by engaging a regimental band, serving refreshments at stalls set among the groves of shady trees and laying down a number of tennis courts.¹⁸⁰ In Muizenberg, a seaside resort existed in 1891, known as Farmer Peck’s Inn, belonging to Isidore Hirsch. It was advertised as an establishment ‘well shaded by trees, summer houses, a splendid shooting gallery and a lawn tennis court’.¹⁸¹ The following year, Conroy’s Hotel in Somerset West-Strand (formerly known as the Standard) was taken over by new management and advertised itself as ‘a comfortable seaside resort … with a tennis court under construction’.¹⁸²

Conclusions

This article has demonstrated that tennis in the 19th-century Cape Colony originated from a series of interlocking social spaces ranging from elite schools and upper middle-class private properties to newly formed clubs, predominantly for members of the English-speaking middle class. Tennis emerged in Cape at a time when ‘in general the English section of Cape Town’s bourgeoisie was attempting to assert its hegemony over the rest of the city’s population’.¹⁸³ Undoubtedly, colonial tennis was interlaced with class and race in a global context. The imperatives of this middle class led them to seek the support of groups culturally similar to themselves, offering considerable rewards, in their desire to find a place for themselves within the dominant class.¹⁸⁴ Future studies will have to direct attention to how this underclass group responded to this phenomenon. The narrative created for this article will hopefully be a useful reference resource for others in this regard.

Because this study honed in on Cape Town’s bourgeoisie, it is important to unearth narratives from ‘the less fashionable part of the city’.¹⁸⁵ In addition, the spread of tennis from English-speaking to other cultural and class groups needs to be unearthed in order to get a fuller picture of the origins of tennis in South Africa. Tennis was indeed, as this article has shown, part of a package that constituted the cultural foundations that shaped a Victorian South African bourgeoisie. However, this article has not explored the extent to which tennis was played by black people at mission stations and by Afrikaner communities in rural villages. Future research should expand on this by determining who else bought into this package and on what terms. This might include a more focused project that targets developments at mission stations, Afrikaner rural communities or literate Christian indigenous communities. This would reveal a broader picture of the role and development of tennis in the 19th-century Cape Colony and broader southern Africa.

Francois Johannes Cleophas
Associate Professor, Department of Sport, Exercise and Lifestyle Medicine (Sports Science Division), Suidwal Road, Private Bag X1, University of Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1492-3792

Notes

1 F.J. Cleophas, ‘Reclaiming School Athletics in Cape Town’s Underclass, 1933–1955’, Historia, 67, 1 (2022), p. 66.

2 N. Worden, E. van Heyningen and V. Bickford-Smith, Cape Town: The Making of a City: An Illustrated Social History (Cape Town, David Phillip, 1998), p. 239.

3 This study uses the term ‘South Africa’ in reference to the area that covered the four provinces that were established in 1910 – the Cape Province, the Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal. See A. Odendaal, K. Reddy, C. Merrett and J. Winch, Cricket & Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold, 1795–1914 (Cape Town, Best Red, 2016), p. 105.

4 The van der Byl [Bijl] family, with the Cloete and van Ryneveld families formed the core of the small 19th-century leisured class Dutch-speaking community at the Cape. They followed the social diversions fashionable in Victorian England, especially horse-racing and riding to the hounds; see C. Pama, Bowler’s Cape Town: Life at the Cape in Early Victorian Times, 1834–1868 (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1977), pp. 61–2.

5 ‘Local and General News’, Cape Times, 8 March 1881, p. 3.

6 ‘Publisher’s Notice’, Cape Times, 7 August 1889, p. 1.

7 J.S. Little, South Africa: A Sketch Book of Men, Manners and Facts. With an Appendix upon the Present Situation in South Africa and upon the Affairs of Zululand, the Transvaal and Bechuanaland with Especial Reference to the Boer Mission to England. Volume 1 (London, W. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1884), p. 22.

8 In 1889, the Cape Times reported on the Irish tennis championships in ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 3 July 1890, p. 5.

9 ‘News from Abroad’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 14 October 1884, p. 3.

10 ‘Caledon’, Cape Times, 10 February 1885, p. 3.

11 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 6 May 1885, p. 3.

12 Pama, Bowler’s Cape Town, pp. 2–3, 6.

13 P.C. McIntosh, Sport in Society (London, C.A. Watts, 1963), p. 64.

14 ‘The Cape Times’, Cape Times, 15 November 1883, p. 3; M. Byrne, ‘Tom’s Luck: A Story of Colonial Life’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 28 September 1887, p. 3; A. Cotton, ‘A Speaking Likeness: A Story of Natal’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 16 November 1887, p. 3; A. Cotton, ‘A Speaking Likeness: A Story of Natal’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 23 November 1887, p. 3; The Bat, ‘The Vicar’s Nieces’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 13 October 1887, p. 3; A. Cotton, ‘A Speaking Likeness: A Story of Natal’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 30 November 1887, p. 3.

15 F. Cleophas, ‘The Story of Jan Bantjies: Linking Sport, History, Drama and Poetry’, Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, 64, 2 (2010), p. 52.

16 ‘Blackballing in Clubs’, Cape Times, 10 November 1882, p. 3.

17 ‘Prospecting Near Cape Town’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 24 January 1887, p. 3; ‘A New Game’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 2 June 1887, p. 3.

18 ‘Lawn Tennis Parties’, Cape Times, 21 October 1878, p. 3.

19 ‘Modern Atlantas – Ladies at Cricket’, Cape Times, 11 January 1889, p. 3.

20 ‘Rosina Voke’s Reform Dress’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 26 August 1887, p. 3.

21 Byrne, ‘Tom’s Luck: A Story of Colonial Life’, p. 3.

22 V. Bickford-Smith, ‘Black Ethnicities, Communities and Political Expression in Late Victorian Cape Town’, The Journal of African History, 36, 3 (1995), p. 450.

23 V. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town: Group Identity and Social Practice, 1875–1902 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 211.

24 ‘The Outer Man’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 5 August 1887, p. 3.

25 R. Ross, Status and Respectability in the Cape Colony, 1750–1870: A Tragedy of Manners (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 88.

26 ‘Society in Australia – II’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 18 August 1887, p. 3.

27 ‘Arrival of Sir Donald Currie’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 4 November 1887, p. 3.

28 ‘The Cape Times’, Cape Times, 14 February 1883, p. 2.

29 One newspaper article scorned women who played professional tennis and denounced them as ‘women that men should not marry’; see ‘Mems. by the Mail’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 2 July 1889, p. 3.

30 M. Tyler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Sports (New York, Marshal Cavendish, 1975), p. 309; J. Cuddon, The Macmillan Dictionary of Sport and Games (London, Macmillan, 1980), p. 497; F. van der Merwe, Sport History: A Textbook for South African Students (Stellenbosch, FJG, 2007), p. 124.

31 Cuddon, The Macmillan Dictionary, p. 497.

32 Van der Merwe, Sport History, p. 124.

33 Cuddon, The Macmillan Dictionary, p. 497.

34 Ibid.

35 Van der Merwe, Sport History, p. 124.

36 ‘The Cape Times’, Cape Times, 13 July 1881, p. 3.

37 L. Switzer and D. Switzer, The Black Press in South Africa and Lesotho: A Descriptive Bibliographic Guide to African, Coloured and Indian Newspapers, Newsletters and Magazines 1836–1976 (Boston, G.K. Hall, 1979), p. vii.

38 D. Booth, The Field: Truth and Fiction in Sport History (New York, Routledge, 2005), p. 90.

39 G.A. Parker, South African Sports: Cricket, Football, Athletics, Cycling, Tennis, Racing, Polo, Golf Gymnastics, Boxing, Shooting &c.: An Official Handbook (Sampson Low, Marston, 1897), p. 144.

40 No evidence could be found of this Nevill other than a reference by a certain Ms Mabel Grant, the ‘South African tennis champion’ in 1892, to Mr Nevill, the government astronomer in Natal; see ‘Natal Week by Week’, Cape Times, 25 May 1894, p. 7.

41 ‘P. Hayman & Co.’s’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 4 January 1873, p. 1.

42 ‘Sale’, The Cape Times, 28 March 1877, p. 1; ‘Kennisgewing aan Buitenklanten’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 20 November 1878, p. 4; by 1889, Thorne, Stuttaford and Company was advertising ‘Ginghams Tennis Klederen [clothes]’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 14 September 1889, p. 1. Gingham is said to have originated in either Malaysia or France in the 17th century, originally with a striped rather than a check design. It was adopted and popularised by the English and the Dutch around 1800 through whom it acquired a distinctive check pattern and was often produced in a cotton or muslin fabric. Through both globalisation and industrialisation, it made its way to the USA and became popular for its low cost, durability and airy feel. In both urban and rural areas, women needed dresses that could stand up to the rigours of both factory and farm work, and cotton gingham could do both.

43 ‘Boating Shoes’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 25 May 1878, p. 4.

44 ‘Original Correspondence’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 15 July 1836, p. 6.

45 ‘Cricket Bats and Balls’, Eastern Province Herald, 19 December 1862, p. 1; ‘Toys! Toys! Toys!’, Eastern Province Herald, 10 December 1875, p. 1.

46 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 6 May 1885, p. 3.

47 ‘Cape Town Sport’, Cape Times, 1 January 1887, p. 3.

48 ‘Fashions in Sport’, Cape Times, 5 May 1898, p. 7.

49 As with tennis, badminton is traditionally traced back to a military man’s initiatives – Major Forbes of Calcutta in 1884; see ‘Badminton’, Eastern Province Herald, 19 July 1886, p. 4.

50 ‘Lawn Tennis Parties’, Cape Times, 21 October 1878, p. 3.

51 RGN-Sportondersoek, Sportgeskiedeniskrywing en - dokumentasie: Verslag van die Werkkomitee: Sportgeskiedenis, Nommer 15 (Pretoria, RGN, 1982), p. 288.

52 N. Leck, South African Sport (Johannesburg, Macdonald, 1977), p. 20; A.E. Holmes, A Brief History of the Wynberg Lawn Tennis Club, 1882–1982: A Commemorative Brochure (Wynberg, Lawn Tennis Club, 1982), p. 7.

53 ‘The Transkei’, Cape Times, 10 June 1891, p. 2.

54 ‘Stellenbosch’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 2 June 1883, p. 5.

55 ‘Country News’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 25 September 1885, p. 3; ‘Arbor Day’, Cape Times, 26 June 1886, p. 2.

56 ‘News in Brief’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 7 November 1889, p. 3.

57 ‘A Miscellany from Durban’, Cape Times, 30 April 1892, p. 5; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 12 May 1892, p. 3.

58 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 8 October 1892, p. 4; ‘Latest News’, Cape Times, 10 October 1892, p. 3.

59 See F.J. Cleophas and F.J.G. van der Merwe, ‘The African Political Organisation’s Contribution to South African Sport, 1909–1914: Part 1’, African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 16, 1 (2010), pp. 173–4; F.J. Cleophas and F.J.G. van der Merwe, ‘The African Political Organisation’s Contribution to South African Sport, 1914–1915: Part II’, African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 16, 4 (2010), pp. pp. 630–1; F.J. Cleophas, ‘Restarting the Games: The African People’s Organisation’s Contribution to South African Sport in 1919: Part III’, African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 17, 4 (2011), pp. 715–6; F.J. Cleophas, ‘A Historical Overview of the African People’s Organisation Contribution to Sport: July to December 1920’, African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 21, 1.2, (2015), p. 452; M. le Cordeur, Davy Samaai: The People’s Champion – The Story of the First Black South African to Play at Wimbledon (Cape Town, Naledi, 2021).

60 ‘Stellenbosch’, Stellenbosch College Times, 1, 7 (1885), p. 2; ‘Cape Times’, Cape Times, 24 February 1887, p. 2.

61 ‘Lawn Tennis Parties’, Cape Times, 21 October 1878, p. 3.

62 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 8 September 1888, p. 3.

63 ‘In Praise of Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 27 October 1890, p. 3.

64 The Western Province Rugby Football Union was established at this venue in 1883; ‘Western Province Rugby Football Union’, Cape Times, 3 May 1883, p. 3.

65 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 18 March 1884, p. 3.

66 ‘Local Intelligence’, Cape Times, 18 April 1885, p. 3.

67 For example, see E.G. Malherbe, Education in South Africa, Volume 1: 1652–1922 (Cape Town, Juta, 1925); M. Borman, The Cape Education Department, 1839–1989 (Cape Town, Cape Education Department, 1989).

68 D. Turner, The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School (New Haven, Yale University, 2015), p. 99.

69 Ibid., p. 107.

70 Anon, ‘Stellenbosch’, College Times, 3, 21 (1886), p. 1.

71 Ibid.

72 ‘Suburban Lawn Tennis Club’, Cape Times, 2 November 1880, p. 3.

73 ‘Sales and Other Announcements’, Cape Times, 24 August 1881, p. 3. ‘Suburban Lawn Tennis Club’, Cape Times, 24 August 1881, p. 1.

74 ‘Local Intelligence’, Cape Times, 3 February 1883, p. 2.

75 ‘South African College’, Cape Times, 23 December 1881, p. 3.

76 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 31 January 1885, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 4 February 1885, p. 3.

77 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 23 February 1884, p. 3; ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 23 November 1892, p. 4; an announcement appeared in the Cape Times of 1885 about a newly established Sea Point lawn tennis club; see ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 7 May 1885, p. 3.

78 ‘South African College’, Cape Times, 14 December 1886, p. 3; ‘Cape Town Sport’, p. 3; ‘South African College’, Cape Times, 25 April 1888, p. 3.

79 ‘South African College’, Cape Times, 23 February 1887, p. 3.

80 ‘South African College’, Cape Times, 27 March 1888, p. 3.

81 ‘Dale College’, Cape Times, 25 June 1892, p. 1.

82 Ross, Status and Respectability, p. 78.

83 V. de Kock, The Fun They Had: The Pastimes of Our Forefathers (Cape Town, Howard & Timmins, 1955), p. 75.

84 ‘Verkooping van Silwood’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 23 October 1880, p. 5.

85 ‘De Koloniale Weeskamer en Trust Maatschappij’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 26 May 1910, p. 1.

86 ‘Publieke Verkooping’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 22 November 1888, p. 1; E.H. Burrows, Overberg Outspan: A Chronicle of People and Places in the South Western Districts of the Cape (Swellendam, Swellendam Trust, 1988), p. 268.

87 K. Heywood, Cape Hills in Sunlight (Cape Town, Human & Rosseau, 1964), pp. 22, 49.

88 ‘Sale of the Charming Residence, Oaklands at Wynberg’, Cape Times, 21 September 1880, p. 1.

89 ‘Important Sale in the Gardens’, Cape Times, 5 March 1883, p. 1.

90 H. Robinson, Beyond the City Limits: People and Property at Wynberg, 1795–1927 (Cape Town, Juta, 1998), p. 126.

91 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 3 March 1884, p. 4; H. Robinson, Wynberg: A Special Place (Wynberg, Houghton House, 2001), p. 138.

92 ‘Land Sale in Wynberg’, Cape Times, 17 February 1885, p. 1.

93 ‘St. George’s Villa’, Cape Times, 9 June 1886, p. 1.

94 ‘Publisher’s Notice’, Cape Times, 30 November 1888, p. 1. Ottery Road was still heavily wooded in some places, marshy in others; see Robinson, Wynberg: A Special Place, p. 42.

95 ‘Notice’, Cape Times, 12 October 1886, p. 1.

96 ‘Western Province Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 13 May 1887, p. 3; ‘The Cape Mercantile Advertiser’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 10 August 1887, p. 3; ‘Sporting Notes’, Cape Times, 21 March 1887, p. 3; the Cape Mercantile Advertiser makes mention of a Dr Fuller ‘who is considered the best tennis player in the Colony’, ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 28 December 1887, p. 3. It is uncertain whether there is any relationship between the two.

97 ‘Port Elizabeth’, De Zuid-Afrikaan, 15 October 1889, p. 3.

98 In 1886, three men, Voosman Samodien, Achmat Kassiem and Abdol Majiet, were brought before a magistrate on charges of housebreaking and theft. One of the clothing items they stole was a pair of tennis shoes; ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 29 November 1886, p. 3.

99 ‘Country News’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 11 December 1883, p. 11.

100 For example, see ‘Athletics at Port Elizabeth’, Cape Times, 8 February 1887, p. 3.

101 Odendaal et al., Cricket & Conquest, pp. 109–15.

102 ‘Notes’, Cape Times, 9 March 1887, p. 3; Odendaal et al., Cricket and Conquest, p. 291.

103 B. Visser, ‘African Resistance to the 1887 Parliamentary Voters’ Registration Act’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 48, 6 (2022), pp. 975–91.

104 H.J. Simons and R.E. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850–1950 (London, International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 1983), p. 24.

105 McIntosh, Sport in Society, p. 73.

106 In 1886, the Mowbray, Wynberg, Rondebosch, Gardens, Claremont, Worcester and Paarl clubs were affiliated to the WPLTA; see ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 27 August 1883, p. 3; ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 8 September 1886, p. 2. In 1892, a Woodstock tennis club that held its meetings in the St. Mary’s Hall appeared in the Cape Times; see ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 17 September 1892, p. 4.

107 In 1887, the Garrison was unable to form a tennis club to enter in WPLTA competitions; see ‘Western Province Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 13 May 1887, p. 3.

108 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 10 July 1883, p. 3; ‘Publisher’s Notice’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 20 August 1886, p. 3; ‘The First Match’, Cape Times, 21 November 1883, p. 3. In 1885, Frank Watermeyer started a ‘court fund’ that enabled the building of three tennis courts at the Newlands Cricket Ground; see ‘Sporting Intelligences’, Cape Times, 27 August 1886, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 20 December 1886, p. 3. This coincided with the Western Province Cricket Club that secured the Newlands Cricket Ground as a home venue in 1886; see ‘Cape Town Sport’, p. 3.

109 ‘Cape Town Sport’, p. 3.

110 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 23 December 1887, p. 3. This tennis event coincided with a colonial cricket tournament held at the same time; see ‘Cricket’, Cape Times, 24 December 1887, p. 3.

111 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 12 January 1888, p. 3.

112 ‘A Cape Town Gymkhana Club’, Cape Times, 25 January 1887, p. 3.

113 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 6 May 1885, p. 3.

114 Ibid., p. 3.

115 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 5 November 1884, p. 3. Mowbray Tennis Club unveiled its own grounds in 1886; see ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 18 September 1886, p. 3.

116 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 19 February 1885, p. 3.

117 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 6 May 1885, p. 3.

118 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 26 February 1885, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 28 February 1885, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 20 April 1885, p. 3.

119 ‘News in Brief’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 20 November 1886, p. 3.

120 ‘Local and General’, Eastern Province Herald, 4 October 1886, p. 4.

121 ‘Stellenbosch’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 13 December 1887, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 28 December 1887, p. 3.

122 ‘Lawn Tennis at Worcester’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 11 June 1889, p. 3.

123 ‘Lawn Tennis at Stellenbosch’, Cape Times, 8 April 1889, p. 3. The College Times, official newspaper of Victoria College, reported there were five clubs in 1886; see Anon, ‘Stellenbosch’, College Times, 3, 18, 1886, p. 2.

124 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 18 January 1887, p. 3.

125 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 6 November 1888, p. 3.

126 ‘Lawn Tennis Singles Championships’, Cape Times, 5 January 1884, p. 1.

127 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 12 February 1884, p. 3. T.E. Fuller, member of the Legislative Assembly, was president in 1889; see ‘Western Province Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 11 March 1889, p. 3.

128 ‘Lawn Tennis Annual Dinner’, Cape Times, 24 April 1885, p. 1. In 1886, E.E. Syfret was the secretary; see ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 24 February 1886, p. 3.

129 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 16 September 1889, p. 3.

130 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 22 July 1890, p. 2.

131 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 13 April 1889, p. 3.

132 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 27 April 1889, p. 3.

133 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 19 October 1889, p. 3.

134 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 8 September 1888, p. 3; Robinson, Wynberg: A Special Place, p. 19. J.G. Steytler was another prominent Wynberg resident and equally visible tennis player; see ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 13 December 1888, p. 3.

135 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 29 January 1892, p. 3. The chamber room of the Commercial Exchange was also used as a meeting place of the WPLTA; see ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 11 November 1892, p. 3.

136 ‘Sporting News’, Cape Times, 25 March 1891, p. 3.

137 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 7 April 1891, p. 3.

138 ‘Port Elizabeth Lawn Tennis Grounds’, Cape Times, 26 February 1892, p. 1; ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 19 April 1892, p. 3; ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 3 May 1892, p. 3.

139 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 9 August 1887, p. 3.

140 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 22 July 1890, p. 2.

141 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 8 September 1888, p. 3.

142 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 18 March 1884, p. 4; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 2 April 1884, p. 3. The Wynberg club won this cup twice in a row in 1884 and 1885; see ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 6 May 1885, p. 3.

143 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 27 August 1886, p. 3.

144 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 29 October 1887, p. 3.

145 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 15 December 1884, p. 3.

146 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 27 August 1886, p. 3.

147 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 31 March 1886, p. 3.

148 ‘Too Much Pleasure’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 3 March 1888, p. 3.

149 N. Murray, A Life of Matthew Arnold (New York, St. Martin’s, 1996), p. xii. Matthew Arnold was the son of the famous Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, an institution that holds mythical symbolism for the game of rugby.

150 In its strictest sense, an amateur was first defined by the Henley Regatta Committee and the (British) Amateur Athletic Club as ‘anyone who was not a mechanic, artisan or labourer’; McIntosh, Sport in Society, p. 36.

151 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 29 October 1887, p. 3.

152 ‘Fancy Dress Ball’, Cape Times, 19 August 1886, p. 3. The article lists the elaborate clothing costumes worn by attendees.

153 ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 7 August 1888, p. 2.

154 The concert yielded £22 and 15 shillings; see ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 9 October 1888, p. 3.

155 ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 20 September 1888, p. 2; ‘Claremont Hall’, Cape Times, 24 September 1888, p. 2.

156 ‘Entertainment at Claremont Hall’, Cape Times, 27 September 1888, p. 3.

157 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 22 July 1890, p. 2.

158 ‘Tennis Courts and Gravelling’, Cape Times, 27 July 1887, p. 2.

159 In 1890, a WPLTA official suggested that courts should be made with concrete; see ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 22 July 1890, p. 2.

160 ‘Cape Town Sport’, p. 3.

161 ‘Lawn Tennis Fever in England’, Cape Mercantile Advertiser, 1 November 1889, p. 3.

162 ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 27 March 1879, p. 3.

163 ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 19 June 1879, p. 3.

164 This was a private property owned by the Sea and Green Point Assembly Rooms Company Limited; see ‘The Sea Point Hall’, Cape Times, 11 November 1886, p. 3.

165 ‘Local Intelligence’, Cape Times, 16 March 1883, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 17 April 1883, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 28 April 1883, p. 3.

166 ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 17 November 1888, p. 2; ‘Local and General’, Cape Times, 22 November 1888, p. 3.

167 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 12 April 1892, p. 3.

168 Pama, Bowler’s Cape Town, pp. 9–10.

169 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 31 March 1886, p. 3.

170 ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 18 December 1886, p. 4; the total cost of the courts amounted to £120; see ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 20 December 1886, p. 3. This amounts to R389,409 in 2023.

171 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 25 November 1886, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 8 December 1886, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 15 December 1886, p. 3. ‘Sporting Intelligence’, Cape Times, 18 December 1884, p. 4.

172 ‘Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 20 December 1886, p. 3.

173 ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 3 November 1888, p. 3; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 15 November 1888, p. 2.

174 ‘Western Province Lawn Tennis Association’, Cape Times, 13 May 1887, p. 3.

175 The present champion mentioned was Herbert Lawford, who introduced the forearm topspin; ‘Sporting Notes’, Cape Times, 21 March 1887, p. 3.

176 ‘Lawn Tennis Club’, Cape Times, 11 May 1883, p. 2; ‘Lawn Tennis’, Cape Times, 23 June 1883, p. 3.

177 ‘The International Hotel’, Eastern Province Herald, 10 August 1883, p. 3.

178 ‘Lawn Tennis Club’, Cape Times, 11 October 1884, p. 3; ‘Wynberg Lawn Tennis Club’, Cape Times, 1 September 1884, p. 1.

179 ‘Sale of Kenilworth Hotel’, Cape Times, 19 October 1887, p. 2; ‘The Queens Hotel’, Cape Times, 25 October 1887, p. 1; ‘Grand Hotel’, Cape Times, 23 November 1887, p. 2.

180 De Kock, The Fun They Had, p. 75.

181 ‘Boom in on Fresh Air’, Cape Times, 6 February 1891, p. 4.

182 ‘Conroy’s Hotel’, Cape Times, 3 December 1892, p. 4.

183 Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, p. 70.

184 B. Bozzoli, ‘Class, Community and Ideology in the Evolution of South African Society’, in B. Bozzoli (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987), p. 33.

185 Pama, Bowler’s Cape Town, p. 80.