Harry Gem

Major Thomas Henry Gem (21 May 1819 – 4 November 1881), known as Harry Gem, was an English lawyer, soldier, writer and sportsman.

Alongside his friend Augurio Perera, he is credited as the earliest inventor of the game of lawn tennis.Rowley, Andrew, " [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49347 Gem, Thomas Henry (1819–1881)] ", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 10 July 2007] Tyzack, Anna, [http://www.countrylife.co.uk/news/culture/article/79487/The_True_Home_of_Tennis.html The True Home of Tennis] "Country Life", 22 June 2005]

Biography

Gem was born in Birmingham and educated at King's College London. From 1841 he practiced as a solicitor in Birmingham, becoming a magistrate's clerk in 1856.

Highly active in local life, Gem wrote journalism and drama for several local publications, rose to the rank of Major in the 1st Warwickshire Rifle Volunteer Corps and was active in numerous sports including cricket and athletics. He is recorded as having won a bet by running the 21 miles from Birmingham to Warwick in under three and a half hours.Osman, Arthur "Lawn tennis remembers its founding fathers", "The Times", Thursday June 10, 1982]

Invention of tennis

Among Gem's sporting interests was the game of rackets, which he played at the Bath Row Racquets Club in Lee Bank with his friend Augurio Perera, a Spanish merchant based in Birmingham. Frustrated at the complex and expensive facilities required for rackets, however, the two developed a simpler game that could be played on Perera's croquet lawn at 8 Ampton Road in Edgbaston, incorporating elements of rackets alongside features of the Basque game of pelota." [http://www.birminghamcivicsociety.org.uk/lawntennis.htm Lawn Tennis and Major T. H. Gem] " Birmingham Civic Society]

This game is known to have been being played by 1865, though research by the Birmingham Civic Society has suggested that experimentation may have started as early as 1859. It thus clearly pre-dates the game of "sphairistike", whose rules were published and for which equipment was sold by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield from 1873 and whose anniversary was celebrated as the centenary of the game of tennis in 1973.

Gem and Perera's game also bore a closer resemblance to modern tennis than Wingfield's in several significant respects, most notably in being played on a similarly sized and configured rectangular grass court, rather than the hourglass-shaped court with a 'waist' at the net that featured in Wingfield's "sphairistike". [Bellamy, Ross," [http://www.ybapublications.co.uk/thehockleyflyer/Newsarchive/2005/hf_news2005.03.htm Anyone for Tennis?] " "The Hockley Flyer", March 2005]

Originally referred to as "Lawn rackets" or "Lawn pelota", Gem and Perera's game was being referred to as "Lawn tennis" by 1872.

Early tennis clubs

In 1872 both Gem and Perera moved to Leamington Spa and formed a club with two doctors from a local hospital specifically to play this new game. The Leamington club thus became the world's first tennis club, playing on the lawns of the Manor House Hotel opposite Perera's new home in Avenue Road. [ [http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-29702 Tennis] "Encyclopædia Britannica" 2007. Accessed 11 July 2007]

Gem had also been a member of the Edgbaston Archery Society from 1864 to 1869 and, although there is no direct evidence to demonstrate that he personally introduced lawn tennis to the society, the game was certainly a fixture in the society's calendar by 1875, with the society being renamed the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society in 1877.

ee also

* Augurio Perera
* Walter Clopton Wingfield

References