Walter Clopton Wingfield
Walter Clopton Wingfield (born October 16, 1833 in Ruabon , Denbighshire , Wales , † April 18, 1912 in London , England ) was the inventor of lawn tennis .
Life
Wingfield's parents died young, leaving him under the tutelage of his uncle and his grandfather's brother, a former colonel , at the age of 13 . Wingfield also embarked on a military career and was accepted into the First Dragoon Guards. He served in India where he married his general's daughter. He took part in the Second Opium War and the capture of Beijing in 1860. Wingfield returned to England in 1861 and six years later moved his family from Wales to London .
In February 1874 he presented to the public a game developed from the old Jeu de Paume , which he called Sphairistike , the Greek word for ball game, or lawn tennis ( The Game of Sphairistike Or Lawn Tennis ). The lawn tennis developed by him with the new rules became popular among the wealthy classes of Great Britain in a very short time. Tennis courts were already being built everywhere in the 1880s.
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield also wrote two basic tennis rulebooks: The Book of the Game and The Major's Game of Lawn Tennis . He also invented the butterfly bicycle in the 1890s .
He has been honored in the International Tennis Hall of Fame since 1997 .
literature
- Heiner Gillmeister: cultural history of tennis . Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7705-2618-X , passim
Web links
- Walter Clopton Wingfield in the "International Tennis Hall of Fame" (English; with picture)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wingfield, Walter Clopton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British inventor of lawn tennis |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 16, 1833 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ruabon , Wales |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 18, 1912 |
| Place of death | London |