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 Juan Bautista Luis Augurio Perera (c.1822 – after 1889), known as Augurio Perera, was a Spanish-born merchant and sportsman based in England, credited alongside his friend Major Harry Gem as a lawn tennis pioneer.Rowley, Andrew,Gem, Thomas He ...

, he is credited as a

lawn tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cove ...

pioneer.Rowley, Andrew,
Gem, Thomas Henry (1819–1881)
, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 10 July 2007Tyzack, Anna

''Country Life'', 22 June 2005

Biography

Gem was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, the son of William Gem, also a solicitor, and was educated at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

. From 1841 he practised as a solicitor in Birmingham, becoming a

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judic ...

'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 Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

and

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

. He is recorded as having won a bet by running the 21 miles from Birmingham to

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

in under three and a half hours.Osman, Arthur "Lawn tennis remembers its founding fathers", ''The Times'', Thursday 10 June 1982

Lawn tennis

Among Gem's sporting interests was the game of

rackets Racket may refer to: * Racket (crime), a systematised element of organized crime ** Protection racket, a scheme whereby a group provides protection to businesses or other groups through violence outside the sanction of the law * Racket (sports equ ...

, which he played at the Bath Street Racquets Club adjacent to the Racquet Court Inn in Bath Street, Birmingham with his friend

, a Spanish merchant based in Birmingham. Frustrated at the complex and expensive facilities required for rackets, however, the two developed a similar game that could be played outdoors and may have been played on Perera's

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the W ...

lawn at 8 Ampton Road in

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre. In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family ...

, incorporating elements of rackets alongside features of the Basque game of pelota.Lawn Tennis and Major T. H. Gem
" Birmingham Civic Society This game is known to have been being played by 1865, though research has suggested that experimentation may have started as early as 1859. It thus clearly pre-dates the game of ''sphairistikè'', whose rules were published and for which equipment was sold by Major

Walter Clopton Wingfield Major Walter Clopton Wingfield (16 October 1833 – 18 April 1912) was a Welsh inventor and a British Army officer who was one of the pioneers of lawn tennis.Tyzack, AnnThe True Home of Tennis''Country Life'', 22 June 2005J. Perris (2000Grass ...

from March 1874. 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 ''sphairistikè''. Gem and Perera’s game was originally known as ''Lawn rackets'' or ''pelota''.

Early tennis clubs

Some time between 1873 and 1874 both Gem and Perera moved to

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply Leamington (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Priors, it grew into a spa town in the 18th century following ...

and in 1874 formed the ''Leamington Club'' with Frederic Haynes and Arthur Tomkins, two doctors from a local hospital, specifically to play the new game of lawn tennis. The ''Leamington Club'', renamed to ''Leamington Lawn Tennis Club'' at the end of 1874, 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. Gem had also been a member of the Edgbaston Archery Society from 1864 to 1867 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.

Death

Gem died on 4 November 1881 as the result of an accident which occurred on 25 June that year, at the military camp in Sutton Park.

External links

The Harry Gem Project

References