All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club

History

The club was founded by six gentlemen at the offices of The Field on 23 July 1868 at the height of a croquet craze as the All England Croquet Club, and held its first croquet competition in 1870. Its original ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon. Croquet was very popular there until the then-infant sport of lawn tennis (a game introduced by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so prior, and originally called Sphairistikè) was introduced in 1875, when one lawn was set aside for this purpose.

The first tennis gentlemen's championship in singles was held in July 1877, when the club changed its name to The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. That year at Wimbledon service was underarm. The champion, Spencer Gore, opined that "Lawn tennis will never rank among our great games." In 1878 the height of the net was altered to 4 ft at the posts and 3 ft at the centre. In 1882, croquet was dropped from the name, as tennis had become the main activity of the club. But in 1899 it was restored to the club's name for sentimental reasons, and the club's name became The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

In 1884, the club added Ladies' Singles and Gentlemen's Doubles, and then in 1913 Ladies' Doubles and Mixed Doubles. For the 1908 Summer Olympics, the venue hosted the Grass Courts tennis events. The early club colours were found to be almost identical to those of the Royal Marines, so they were changed in 1909 to the present club colours of dark green and purple. The popularity of Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen was largely responsible for forcing the club to move to larger grounds at its present site in Church Road, Wimbledon, in 1922, where its first championship was "plagued by rain each day".

The current Centre Court dates from that year. It has been improved and extended on several occasions. Most recently a sliding roof was added in time for the 2009 Championships. In 1924 the old No.1 Court opened on the west side of Centre Court. During World War II The Championships were suspended but the club remained open with a much smaller staff, and was used for fire and ambulance services, British Home Guard, and a decontamination unit, and troops stationed nearby drilled on the main concourse. At 5:20 p.m. on 11 October 1940, five 50-pound German bombs struck the grounds, demolishing 1,200 seats in Centre Court. The old No.1 Court was replaced with the current No.1 Court in 1997, and the Broadcast Centre was built at the same time. Shortly afterwards, the Millennium Building, which houses facilities for players, press, officials and members, was built on the site of the old No.1 Court.

The Church Road site initially extended only as far north as Centre Court. In 1967 the All England Club purchased 11 acre to the north. This was leased to the New Zealand Sports and Social Club and became known as Aorangi Park (Aorangi means "Cloud Piercer", and is the Māori part of Aoraki / Mount Cook; "Aorangi" is the standard Māori spelling and "Aoraki" is used in the Māori dialect in the vicinity of the mountain). It is most commonly known as "Henman Hill" because of the popularity of former British tennis player Tim Henman. Initially the only use that the All England Club itself made of this new land was for car parking during The Championships, but in 1981 the New Zealanders' lease was terminated, and the club has developed most of the area for its own purposes.

A statue of Fred Perry by David Wynne was unveiled at the club in 1984 by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent on the 50th anniversary of Perry's first victory in the men's singles championship. The gates to the Somerset Road entrance of the grounds were also named the Fred Perry Gates. In 2004 five busts of the British women's singles champions were unveiled outside Centre Court. They were sculpted by Ian Rank-Broadley in bronze. Alchemilla, a water sculpture by William Pye, was unveiled by the Duke of Kent on the first day of the 2016 championships. A statue of Andy Murray is planned for 2027 to mark the 150th anniversary of the championships.

The All England Club, through its subsidiary The All England Lawn Tennis Ground plc, issues debentures to tennis fans every five years to raise funds for capital expenditure. The original debentures were issued in 1920. Each debenture provides a pair of tickets for each day of the tournament for five years. Only debenture holders are legally permitted to on-sell their tickets to third parties.

In 2011, the club established another subsidiary, The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited, trading as AELTC, and transferred all of its assets relating to The Championships to that entity on 1 August of that year. Since that time, the club's activities have been conducted separately from those of The Championships.

The club was the venue for the tennis event at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

In June 2020, Wimbledon was cancelled for the first time since World War II due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wimbledon was cancelled several times during the wars: in World War I between 1915 and 1918 and World War II between 1940 and 1945.

From June 2022, Wimbledon was played on a Sunday for the first time since 2016, as a replacement for the traditional rest day.

In July 2023, Debbie Jevans became the first chairwoman of the board, succeeding Ian Hewitt at the end of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships.

1913 suffragette attack

A failed attempt was made to destroy the grounds in 1913, as part of the suffragette bombing and arson campaign. During the years before the First World War, suffragettes, as part of their campaign for women's votes, carried out politically motivated arson and bombings across the country. On 27 February 1913, a suffragette woman "between the ages of 30–35" was arrested within the grounds, after being spotted by a groundsman climbing over a hedge at around midnight. She was found to have on her paraffin and wood shavings, for the purpose of setting fires in the grounds. The woman refused to give her name or any information and was later sentenced to two months' imprisonment.

Facilities

The club currently has 18 tournament grass courts, eight American clay courts, two acrylic courts, and six indoor courts. There are also 22 grass courts at the nearby Aorangi Park, which serve as competitors' practice courts before and during The Championships. The grass courts can be used from May until September. The grass has been cut to 8 mm since 1995, and 100% perennial ryegrass has been used for its strength since 2001 (prior to that, it was 70% perennial rye and 30% creeping red fescue). The courts are renovated in September, using nine tons of grass seed annually.

The largest court is Centre Court, which hosts the finals of the main singles and doubles events at The Championships. There is an inscription above the entryway to Centre Court which reads "If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same" – lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem If—. This court also served as the main venue for the tennis events at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Initially, the courts were arranged in such a way that the principal court was situated in the middle with the others arranged around it; hence the title "Centre Court".

The present Centre Court, built in 1922 upon the move of the club, was not actually in the centre at the time it was built, but as new courts were added in later years it became a more accurate description. It currently seats 15,000 – expanded from 14,000 following redevelopment in 2007–08 (spatially, the expansion is greater than those numbers imply, as seats have been widened), and (as of 2009) is the fourth-largest tennis stadium in the world. The Club installed a retractable roof on Centre Court which was completed in May 2009. It is a "folding concertina" made of 5,200 square metres of a translucent waterproof fabric that allows natural light to reach the grass, and opens or closes in under 10 minutes. Redevelopment work commenced in 2006, and Centre Court had no roof at all in place for the duration of the 2007 Championships.

The other "show court" is No.1 Court, built in 1997, which holds around 11,500 people and occasionally plays host to Davis Cup matches (Centre Court usually being reserved for the Wimbledon Championships). It has been fitted with a retractable roof similar to Centre Court and was unveiled at a special ceremony on 19 May 2019.

A new No.2 Court with 4,000 seats was first used at the 2009 Championships. The old No.2 Court was renamed No.3 Court in 2009, and was rebuilt after the 2009 Championships. The grounds underwent major renovation as part of the Wimbledon Master Plan.

In December 2018 the club agreed a £65 million compensation package with the members of the adjacent Wimbledon Park Golf Club to cut short their lease on the ground in order to expand. In September 2024, planning permission was granted for the expansion plans which include 39 new tennis courts. This permission was then subject to a judicial review, with a final judgement expected in July 2025.

The club also houses the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.

The Championships

Main article: Wimbledon Championships

Among the features that differentiate The Wimbledon Championships from the other Grand Slams are that they are played on grass courts, they require the players to wear white, and until 2021, the middle Sunday was a day off (though sometimes – in 1991, 1997, 2004 and 2016 – poor weather meant play needed to take place). Balls were also white until 1986. The winner of the Gentlemen's singles at The Championships receives a gold trophy inscribed with the words: "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World".

The Championships attract attendance of around 450,000 people. Ninety per cent of the financial surplus that the Club generates from running The Championships is used to develop tennis in Great Britain; between 1998 and 2016 the surplus ranged from £25–40 million per year. The Championships are run by a Committee of Management that consists of 12 club members and seven nominees of The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA).

In 2003, a long-standing tradition of Centre Court players bowing or curtseying to the Royal Box was discontinued by order of the Duke of Kent, with the exception of the Queen or the Prince of Wales's attendance. Andy Murray and Jarkko Nieminen elected to bow when the Queen visited The Championships for their 2010 second round match, as did Roger Federer and Fabio Fognini at their second round match, watched by the Prince of Wales, in 2012. In December 2016, it was announced that the then Duchess of Cambridge would succeed the Queen as Patron of The AELTC and The Championships, effective January 2017.

In 2006, Chairman Tim Phillips said that paying men and women equal prize money at The Championships was something they "fundamentally don't think would be fair on the men" (due to men playing best-of-five sets, and women only best-of-three). The Championships introduced equal prize money the following year.

Alleged exclusions

Black players were not allowed to play at the club until 1951, and Jews were not admitted until 1952. According to Angela Buxton, the Jewish former British Wimbledon doubles champion, it also led to her exclusion. Buxton said in 2004, reflecting on the fact that the All England Club, almost 50 years after Buxton's 1956 Wimbledon triumph with Althea Gibson, had still not invited Buxton to join: "I think the anti-Semitism is still there. The mere fact that I'm not a member is a full sentence that speaks for itself." Buxton told New York Post reporter Marc Berman that she had been on the "waiting list" since she applied in the 1950s. "I wish it still wasn't such an elite sport," Buxton told Berman. "I wish we could bring it down to a common baseline. It's going that way. It's still not there." The club strongly disagreed with Buxton's portrayal, stating: "While the decision-making process for membership of the All England Club is a private matter, we strongly refute any suggestion that race or religion plays a factor."

Arms

Notes

References

References

1. (18 June 2017). "Want To Become A Wimbledon Member? Win It (Or Marry A Prince)". [[Forbes]].
2. "About the AELTC".
3. link. (14 September 2016 , [[Edward Elgar Publishing]] (2006), {{ISBN). 1-84376-608-6, {{ISBN. 978-1-84376-608-7
4. [http://aeltc2009.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/guide/club.html "The All England Lawn Tennis Club," ''Wimbledon.org'', accessed 29 June 2009] {{webarchive. link. (12 June 2009)
5. (9 July 2021). "Wimbledon: Duke of Kent steps down as president of All England Club". The Telegraph.
6. [http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/4462679.Anyone_for_a_game_of_sphairistik___/ "Anyone for a game of sphairistiké?"] {{webarchive. link. (5 July 2015 41, ''[[The Northern Echo]]'', 27 June 2009, accessed 8 July 2009)
7. [http://sports.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Archives/Wimbledon-2008/A-brief-history-of-Wimbledon/articleshow/3146509.cms "A Brief History of Wimbledon"] {{Dead link. (September 2021)
8. (2007). "Statistical Thinking in Sports". [[CRC Press]].
9. Siddons, Larry. (June 2022). "A Rich History to Celebrate". The Free-Lance Star.
10. Wrangham Wilberforce, Herbert William. (1908). "Hillyard "Lawn tennis"". G. Bell.
11. [http://english.cri.cn/2241/2005-6-17/20@248628.htm "About Wimbledon Championships"] {{webarchive. link. (18 October 2012 , ''[[China Radio International]] English'', 17 June 2005, accessed 8 July 2009.)
12. (1908). "Summer Olympics official report". LA84 Foundation.
13. "Behind the scenes". Wimbledon.
14. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/wimbledon_98/behind_the_scenes/114681.stm "Women's fashion hits the courts"] , ''[[BBC]]'', 19 June 1998, accessed 8 July 2009
15. Worrall, Simon. (7 August 1998). "Mice and Mist and Mirthlessness Mix at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club".
16. {{dead link. (August 2012 [http://aeltc2009.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/history/history.html About Wimbledon – History – Wartime Wimbledon,"] {{webarchive). link. (17 June 2009 ''Wimbledon.org'', accessed 7 October 2009)
17. (15 January 2005). "Buzzer Hadingham". [[The Independent]].
18. "The art of Wimbledon: how The All England Lawn Tennis Club chooses a Championships Artist". [[Art UK]].
19. "Alchemilla". [[Art UK]].
20. (24 June 2025). "Wimbledon hope to have Murray statue ready by 2027". [[BBC Sport]].
21. [http://www.aeltc.com/cms/debentures/about/About.aspx "About Wimbledon Debentures,"] {{webarchive. link. (23 July 2010 The All England Lawn Tennis Ground, accessed 29 June 2009)
22. "About the AELTC". The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.
23. "About". Wimbledon.
24. "Wimbledon". London2012.
25. "Suffragettes, violence and militancy". British Library.
26. (2008). "It Wasn't Just Emily Davison! Sport, Suffrage and Society in Edwardian Britain". The International Journal of the History of Sport.
27. Bletchly, Rachael. (24 June 2007). "The Wonders of Wimbledon Fortnight". People.
28. (2009). "The Championships". Wimbledon.
29. (2019). "Grass courts". About the grass courts at Wimbledon.
30. (2009). "About". Wimbledon.
31. [http://bleacherreport.com/articles/209478-the-championships-wimbledon "Wimbledon Championships"] {{webarchive. link. (17 June 2012 , ''Bleacher Report'', 29 June 2009, accessed 8 July 2009)
32. (2009). "Behind the scenes". Wimbledon.
33. (23 April 2013). "Wimbledon prize money up 40% and roof planned for Court One". [[BBC]].
34. Ensor, Josie. (23 April 2013). "Wimbledon to see one of the biggest revamps in its history". The Daily Telegraph.
35. (13 December 2018). "Wimbledon set to expand after golf agrees to sell". Reuters.
36. (27 September 2024). "Controversial Wimbledon expansion plan approved". BBC Sport.
37. "Wimbledon expansion: Key judicial review set for during grand slam". City AM.
38. Fendrich, Howard. (June 2024). "Like Federer, Venus seeks sixth Wimbledon title". The Canadian Press.
39. Rigby, Christopher. (2004). "1000 Facts on Sport". [[Miles Kelly Publishing]].
40. (2009). "The Championships". Wimbledon.
41. (30 April 2003). "Wimbledon abandons the Royal Box curtsey". The Daily Telegraph.
42. (27 June 2012). "Roger Federer advances to 3rd round". ESPN.
43. link. (7 June 2011 , ''[[Daily Times (Pakistan)). Daily Times]]'', 23 February 2007, accessed 8 July 2009
44. link. (30 November 2016 , p. 197, [[Butterworth-Heinemann]] (2009), {{ISBN). 0-7506-8755-X, {{ISBN. 978-0-7506-8755-3
45. Schoenfeld, Bruce, "The Match: Althea Gibson & Angela Buxton: How Two Outsiders—One Black, the Other Jewish—Forged a Friendship and Made Sports History" (2004), pp. 279–80, Amistad, {{ISBN. 0-06-052652-1, {{ISBN. 978-0-06-052652-8
46. "Buxton, Angela". Jews in Sports.
47. Slater, Robert. (2005). "Great Jews in Sports". Jonathan David Publishers.
48. Giles, Juanita. (26 February 2009). "No Jews allowed: UAE bows to "neighborhood" pressure". [[The Hook (newspaper).
49. Oster, Marcy. (15 July 2019). "Ex-Wimbledon champion claims she was denied club membership due to antisemitism".
50. (7 July 2013). "Wimbledon". Guy Selvester.