The Shaping of Hallamshire Lawn Tennis Club Part 1

The Shaping of Hallamshire Lawn Tennis Club Part 1

The Shaping of Hallamshire Lawn Tennis Club part 1

…….a thorn in the side of the Council

Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837 which led to national celebrations being organised to commemorate her Golden Jubilee in 1887. The Sheffield Jubilee sub Committee ordered an obelisk to be crafted and placed near the Town Hall, and proposed the creation of a Park, referred to as Jubilee Park, on an area mainly occupied by Rustlings Farm. The farm buildings were at the junction, circled red, of the (now) Ecclesall Rd with the later Rustlings Rd. In earlier times the former was called the Sheffield and Chapel en le Frith Trust, tolls payable at the Hunter’s Bar, and Rustlings Rd didn’t exist. The farm covered essentially that of the current Endcliffe Park up to the Porter Brook and up the hill towards Greystones.

That lower, flatter part of the farm towards the Porter had been used for soccer and cricket for some years and Rustlings, in 2014 our oldest extant club, had grass courts in use as early as 1883 around the area now occupied by the Queen Victoria statue of 1905, moved there only in 1930, adjacent to the main entrance at Hunters Bar. It’s almost certain the area was only leased from the landowner because by May 1888 they had ‘removed to Broomhall Park where, on the site of what was formerly a market garden, four grass courts are being constructed ‘ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph), presumably forced to by the creation of ‘Endcliffe Woods Park’ , ‘Jubilee’ being dropped, but also to consolidate. As an interim measure the Brincliffe club agreed to Rustlings using their courts off Cemetery Rd.

The Hallamshire club fared differently. This advert appeared in the SDT in June 1885. We are indebted to Andy Lusis, a tennis researcher from Nottingham, for all the newspaper ‘cuttings’ in this document.

(Take note of the name ‘Watson’). The following appeared in November of the same year.

Sir Henry E Watson JP was very influential in Sheffield tennis in these early days, being, by the latest 1887, President of both the ‘Sheffield &Hallamshire’, and ‘Pitsmoor’ clubs (strangely, only the latter was one of the six founder members). In 1891 he became the first President of the Sheffield Lawn Tennis Association terminated only by his death in 1901, our first President. Being an elder of the city – he was 13th in the prioritised list of over 90 people to be present when Queen Victoria visited in 1897 – he obviously had influence backed up by the means, father John having purchased the whole Broomhall estate in 1820. Did an interest in tennis preclude his involvement in the auctioning of land in 1885 that allowed the creation of Hallamshire, or did it lead to that interest through a grateful customer? I doubt his having been a player at the ripe old age of seventy (it was old in those days!) It’s interesting to conjecture how he was viewed by colleagues on Sheffield Council working to create the new Jubilee Park, or Endcliffe (Woods) Park as it was eventually officially named. He lived in Shirecliffe Hall above Parkwood Springs with one of the best views of Sheffield, and with its own cricket pitch, so maybe he was sporty anyway. Born the year of Waterloo – for our younger readers the Battle, not a song.

On 19th May 1887, about a month away from the official Jubilee dates, this appeared as part of a larger article about the new park:

Whatever, this misshapen park was only the first inconvenience to the Council. On the 28th May this appeared in the Independent:

So the original proposal for a Rustlings Rd route (I imagine it would still have been so named) was from the bottom of Brocco Bank directly across the future Endcliffe Park, skirting the Southern bank of the Porter. The article mentions only the preference of Mr Otter’s trustees but the presence of the club so adjacent to the original line must have been a factor. A copy of an 1888 document found in the club archive (next page, sorry it has to be on its side) shows a main sewer constructed across the farmland in 1886 and it is my belief this was following the line of the intended road. Manholes still indicate the presence of this sewer and sounds emanating from at least one show it still to be doing its job (the things I do for posterity!). But in the opinion of the Independent there were better reasons for the rerouting, best described here in other extracts from the 19th 1887 May cutting:

‘Ten Jubilee acres make all the difference at Endcliffe Wood. If wisdom rules the united counsels of sub-committees – Jubilee and Corporation – the decision will be to abandon the broad road which leadeth from Hunter’s bar, and (instead) leave Ecclesall road at Rustling (sic) Farm – just beyond the lawn tennis ground – carrying the drive into the wood at that point.’ ….. ‘If the present proposal is carried out’………. ‘This would be a blunder, as it would spoil the ground for cricket and other recreative (sic) purpose.’…’in this way the entire space – wood and land – would be available for pleasure and sport’.

Who could argue with that? So maybe the club’s presence didn’t ultimately have any bearing on the decision to avoid splitting the park but it certainly prevented any other more southerly route starting directly from Brocco Bank and forced the decision to start from Ecclesall Rd beyond the club. This was to lead to a very profitable deal referred to in the local press as the ‘quid pro quo’ and which was to be of enormous benefit in the future development of the club. This extract from the Independent is dated 3 May 1888:

‘Forturnate’ – no spell check in 1888.

‘Northern side’ - means relative to the road i.e. on its northern side.

John Andrews 2015 Continued in part 2………………………