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HERBERT LAWFORD - WIMBLEDON CHAMP AND TENNIS PIONEER

Our 'Famous Residents' section continues to grow and to produce some surprising Derbyshire links. Here Peter Seddon makes the acquaintance of Herbert Lawford, who was educated at Repton School in the 1860s and a decade later made a significant and lasting impact in the then 'infant' sport of lawn tennis.

Herbert Lawford in a demonic pose intended to demonstrate his trademark 'Lawford Stroke'

Herbert Lawford is second right in his distinctive lawn tennis gear of hooped jersey and knickerbockers. All those pictured were distinguished English players of the late nineteenth century

Herbert Fortescue Lawford was born on 15 May 1851 in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Derbyshire became his temporary 'home' during the 1860s after he was sent in 1865 to Repton School, where he received his senior education.

At some point, perhaps at Repton but possibly elsewhere, he became acquainted with the new British pastime of lawn tennis, and soon became very adept at the latest craze.

The garden 'game' within a few short years became a quite serious 'sport', and the now world-famous Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships were inaugurated in 1877.

Lawford became aware of the new sporting event, and the very next year (1878) entered the tournament himself at the comparatively late age of 27. He reached the semi-finals of the All Comers' Singles and was sufficiently encouraged by his performance to try again in the years that followed.

His confidence was not mis-placed, for he proved to be one of the leading Lawn Tennis players of the sport's pioneer years.

He contested the Final Challenge Round - the Mens' Singles Final - on no fewer than six occasions, firstly in 1880 and five times in succession from 1884 to 1888. His six Wimbledon final appearances equals the number made by Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, and places Lawford one ahead of John McEnroe and only one behind Pete Sampras.

Unfortunately for Lawford he played in the same era as the celebrated Renshaw twins Ernest and William - he had some fine battles against them but was generally beaten, although often by the finest margin.

In that sense Lawford was only just short of becoming a true tennis 'great'. However, he did earn the big prize on one occasion, winning the Wimbledon Championship in 1887. He also won a Wimbledon Mens' Doubles title - in 1879 with L. R. Erskine.

Lawford not only became very well-known on the burgeoning tennis circuit, but also left a stylistic legacy which helped shape the modern game.

He is considered the first lawn tennis player to play an attacking game from the baseline by means of cultivating the now universal habit of hitting the ball very early while still 'on the rise' - this gave his returns a pace hitherto unknown in the somewhat genteel circles of Victorian tennis.

In that attack-minded capacity, lawn tennis historians have credited Lawford with being the 'inventor' of top-spin in lawn tennis. Lawford became famous for this innovative new shot which soon became known as the 'Lawford Stroke' - described in a contemporary journal as 'a wristy whipped forehand of tremendous speed and accuracy'.

As a personality Lawford was considered quite a character known widely for his 'swank' - that delightful term favoured by the Victorians to suggest an overt display of cockiness or superior airs. He also had a distinctive appearance and was described thus in the Wimbledon centenary history:

 'Herbert Lawford was one of the great characters of Victorian tennis, a broad-shouldered upstanding man of firm 
 countenance who, in his shirt with wide horizontal stripes, cavalry style trousers tucked into socks just below the  
 knee, and the whole rig topped off with a cap resembling a pith helmet, looked as though he was about to set off to 
 discover the source of the Nile, rather than play tennis. His main asset was his strength and power, which he 
 unleashed in full measure in his forehand drive, like a shell from a cannon.'  

Herbert Lawford is the only Old Reptonian to win the Wimbledon Mens' Singles title - but the passage of time has decreed that he is no longer the best-known of Repton School's celebrated tennis alumni.

His name has been superseded by another less ancient tennis celebrity - Henry Wilfred 'Bunny' Austin - who was at Repton in the 1920s. Austin twice reached the Wimbledon Singles final -in 1932 and 1938 - but lost on each occasion. 'Bunny' Austin is featured in a You and Yesterday article of his own.

So for the meantime it is only proper that the spotlight should linger on six-times Wimbledon finalist Lawford - a lawn tennis pioneer, master of spin, and arguably the most successful Derbyshire-linked player of all time.

Herbert Fortescue Lawford - Old Reptonian and lawn tennis champion - died aged 73 in Dess, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 20 April 1925.

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