player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameEdward Lake (Teddy)
LastnameWilliams
GenderMale
CountryEngland
Date of birth1866-07-01
Place of birthBushey, Hertfordshire, England

About

Using modern genealogical resources, it is possible to trace the lawn tennis player Edward Lake Williams’ paternal line back to a William Williams, who was born in 1570 on the Isle of Anglesey, off the north-west coast of Wales. A grandson of William Williams, William Asygell Williams, was born circa 1659 in Trearddur Bay, also on the Isle of Anglesey. William Asygell Williams became a general in the Welsh Fusilier Regiment but, because of his support for the Royalists, was exiled to the British West Indies under Oliver Cromwell.

During his time in the British West Indies, William Asygell Williams became a wealthy landowner. He and a number of his descendants were involved in the sugar boom which occurred in Barbados in the mid-seventeenth century. One of the direct descendants of William Asygell Williams was Henry John Prescod Williams, the father of the lawn tennis player Edward Lake Williams.

The Williams family also had a number of Irish connections, Henry John Prescod Williams having been born in Ireland in 1833. On 11 May 1853, he married Sarah Alleyne Susanna Hinds (1833-73) in Saint Peter’s Church, Dublin. They would have eight children together – six daughters and two sons – the sixth of whom was Edward Lake Williams. Sarah Hinds was the daughter of Edward Lake Hinds and Mary Elizabeth Hinds (née Lewis), who were married on 7 April 1831 in Saint Peter’s Church, Barbados. Sarah’s paternal grandfather was another Edward Lake Hinds, a plantation and resident slave-owner in Barbados.

After the death of Sarah Williams in 1873, Henry Williams married again, his second wife being Mary Alice French, a native of the town of Colchester in Essex. Henry and Alice Williams had three children together, all daughters, giving Edward Lake Williams three step-sisters in addition to his existing six sisters and one brother. The Census of England and Wales for 1861 lists Henry Williams’ occupation as Landed Proprietor, while the census taken ten years later lists his occupation as Silk Merchant.

When the Census of England and Wales was taken in 1871, the Williams family was living in Sparrow Herne in the parish of Bushey in Hertfordshire. Edward Lake Williams, who was popularly known as Teddy, had been born in the town of Bushey on 1 July 1866. At some point his father, Henry, became honorary secretary of the Hyde Park Lawn Tennis Club in Portchester Square, London. This club was the original venue for the world’s first Covered Court Championships tournament, which was inaugurated in 1885 and initially featured only a men’s singles event.

It was at the Covered Court Championships that Teddy Williams enjoyed arguably his greatest success, defeating Herbert Lawford, the holder, in the challenge round at the second edition of the tournament, held in April 1866. At that time Williams was only 19 years old and appeared to have a great future as a lawn tennis player ahead of him.

In his youth Williams had benefitted from coaching by William Renshaw, the greatest of the early British lawn tennis players, and had burst onto the scene by winning the men’s singles event at the indoor tournament held in the Agricultural Hall in London in June 1882. That victory came just a week before Williams’ sixteenth birthday.

According to the portrait of Teddy Williams published in the sports magazine Pastime in June 1886, business commitments prevented him from taking part in as many tournaments as he would have liked. This meant that, between his victory at the Agricultural Hall tournament in June 1882 and his success at the Covered Court Championships tournament at the Hyde Park Lawn Tennis Club in April 1886, he only won four other singles titles. During the same period, at Wimbledon in July 1884, he also notably reached the final of the inaugural men’s doubles event with his compatriot Ernest Lewis. They were beaten in four sets by William Renshaw and his twin brother Ernest, 6-3, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.

Although he returned to defend his title at the Covered Court Championships in April 1887, Williams was easily beaten in the challenge round by Ernest Lewis, who won 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. The one-sided nature of the score is an indication of just how out of form Williams was because he had had little time in which to practice due to professional commitments. Indeed, after this defeat he never again took part in the men’s singles event at a lawn tennis tournament in the British Isles.

It is difficult to find out exactly what happened to Teddy Williams after the lawn tennis season of 1887 although it appears that he emigrated to South Africa at some point. There is also some evidence that he took part in some lawn tennis tournaments during his time there and that he also contributed some articles on lawn tennis to the British magazine Lawn Tennis and Badminton. Some sources claimed that the died in Johannesburg in 1911, but this claim also needs to be confirmed.
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The aforementioned portrait of Teddy Williams, published in Pastime on 16 June 1886, is reproduced in full below:

“The recent brilliant victory of Edward L. Williams in the Covered Court Championship cannot but renew the regret which all lovers of lawn tennis experienced when this most promising young player announced his almost complete retirement from the ranks of tournament competitors. As a pupil of the champion, William Renshaw, and a worthy exponent of the style of game which the latter has perfected, Williams is deserving of the attention of all who are interested in the theory and of the imitation of those who aspire to the practice of ideal lawn tennis.

“Endowed with great natural aptitude for the game, Williams has had the good fortune to be placed in exceptionally favourable circumstances for the development of his natural talent. The son of the esteemed honorary secretary of the Hyde Park Lawn Tennis Club, Mr Henry Prescod Williams, he learned the rudiments of his art at the old Maida Vale Club, where, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, he was in the habit of amusing himself with an occasional ‘knock-up’ with the habitués of the court.

“It was there that he encountered the Renshaws, who, noticing his ability, were ready with their advice and encouragement, and to such an extent did the youngster profit by their lessons that before reaching the age of sixteen he won the Agricultural Hall Challenge Cup. This success was the beginning of a brilliant career, culminating in his victory above mentioned at the Covered Court Championship in the present year. The claims of a business which afford him but few opportunities for the practice of his favourite pastime unfortunately have, since the beginning of last season, practically withdrawn him from play in public.

“Edward Lake Williams was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, on July 1, 1866, and is consequently only now approaching the completion of his twentieth year. He is 5ft., 7in. in height, and weighs 8st., 8lb. Though slight in figure and of delicate appearance, he has a wonderful capacity for endurance, and has always been fond of athletic exercises, especially cross-country running.

“A sharp burst of ten miles or so over hedge and ditch, field and fallow, is his favourite mode of recreation after a hard day’s sedentary work. It is to this practice that he himself attributes the wonderful staying powers which he has so often exhibited in hard-fought matches. Williams, indeed, maintains that to play a hard match of five sets is as fatiguing and requires as good a good bodily condition as to run in a ten-mile race.

“‘I would rather play anyone than Teddy Williams because he is never done,’ was the saying of his rival Charles W. Grinstead. The value of this compliment will be the more fully appreciated when it is remembered that Grinstead himself owed much of his success to his wonderful endurance – a quality in which he was surpassed by no lawn tennis player of note. Another point of resemblance between the two players is what may be called their moral stamina.

“In no game more than lawn tennis is it necessary to that a player should possess a fund of steady courage and unflinching nerve to enable him to play at the critical point of an even match not only with energy, but also with cool judgment; nor can there be mentioned two other players more largely endowed with this admirable quality. Williams, our readers may be interested to learn, though not a professed abstainer, may be cited by the statistic-hunting teetotaller as a brilliant example of those who shun the use of alcoholic drinks.

“There is little in the style of play exhibited by Williams that would strike a casual observer, though its merits would not long escape the notice of a connoisseur. Its chief excellence, indeed, consists in its freedom from eccentricity, in the easy grace which conceals the actual difficulty of his most telling strokes, and in the utter absence of anything like straining after effect, or what is known as ‘gallery play’.

“He is wonderfully quick in getting to the ball as well in judging the length and direction of his opponent’s returns. With a crisp wrist stroke, which exhibits the least possible appearance of effort, he gets a tremendous pace on the ball, the length and pace of his returns rendering it almost impossible for his antagonist to bring off any brilliant coup. He is equally expert in volleying and in back play, though if we were asked to name any stroke at which he excels the generality of players, we should mention his volleying of high-pitched balls, which he performs with a certainty and severity not surpassed by the champion himself.

“In this stroke he is seldom known to fail, since he is content with a well-placed, swift volley where many players commit the mistake of risking disaster in an effort to make the much-admired smash. Perhaps the strongest point of Williams’ match play is the manner in which he adapts his tactics to the style of the antagonist. His excellent judgment in this respect was never better displayed than in his successive defeats of Herbert Chipp and Herbert Lawford in the Covered Court Championship.

“To this may be added the celerity with which he decides on back or forward play; indeed, he is seldom passed when he makes up his mind to go in and volley, and still more rarely caught ‘in two minds’. His service is swift and well-placed, and he is fond of occasionally varying it by serving to the centre line instead of the side line.”
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