{"id":24026,"date":"2019-06-20T18:23:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24026"},"modified":"2019-06-20T18:23:48","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:23:48","slug":"time-travellers-diary-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-4\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Erika Baird
Curator, Hillary House National Historic Site<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A time traveller in Aurora in 1911 may find themselves looking up\non a new sports club forming right before their eyes when walking by Trinity\nAnglican Church, the Aurora Lawn Tennis Club. (Aurora Banner, 1911). An annual\nmembership cost $2.00 for man, and $1.00 for women (it being one of the few\nsports women were allowed to play!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the game has origins in 12th century France, tennis was\nonly popularized world-wide in 1873 when Englishman, Major Walter Clopton\nWingfield, standardized the game. He wrote an instruction book and sold it with\na kit that contained everything needed to play, making it easy to ship around\nthe world. But it\u2019s journey to Canada was not a direct one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 1874 a group of British army officers stationed in\nBermuda were seen playing by a Mrs. Mary Outerbridge of Staten Island, New\nYork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. Outerbridge was so thrilled with the game, she had a kit\nordered to her home and built the first court in the United States. It was at\nher home that Canadian Isidore Fredereick Hellmuth saw his first tennis match,\nit was \u201clove\u201d at first site, and it was he who played in that first match in\nToronto later that same year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tennis then spread quickly across Canada, with clubs being formed\nacross the country throughout the last decades of the 19th Century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Aurora established its club, it rotated meetings between\nTrinity Anglican Church and Hillary House, because the Hillary\u2019s had had a\ncourt on their property since the 1880s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his contributions, Dr. Robert Michael Hillary was named\nhonourary club president in 1912. As membership increased the Hillary\u2019s later\ninstalled two clay courts at the back of the property to accommodate all those\nwho wished to play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1937, the club had become too large to be held at either\nHillary House or at Trinity Anglican Church, and a new home was found at\nMcMahon Park, at the corner of Spruce Street and Maple Street, Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The club still resides there today, now known as the Aurora\nCommunity Tennis Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tennis still lives on at Hillary House, in 2015 funds from the\nPan-Am Games Community Celebration Fund allowed for the revival of the original\ngrass court, found on the north lawn. Now everyone can be a time traveller, and\nexperience tennis as it was played over 100 years ago. The court is open\nWednesday to Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erika BairdCurator, Hillary House National Historic Site A time traveller in Aurora in 1911 may find themselves looking up on a new sports club forming right before their eyes when walking by Trinity Anglican Church, the Aurora Lawn Tennis Club. (Aurora Banner, 1911). An annual membership cost $2.00 for man, and $1.00 for women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6fw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 13:25:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}