History
The Club
June 28, 1924 was the opening day of the Kingston Tennis Club on what is now the playing field of Winston Churchill Public School. There was a "Tennis Tips" column in the British Whig and Treadgold's Sporting Goods promoted "Lawn Tennis -- the better game for everyone" with tennis racquets starting at 50 cents. In 1927, the club purchased land one block to the west for $1,100, our current site.
As told by Kingston resident Don Hooper, the former wooden clubhouse was constructed in 1927-28 by his grandfather's company, Hooper Construction. The firm was later sold to MacLachlan Woodworking (the MacLachlan family name will surface several times in the history of the club). Don also worked at the club as a teenager in the late 1940s. He and a teenage friend gave themselves the title of "managers" and took care of the grounds and prepared and served burgers from the upstairs kitchen, taking turns to also play tennis. They shared a basic salary of $100/month, supplemented by the proceeds of food and beverage sales.
Conversations with other club members of the 1940s and onwards revealed that the clubhouse served as a hangout for teenagers during the summer months. They would play tennis and card games, and hold dances upstairs.
Mystery of the Clubhouse Location - Sale of Earl Street Properties
The clubhouse is located at the north side of the property, away from the Napier Street entrance, whereas most clubs have their clubhouse at the entry point to the grounds. This oddity is due to the history of the club. The club's property included the three residential lots that lie to the north of Courts 1 & 7 when the clubhouse and courts were constructed. You can see in the black-and-white film (c1935) posted on YouTube1 that cars were parked in this area; Earl Street was the club’s entrance and was listed as the street address for the club at that time. What happened?
Property transfer documents in the Queen's Archives hold the answer. The lots fronting on Earl Street (187, 188, 189, 190), part of City Block 358, were severed and sold by the tennis club as three residential building lots in 1942 and 1943. The club received $1,600 in 1942 and 1943 from these three sales. Ten years later, two of those three properties re-sold for $12,850 and $18,000, totalling $30,850 (part of this increase in value would reflect the construction of homes on the lots).
This action represents the initial sale of club assets in an attempt to overcome financial difficulties related to the Depression and the war years. The Second World War negatively impacted membership in two ways during the 1940s: many members were fighting overseas and those who remained were not available to play tennis, as people were putting their efforts into the Red Cross and other war-related aspects.
Sale of the Club to Queen's University
The club was facing further financial difficulties by the 1950s and approached Queen's with a mutually-beneficial arrangement - the university could buy the club, with the understanding that it would be leased back and continue to operate for at least ten years with membership open to the general public as well as to the Queen's community. Queen's agreed, as they had recently demolished their own tennis courts due to the construction of the Gordon Hall extension and were seeking alternative facilities. It was more economical for them to purchase the club than to construct the new courts they had promised to the Queen's Athletic Board of Control. The university would hold title to the KTC property and the Athletic Board of Control would be responsible for overseeing operations, including the absorption of any profits or losses incurred.(ii)
At a meeting of the Queen's Executive Committee of the Trustees, Grant MacLachlan, a charter and life member of the Kingston Tennis Club, recommended that a letter be sent by Queen’s to the Secretary-Treasurer of the club with an offer to purchase the club, with the price to be in the range of $6,000-8,000. A.C.Tillotson, Treasurer, Committee of the Trustees, subsequently sent a letter to Ian MacLachlan, Acting Secretary-Treasurer of the Kingston Tennis Club Limited (Ian was also on the Queen's Athletic Board). The KTC then authorized its board of directors to arrange the sale of the property to Queen's.
The Kingston Tennis Club was sold by its owner-members to Queen's University in 1953 for the discounted price of $6,613 (the market value was estimated at between $18,000 and $25,000).
Incorporation as a Non-Profit Club
April 29, 1963 - incorporation of the Kingston Tennis Club Inc. and adoption of by-laws
September 26, 1963 - meeting of the first directors to organize the Company; election of officers and passing of by-laws
Donald James Delahaye, President (paediatrician)
John Frederick Johnson, Vice President (bookkeeper)
George Bailey, Secretary
William Howie Aitken, Treasurer (actuary)
Morton Morris, Tournament Director
Re-Purchase of the Club
On June 29, 1989, 36 years after the sale of the club to Queen’s, the office of the Vice-Principal (Resources) at Queen's sent a
letter (iii) to the tennis club to remind it that the annual rent was overdue and it had decided to sell the property. The university planned to realize the significant appreciation in the value of the land and offered a six-month lease from July 1, 1989 to allow completion of the 1989 season.
Following years of delays and heated discussion, members of the Kingston Tennis Club successfully negotiated a resolution to this dilemma and repurchased the property in 1997 for $320,000. A mortgage was initially issued, then replaced by debentures held by club members. The final set of debentures was paid off in April, 2014 and the general membership of the incorporated non-profit club became the sole owner of the property.
Concrete Tennis Courts
KTC members originally played on courts made from concrete slabs. The photograph from the mid-1930s shows Courts 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. At that time, the backboard/hitting wall was on Court 6 and empty fields surrounded the club instead of the private residences of today.
Former member George Clark joined the club sometime between 1968-1970. He notes that at that time each court consisted of four concrete slabs and that frost heave had lifted one slab more than its neighbouring slab, creating a hazard for players. All the concrete courts had cracks and he estimates they were covered with asphalt in 1972-73.
Former member Neil Neasmith joined the club as a junior in the 1950s. He remembers that playing on the concrete courts was like playing on the sidewalk - the surface was coarse and tough on tennis balls (most of the fuzz was worn off after three sets had been played) and tough on shoes. As time went on, the cracks in the concrete slabs became deeper, creating some ‘bad bounces’. The club tried to lessen the coarseness of the courts by bringing in a company with a polishing machine. He says it was fortunate that the experiment was done on only one court, as it created a court so fast that it resembled playing on ice. Neil agrees with George that the courts were probably paved over in the early 1970s.
People
The MacLachlan Family
Marian (MacLachlan) McPherson stopped by the club in 2013 while visiting Kingston and regaled members and staff with tales of the past. Her father was Ian MacLachlan (one of the original members of the club, along with his brother, Grant) and she had lived at 230 Willingdon Avenue as a young child in the 1930s when farm fields were being developed into a residential neighbourhood.
The club received several black-and-white photographs from Marian which were taken in the 1930s. Her father, Ian, also had a film camera and created the B&W film of c1935 which may be viewed on the club’s website. A c1935 photograph taken of Marian and her grandmother at the corner of Willingdon Avenue and Hill Street shows in the distance the KTC clubhouse and a fence along what would become Napier Street, across then-empty fields. Marian remembers having to wear a large bow in her hair so she could be seen by her mother when walking across the overgrown fields to the tennis club.
Marian became an accomplished tennis player and in 1954 won the Women's Doubles club championship. Her grandfather, Alexander MacLachlan, lived next door to them at 95 Hill Street.
Alexander MacLachlan graduated from Queen's in 1884, became a minister and travelled to Turkey as a missionary, where he lived until 1926. He established and was president of International College in Smyrna, Turkey (now Izmir) and had tennis courts built there. Many of its buildings were designed and built in the same style as those at Queen's. The sports facilities were extensive and he hosted a sports competition for the area that encompassed the eastern Mediterranean countries, doing this before 1896 when the first modern Olympics took place. During World War I he was confined to the campus as an enemy alien - Turkey was aligned with Germany, whereas he was Canadian and his son, Grant MacLachlan, had enlisted in the Canadian forces and was overseas fighting against the Germans. The Alexander MacLachlan Peace Prize is an award in the Department of History at Queen's that was established by Marian in her grandfather's name.
Ian MacLachlan - one of Alexander's other sons, and Marian's father - was born in Turkey and learned to play tennis at the college run by his father. He came to Kingston to attend Queen's and graduated in 1925. Both Ian and Grant MacLachlan were skilled tennis players and won several of the club championships. The club's records show that Grant won the Men's Singles in 1927 and 1933, and Men's Doubles with Ian in 1935. Ian has seven wins listed, from 1934 to 1940.
Canadian Tennis Champion
Elaine (Fildes) Bryans
During a conversation with a senior neighbour in the west end of Kingston, it was learned that she had been a KTC president in the 1950s and had coached John McFarlane when he was a junior. Commenting on her own playing ability, Elaine Bryans (née Fildes) said that she was a “pretty good tennis player in her day.” Another neighbour said afterwards that she had been more than good - she had been national champion! Following up with Elaine, it was learned that she was the No.1 ranked female tennis player in Canada in 1947 and the No.2 ranked singles player in both 1949 and 1950, competing in what was then known as the Canadian Championships and is now the National Bank Open.
Elaine, who also teamed-up with Patricia Macken to become the top-ranked women's doubles team in the country, qualified for the U.S. national championships three straight years beginning in 1947. Elaine came to Kingston from Montreal in 1951 as a Queen’s PhysEd instructor and coached the university’s tennis teams. She was inducted as an athlete into the McGill Hall of Fame in 2006.
Australian Connection
Former member Jenny Ellis played in many competitions as a junior in Australia, in the U15 and U17 classifications of NSW state competitions, reaching the finals at times. She is a contemporary of tennis champion Margaret Court (Smith) and world squash champion Heather McKay (Blundell). Both Margaret Court and Jenny Ellis grew up in country towns and played together at "Country Week", a time when juniors were invited to play tennis in Sydney during Christmas break.
Jenny's family had a tennis court at home and she would play every day after school with kids from the neighbourhood. Tennis is a way of life in Australia - her parents would regularly invite friends over on Sunday afternoons for a "tennis party." They would take it in turns to play tennis and in between games they would chat and enjoy tea and cookies.
Following training as a physiotherapist, Jenny sailed to Canada in 1963 with some other young physiotherapists and travelled around North America on a $99 bus ticket. They eventually needed jobs, which brought them to Kingston. She shared an apartment with KTC member Ruth George, who introduced her to the tennis club. They played most of the summer until the president came up to them to say you must join if you want to keep playing. Jenny became a member, playing with Liz Hooper and Elaine Bryans among others, and went on to win several club championships between 1979 and 1986. Jenny was inducted into the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, recognizing her lifetime accomplishments in tennis, golf, and squash.
Her son, James Ellis, attended Queen's and was a steward and then a pro at the KTC, moving on to the Royal Ottawa Club and eventually migrating to Australia where he is now a school teacher. Another son, Peter Ellis, was also a club steward.
Memorabilia
Tournament Trophies
The KTC awarded tournament winners with their own miniature silver trophy in the early days of the club.
Ross MacLachlan discovered his grandfather’s (Grant MacLachlan) trophies from this era stored in a cardboard box and forgotten. The removal of almost a century’s worth of black tarnish revealed the treasure hidden beneath the surface.
The trophy from 1926 is hallmarked as sterling silver. The 1933 trophies reflect more frugal times and are not made of pure silver.
Silver trophies won by Grant MacLachlan in 1926 & 1933. Donated to the club by his grandson, Ross MacLachlan.
Video of Kingston Tennis Club, c1935 (i)
Black and White Film, c. 1935
The black-and-white film set at the club was created by Ian MacLachlan, a founding member, who often brought his film camera to the club. His daughter Marian "Squirt" MacLachlan passed on the original film at the request of former KTC member Cathy Fee, whose father is in the film. The lively man in the film wearing an "A" on his sweater is Cathy Fee's father, Colin E. MacPherson. He owned a business located at 468 Rideau Street, the C.E. MacPherson Company, that manufactured steel products.
Cathy's sister-in-law digitized the film, adding music and a title, to create the version you now see (inaccurately dating the film earlier than its actual date of c1935). Cathy donated a copy of the film to the club in 2004 as part of the club's 80th anniversary celebrations. (i)
(back left), Marian )front) held by her mother
holding daughter
Ian MacLachlan (back, left),
Marian (front) held by her mother
Grant MacLachlan holding daughter, Catherine
Alexander MacLachlan, missionary, College President, early tennis pioneer
Footnotes
(i) Video posted on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYdwtNqEzWc
(ii) Minutes of the Queen's Executive Committee of the Trustees, dated February 7 and April 11, 1953. Courtesy of the Queen's University Archives
(iii) Letter from the Office of the Vice Principal (Resources), dated June 29, 1989. Courtesy of the Queen's University Archives
This information was researched and written by Paula Loh as the result of interviews with past and present members, and research from the Queen’s Archives, The Kingston Whig Standard and KTC documents.