ABSTRACT
Parks tennis blossomed throughout the 1920s, and tennis clubs increased numerically and in many cases changed culturally by inviting greater membership diversity in terms of social class. Liberalising developments as a connected outcome of growing consumerism also impacted on attitudes to Sunday play and on- and off-court behavioural etiquette. Broader societal changes helped to facilitate a shift in the social composition of tennis players during the interwar years. Thousands of new tennis clubs formed during the interwar period, many of which affiliated them to the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). The mass production of tennis equipment made it more affordable, such that blue-collar workers were no longer excluded carte blanche as before the war. The widespread democratisation of tennis, coupled with greater opportunities for social and geographical mobility, increased the unstable and transient nature of club memberships, and likely propelled established members to tighten up on behavioural transgressions as a means to preserve customs of rules and etiquette.
