Just as the greatest international tennis players were warming up for Wimbledon, two Tasmanian brothers were making history a world away.
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Their patented design for a racquet had been carefully scrutinised by the Australian Department of Patents after it was lodged on July 12, 1921.
Just under a year after they applied for a patent, brothers Alfred Alexander junior and Douglas Davey Alexander received the news their design had been accepted.
It was June 7, 1922 – one week before Wimbledon.
Launceston historian Gus Green said it was only a few years later that Jack Crawford won Wimbledon with an Alexander patent racquet in his hand.
The Alexander patent design influenced racquets across the world, Mr Green said.
“It’s Tasmania’s first patented racquet,” he said.
For two months, he searched for the original patent before discovering it in the archives of the Victorian State Library storage facility in Ballarat in 2008.
While others would have been put off during the extensive search, Mr Green said he had to find it because of its value to Tasmania’s history.
Mr Green wrote a book ‘What A Racket!’ in 2010 to “celebrate and recognise Tasmanian innovation to be a world leader in racquet manufacturing”, he said.
“The patent eventually lead to the establishment of the Alexander Patent Racket Factory.”
Although the Alexander Patent Racket Factory is a well-known Launceston building, Mr Green said it was never publicly known the invention was created by the two brothers.
“With Tasmania’s first patented tennis racquet, they took on the world and won,” Mr Green said.
“You had to be seen to have the latest and this was the latest ‘must have’ racquet.”
Production started on March 13, 1926, when seven racquets left the factory.
The factory employed 130 people who did not have racquet manufacturing experience and trained them all on the job, adding a boost to Launceston’s economy, he said.
“By 1930, 60,000 racquets has been produced.”
The Alexander brothers, in the patent document, said the new design offered “improvements in the construction of rackets for tennis and other games”.
The patent described a new way to construct the rim of racquets.
Traditionally rims were made of a solid piece of wood bent into the shape of the racquet and scoured to the handle.
However, the Alexander brothers formed the rim entirely of thin strips of wood or flexible material that were secured together.
The strips were long enough to extend downwardly from the rim and lay against the core of the handle.
“With Tasmania’s first patented tennis racquet, they took on the world and won ... You had to be seen to have the latest and this was the latest ‘must have’ racquet.”
- Launceston historian Gus Green
It meant the handle was smaller and flared out at the top, providing a “strong and satisfactory construction of a racket”, the brothers said in the patent.
The design also enabled “a nice balance between the handle and the rim without seriously weakening the racket at that part”, they said in the patent.
By 1929, the factory sales manager decided a bit of colour should be added to the design.
The factory then employed eight special liners to hand imprint colour onto the rims.
Mr Green’s fascination with the racquet was partly inspired by his own family connection to the factory. His grandfather’s brother S.B.Hopwood was a founding director of the factory.
The factory was busy producing racquets, which increased competition for international racquet manufacturing, for more than 30 years before it closed in 1961.
The racquet’s heritage will be part of the centenary celebrations of tennis to be held in March, 2019, which will start with a heritage tennis day with wooden Alexander patent racquets.
It was important to celebrate the other tennis milestones in the lead up, including 95 years since the state’s first racquet patent was accepted, putting Tasmanian racquets on the world stage, Mr Green said.