Who created the modern game of lawn tennis? As Dr Naomi Lloyd-Jones discusses, one possibly surprising 19th-century pioneer could have been Sir William Hart Dyke, a champion sportsman best known as Disraeli’s chief whip, who claimed to have played the first game and drawn up the rules. Sir William Hart Dyke (1837-1931), a Conservative MP in Kent for four decades, is perhaps best known for … Continue reading Sir William Hart Dyke: Conservative MP, Disraeli’s chief whip – and the ‘inventor of lawn tennis’?