Cocks and Hens has had 3 locations for its tennis courts over its 140+ year history, all based in the Newnham district of Cambridge. It all started in the newly-built grounds of Newham College (from the 1880s), then on Clerk Maxwell Road (from 1964) and now on the current site in South Newnham since 2016. 

A link with more information on the locations of the club will be available soon. 

The History of Cocks and Hens Tennis Club 

Cocks and Hens was founded in Newnham, Cambridge as the Cambridge University Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club at some time between 1875 and 1890.  

Investigations suggest that the club would have been playing lawn tennis by at least 1880, but sadly we don’t have records of an exact date for when the club was formed.  

As a reference, the rules of lawn tennis were codified in 1875, the first men's singles tournament was held in 1876, Wimbledon in 1877 and by 1880 there were already 33 open tournaments being staged at different clubs around the country (as well as several in Ireland, the US and Australia).  

In Cambridge, the Cambridge University Tennis Club was established in 1881 for its male undergraduate students. Meanwhile, Cocks and Hens was set up separately by dons, fellows, local professionals and their families. It was always a club designed for exercise and socialising amongst gentlemen and ladies, as much as for competition. 

The earliest hard evidence of the club’s existence comes from the Mixed Doubles Silver Salver Trophy (now called “The Newnham Plate”), which is competed for annually at the club to this day. The plate dates from 1890 and on it are engraved the 68 names of the 25 winning pairs from 1890 up to World War I, plus the 9 winning pairs from 1920 to 1928. Many of the names are linked to famous people, both locally and on the international stage.  Most have fascinating stories which highlight the enormous social, economic, technical and cultural changes of that period. 

Past players at the club include: 

• A Wimbledon quarter finalist in the ladies singles
• The brother of a Wimbledon men’s singles champion  
• Several players who toured (with some success) on the tennis circuit, playing against the best in world tennis. 
• The wife of a Nobel Prize winner 
• The Esquire Bedell (master of ceremonies) at Cambridge University  
• A renowned Cambridge Mayor 
• A newly-wed who was soon to die on the Somme 
• A Wing Commander who became adviser to the Government on chemical warfare in WWII 
• The co-inventor of the cricket bowling machine
• The son of the inventor of the Venn diagram 
• The wife of the inventor of the Punnett Square  
• The daughter of a Cambridge business magnet 
• The man who saved the Leys School from bankruptcy  
• The daughter of an eminent mathematician 
• Plus a plethora of University College Masters, Bursars, Freemasons, artists, authors, reformers, county cricketers, solicitors and clergymen. 

(A link to some of their stories will be available here soon) 

Why “Cocks and Hens”? 

No-one can remember when the name Cocks and Hens was introduced. Present members recall that the name was in use at least before World War II, but it’s believed that the name was used much earlier in the club’s history, since it is a particularly Victorian term. 

Letters from the Newnham College archives show correspondence between the club and the college from 1899 onwards, using the official title of “Cambridge University Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club”. But the name is long and unwieldy, and the following theory seems the most likely as to why “Cock and Hens” was used informally from the start. 

1. A "Cock-and-Hen Club" was a commonly used phrase throughout the 1800s and especially from the 1830s onwards. It referred to any club that admitted both men and women. It contrasted with the exclusive men-only clubs and the male dominated university institutions that proliferated Victorian society. In some contexts it was used irreverently to imply seedy goings-on, especially amongst the “lower-classes”, but in high society, at a time of great social change, for a club based in a ladies college and amongst many advocates for women’s rights, its use would have had a clear message - that this was a progressive club for the informal enjoyment of both sexes. 

2. In the 1880s, Cambridge University members had a habit of shortening names just as they do today. Croquet & Tennis club would most easily have been shortened to “Croq & Tens “, - an easy step away from “Cock and Hens” and the progressive message it sent out. 

Despite the longevity of the official name “Cambridge University Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club”, in 2019, when the club applied for charity status, the Charity Commissioners insisted that permission from the University was needed in order to include their name in the title. Permission was unsurprisingly withheld as there never had been any official affiliation. As a result, a version of the informally used Cock and Hen club became “Cocks and Hens” and thus became the Club’s official name for the first time in over 100 years of use. 

A link with more information on the use of “Cock and Hen Club” will be available soon. 

If you have any queries or information about the history of the club, please contact us by email using: General  enquiries