Cocks and Hens has had its home at 3 locations 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 moved to Clerk Maxwell Road (from 1964) and has been at 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 1889.  

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 official men's singles tournament was held in 1876, Wimbledon held its first All England tournament in 1877 and by 1880 there were already 33 open tournaments staged by clubs around the country (plus several in the USA 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 where both gentlemen and ladies could sociaise while providing healthy exercise and competitive tennis. 

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 25 winning pairs from 1890 up to World War I, plus the 9 winning pairs from 1920 to 1928. There are 38 different names in total but no two pairs playing together ever won more than once. 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 doubles champion and Wimbledon Vice-President
• Players who toured (with some success) on the tennis circuit, playing against the best in world tennis. 
• The wife of Hungary's most eminent 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 and son of the inventor of the Venn diagram 
• The wife of the inventor of the Punnett Square  
• A pioneering  geologist
• A key figure in the creation of the women's international hockey federation
• A member of one of Cambridge's "civic titan" families
• The man who saved the Leys School from bankruptcy  
• Plus a plethora of University College Masters, bursars, mathematicans, 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 to the club. 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 “Cocks and Hens” was used informally from the start. 

1. A "Cock-and-Hen Club" was a commonly used phrase throughout the 1800s and especially during the Victorian period. 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 pioneering ladies college, amongst many of the most vocal 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 “Croqs & Tens “, - an easy step away from “Cocks and Hens”. 

Despite the longevity of the official name of “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, the informally used “Cocks and Hens” became the Club’s official name for the first time in probably 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