The opening match on the court was played between professional Charles Saunders and amateur Sir Edward Grey . At that time Sir Edward (1862-1933) was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The M.P. for Berwick-upon-Tweed had been the youngest serving M.P. at the time of his first election in 1885, aged 23. Despite a narrow majority he had retained the seat for the Liberal party in 1892. As Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Gladstone and Roseberry administrations he was involved in British policy in relation to the Ottoman Empire and West Africa. He would claim later that the experience proved invaluable when as Foreign Secretary (1905-1916) he dealt with the events which led to the outbreak of the First World War. He famously wrote at that time: “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
Sir Edward had attended Temple Grove School and Winchester College before going to Balliol College Oxford in1 880. His Wikipedia entry includes this assessment of his time at Oxford: “Apparently an indolent student he was tutored by Mandell Creighton during the vacations and managed a second in Mods. Grey subsequently became even more idle using his time to become university champion at real tennis.” Grey was Oxford Champion and winner of the Varsity match in 1883; British Amateur Champion 1889, 1891, 1895, 1896 and 1898; runner-up in 1892, 1893 and 1894 (years in which he held office).
On that opening day in Jesmond he played the reigning professional champion Charles Saunders: “It is needless to say that Saunders was in good form, for that follows naturally from the facts, -that he gave half-30 to his antagonist, and came out of the contest victorious.”
