Arthur Balfour was a keen tennis player – though this cartoon may hint at something else.

[from PUB 211: Popular View, No. 2:1, June 1921. Cartoon: ‘When the House adjourns’, by Cecil Nicholson]

Even hard-working politicians have been known to indulge in a little sport now and then, and Conservative Party Archive material proves no less. Early Conservative publications regularly featured and applauded the Party’s sportsmen and women, and MPs were often pictured on the golf course or with a cricket bat. Young Conservatives weekends, while politically minded, were also filled with swimming and three-legged races.

It’s not surprising, then, that the Archive possesses a number of tennis-related items. Balfour was a keen tennis player (as were Blair and a number of PMs). Cameron was the captain of Brasenose College’s tennis team during his Oxford days, and the party boasts a tennis star of sorts in former Conservative MP John Bercow – now Speaker of the House of Commons – who was rated Britain’s number one youth tennis player and is now a qualified coach.

In honour of the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, we’ve pulled a few tennis images you may not have seen before – from 1920s MPs to Young Conservatives of the 1950s to Norma Major with the Duchess of Kent. Good luck to all those competing at Wimbledon this year!

The Man in the Street, a Conservative magazine published in the 1920s, regularly featured local Conservative personalities, including sportsmen. Although cricket featured most regularly, tennis made an occasional appearance – here via George Bowyer, 1st Baron Denham, who was the MP for Buckingham as well as serving as a whip, vice-chair of the Party and the Comptroller of the Household.

[PUB 210/1: The Man in the Street, No. 2.IV, July 1924]

Young Conservatives enjoy a game of tennis (in between sessions on ‘Full Employment and the Economic Crisis’ and ‘Defence’) at a YC ‘Holiday Weekend’ at the Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Filey, Yorkshire, 1950 [CPA Photos]

Norma Major, wife of Prime Minister John Major, enjoys the Men’s Semi Finals at the 1993 Wimbledon Championships with the Duchess of Kent [CPA Photos]

Note: On a related point, those curious about the history of tennis may be interested in the Bodleian’s latest publication, The Original Rules of Tennis.

All images © Conservative Party Archive Trust