# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Wilding, Anthony Frederick

​WILDING, ANTHONY FREDERICK (1883–1915), lawn-tennis player, was born at Opawa, near Christ Church, New Zealand, 31 October 1883, the eldest son of Frederick Wilding, Q.C., of the firm of Wilding and Acland, solicitors, of Christ Church, by his wife, Julia, daughter of Alderman Charles Anthony, J.P., of Hereford, England. Frederick Wilding, an all-round sportsman and games player, gave his son his first lessons in cricket and lawn-tennis. Anthony Wilding was educated first at Mr. Wilson's school at Christ Church, and while there won his first lawn-tennis success of importance when he defeated Richard D. Harman in the championship of the province of Canterbury. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1902, and during his first summer term won the freshmen's lawn-tennis tournament, although he had been chiefly playing cricket, at which he was good enough to be chosen for some of the university trial matches and to be awarded his Crusader colours. From 1904, however, Wilding's chief recreation was lawn-tennis. He was secretary of the university lawn-tennis club in 1904, president in 1905, and represented Cambridge against Oxford in both years, when he was certainly the best singles player. In the doubles he was partnered by Kenneth Powell.
Henceforth Wilding made steady progress at the game. Considerable help was given to him by great players of that day, such as H. S. Mahony and Hugh Lawrence Doherty [q.v.], but it was by constant practice and training that he made himself into one of the first dozen players which the game has yet known. From 1903 onwards he won prizes and championships in all parts of the world where the game was played, for he was very fond of travelling, and made journeys half across Europe on his motor-bicycle. He was one of the representatives of Australasia for the Davis international challenge cup from 1905 onwards. He first became All England singles champion at Wimbledon in 1910 when he defeated the holder, A. Wentworth Gore, and he retained the title until 1914, defeating in turn H. Roper Barrett, A. W. Gore, and M. E. McLoughlin in the challenge round. Wilding also won the championship doubles in 1907, partnered by Norman E. Brookes; in 1908 and 1910, partnered by M. J. G. Ritchie; and in 1914, partnered by Brookes.
On leaving Cambridge, Wilding read for the bar and was called by the Inner Temple in 1906, qualifying as barrister and solicitor of the supreme court of New Zealand in 1909. After the outbreak of the European War he was gazetted lieutenant in the Royal Marines (October 1914). Later he was employed at the Head-Quarters Intelligence Corps. In 1915 he was attached to the armoured car force, and on 9 May of that year he was killed in the fighting in Artois, near Lestrem, the dug-out in which he was stationed being shattered by a large shell.
Although Wilding had not such a natural genius for lawn-tennis as the Renshaws or the Dohertys displayed, he possessed many assets for proficiency. He had a good eye, health and physical strength in abundance, while his patience and perseverance in practice were inexhaustible. In his early days he would practice for hours against a wall. His name will live in the annals of the game, not as one of the most brilliant or graceful of lawn-tennis players, but as one of the most difficult to beat. He wrote a book describing his experiences, entitled On the ​Court and Off, which was first published in 1912. He was unmarried.
[A. Wallis Myers, Captain Anthony Wilding, 1916; A. F. Wilding, On the Court and Off; Ayres, Lawn-Tennis Almanac.]
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