page_title: George Hillyard
section_title: Secretary of the AEC, En-tout-cas
hierarchical_section_title: George Hillyard / Biography / Secretary of the AEC, En-tout-cas
caption_attribution_description: English: Goearge Whiteside Hillyard, playing at Eastbourne.
context_page_description: George Whiteside Hillyard was a male tennis player from the United Kingdom. Under his supervision as secretary of the All England Club from 1907 to 1925, the Wimbledon Championships moved to its current site at Church Road. Hillyard also excelled at cricket and golf.
context_section_description: Hillyard, a long-time member of the All England Club along with his wife, was its secretary from 1907 to early 1925. One of his major concerns was the upkeep of the courts, and he insisted on high standards of court maintenance. In 1910, the club purchased a motor roller for the courts in order to replace the horse roller.
  With the success of the Wimbledon tournament, the necessity to move the ground from his initial location at Worple Road to a larger site became obvious. This had been discussed as early as Hillyard became secretary in 1907, but searching for a better suitable site took time, and the outbreak of World War I further postponed the issue. From 1914 to 1918, Hillyard rejoined the Navy, leaving it with the rank of commander. After the war, the decision to build a new ground was confirmed in 1919. The new site was opened at the 1922 Wimbledon Championships. After the 1919 Wimbledon Championships, the decision to build a new ground was confirmed. As the secretary, Hillyard was probably heavily involved in the search for, and selection of the new site at Church Road, and worked together with architect Stanley Peach. The new site was opened at the 1922 Wimbledon Championships.
  Beside his secretary post, Hillyard also was an umpire at Wimbledon. From 1919 to 1932, he umpired every ladies final.
  Being passionate about building perfect grass courts, Hillyard kept thinking about how to construct an equally good all-weather court. In 1909, he met Claude Brown, a manager of a nearly bankrupt brickyard at Syston near Leicester. Hillyard had been on a tennis tour in South Africa the winter before where he had played on courts made of crushed up ant heaps. He told this story to Brown, and both developed the idea of using crushed bricks for court surface. The first court was laid out at Hillyard's home at Thorpe Satchville, and was called En-tout-cas (literally "in all cases") upon the idea of a guest, a French lady. Brown renamed his company after it. By 1914, business boomed across England. An agent was hired for the United States market, and the company turned into a multimillion-pound business. When the Championships moved to its new site at Church Road in 1922, nine en-tout-cas courts were laid beside the grass courts. For many years, the British Junior Championships were played on en-tous-cas.
  Hillyard's relationship to the En-tout-cas company throughout the years is somewhat diffuse. Clearly, he was in the perfect position to promote the court surface, and he was certainly involved in the decision to construct en-tout-cas courts at the new Wimbledon grounds, giving them a marketing coup. In 1929, when being involved in the construction of a golf course – a job which was given to En-tout-cas on Hillyard's recommendation –, he eventually disclosed that he was a director of En-tout-cas, thus obviously receiving income from the company.
caption: George Hillyard at Eastbourne
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