The Cup

During a trip to Monterey, California, and further matches in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, Dwight Davis first began to contemplate the idea of international tennis competition. Some seven years later, and in reply to an enquiry from the editor of American Lawn Tennis, Davis wrote:

Rowland Rhodes´ elaborate design, with guilt edge silver floral patterns

'The plans for the competition were outlined in the fall of 1899, immediately after the return of the tennis team which visited California and other western states. This trip resulted in great benefit to the interests of lawn tennis in the west, and the idea came to me at the time that an international competition would be of the greatest possible benefit to the game throughout the whole of the United States and abroad.'

An Englishman by the name of Charles A. Voigt suggested otherwise for the theory behind the competitions founding. It was at a tournament called Niagara-on-the-lake that Voigt first came across Davis and his companions Whitman, Wrenn and Wright. Writing in Lawn Tennis and Badminton, in July 1912, Voigt says:

'So rarely had I had the good fortune of meeting a millionaire who played lawn tennis and such a young one into the bargain, that my first obsession was: "A millionaire, is he? If so why don't you people get him to do something for the game? Put up some big prize, or cup?" I verily believe that passing remark laid the foundations to the Davis Cup!'

Whether this story is to believed, as it paints such a colourful image, can only be fuelled by further comments of Voigts:

'Next morning "The Lark" recorded scraps of the conversation. Davis read and heard about it, and so did all the others, and when the matter was seriously brought up again a few years later Dwight Davis came forward and offered to present a trophy for international competition. And this is the true story of how the Davis Cup originated.'

Dr James Dwight, who founded the national association in America some 18 years before, was immediately attracted to Davis's idea, because he himself had entertained the idea of international competition for a number of years. Dr Dwight had even offered to pay the expenses of top English players to travel in 1897. These were the first murmurings of professionalism, but fortunately the Doctor's radical thinking was never taken up and it was three years later that Dwight embraced Davis's idea wholeheartedly.

The Australian boys with the Cup in 1953

Although the donor of the trophy was kept under-wraps, it was only revealed after an Executive Committee meeting of the USNLTA, in New York, on 21st February 1900. Chaired by Dr Dwight, the committee comprised the treasurer Richard Stevens; Oliver S. Campbell, a former National singles champion; Palmer Presbrey who was the secretary and Dwight Davis himself. The publication Golf and Lawn Tennis reported that the following entry was made in the minutes:

'Voted, to accept the International Cup offered to the Association and it was also voted that the appreciation of the Association be expressed to the donor.'

While Dr Dwight wrote a letter to the secretary of the L.T.A. in England, and Durgin's silverware manufacturers in Concord, New Hampshire, were employed regarding the International Challenge Cup arrangements.

With young millionaire Dwight Davis scouring the silversmiths of Boston, at the turn of the century, Boston was the place to be if you had money to burn. So naturally you headed for the impressive frontage of Shreve, Crump Low Company, at the corner of Tremont and West Streets. Whatever you required, it was no problem for these well-respected smiths.

Not only were silver brooches and teapots available but also sporting trophies were often on sale, too. So when Davis entered the premises he would have known when he placed the order for a cup to be made for an international tennis competition. For the most impressive trophy, Shreeve's contracted the work out to the most exclusive of manufacturers, selecting a firm in Concord, just across the New Hampshire border, the William B. Durgin Company.

The three tiered Davis Cup in 2002

Tiffany's were building their reputation but Durgin's were renowned for their quality. Old William Durgin wanted nothing to do with new fangled ideas, like silver plating and other less precious metals. He dealt exclusively in the best - solid silver. As the son of a New Hampshire farmer, Durgin became known as something of an Anglophile, because he recruited many of his staff from England.

On his travels in England back in 1887 he had advertised for craftsman and designers: one of those who replied was a Midlander, a 22-year-old from Newcastle-under-Lyme called Rowland Rhodes. Rhodes was already a graduate of what was to become the Royal College of Art, Rhodes had returned north to teach in Preston when he read of Durgin's offer - ten dollars a week and passage paid.

Adventure was all the young man needed, the incentive was too great. After two years working in Concord, he was off, back across the Atlantic to Paris where he worked as a labourer in a foundry to familiarise himself with the techniques of metal casting. Then he enrolled at the Julien Academy and before returning to Durgin's, was sufficiently successful to have one of his life-size plaster works, 'Youth's First Recognition of Love' exhibited at the Grand Salon in Paris in 1892.

The red-bearded Englishman had obvious talent and quickly made his mark in Concord. To celebrate Grover Cleveland's election as President, silver manufacturers were invited to submit designs for the new White House silverware. Rhodes won the honour for Durgin's with his intricate Chrysanthemum pattern.

By now Rhodes was anxious to have his own studio and in 1893, he came to an amicable arrangement with his employer that enabled him to move to New York and work half the week at Durgin's Manhattan establishment and half at his own studio on East 13th Street.

The first United States team in 1900, proudly display the Cup. Dwight Davis in the middle is accompanied by Harvard friends Malcolm Whitman and Holcombe Ward

But customers for sculpture during President Cleveland's administration were rare. Rhodes might have ensured that the President's table glittered for White House dinners but most ordinary folk were happy that their own table simply had food on it. Money was scarce and after two years, Rhodes was forced to return to Concord where a patient fiancee finally got her wandering beau to walk up the aisle.

However marriage did not quell the Englishman's wanderlust and there were plans to work and study in Italy as the new century approached. But hard as he worked to improve as a sculptor and engraver, it was the order Durgin's received from a certain Dwight Davis for a silver trophy that would prove to be Rowland Rhodes's enduring masterpiece.

In retrospect, one can only commend Shreve's decision to choose Durgin's as manufacturers of the cup for the fashion of the time leaned towards the kind of flamboyance that could have turned Dwight's little pot into an ornament of laughable extremes. One tennis trophy made for High Rock Club in New York State was based on the Last of the Mohicans, complete with Indian war feathers decorating the rim. That sort of thing could have meant the demise of the Davis Cup.

Instead Rhodes opted for a design of classical restraint, a bowl 13 inches in height and 18 inches across the top that will be admired at the end of this new century as warmly as it was at the start of the last.

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