Background
Perera was born in Spain in around 1822.
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Juan Perera
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Career
After the rest of the family relocated to Manchester in 1839, Perera remained in the Midlands, becoming naturalised in 1856, settling in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and establishing a successful business importing Spanish merchandise. A keen rackets player, he was a member with Gem of the Bath Street Racquets Club adjacent to the Racquet Court Inn in Bath Street, Birmingham, about two miles from his home Fairlight at 8 Ampton Road, Edgbaston. lieutenant was on the croquet lawn of this house that Perera and Gem were to develop a game that combined elements of both rackets and the Spanish game of pelota between 1859 and 1865, naming it Lawn rackets, Lawn pelota or, eventually, Lawn tennis.
In 1872 or 1873, Perera and Gem moved to Leamington Spa and established a club to play their new game on the lawns of the Manor House Hotel, opposite Perera"s new home in Avenue Road.
Perera left Leamington three years after Gem"s death in 1881 and his life after this date is unknown. The invention of tennis is traditionally ascribed to Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, who published rules for a game he called sphairistikè in 1874.
lieutenant is Wingfield"s statue that stands at the headquarters of the Lawn Tennis Association. lieutenant is now known that Gem and Perera had established an organized tennis club prior to this date (in Leamington Spa 1872), however, and had been playing the game privately for a decade or more.
In a letter to The Field in November 1874, however, Gem himself largely credited Perera with the development of the game.
