In 1881, four years after the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its first ever championships, Slazengers produced The New Game of Lawn Tennis' complete in a box.
Slazengers were one of the dominant (wooden) racquet manufacturers in the world of their time. Over the years they produced such a wide variety of sports equipment from tennis racquets to clothing from golf equipment to rifles. But it was their bold move into tennis ball manufacturing late in the 1800’s that arguably saw their greatest business achievement. Their plant in Barnsley manufactured tennis balls and exported them round the world.
In 1877 the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club revised the rules of the game and decided on a pneumatic and cloth covered ball (the first rules of 1875 had only stipulated "that the balls be hollow and made of India rubber...balls covered in white cloth shall be used in fine weather").
- 1959: Ralph Slazenger sells the family business to Dunlop Rubber.
- 1985: Dunlop Rubber is purchased by BTR plc, which forms a Sports Group combining Slazenger with the Dunlop Sport branded goods.
- 1996: BTR sells Dunlop Sport in a management buyout for £300 million - the buyout was backed by investment company Cinven. The new company is known as Dunlop Slazenger.
- 2004: CINVen sells Dunlop Slazenger to Sports World International for a reported £40 million, who in turn sold on the rights to the Slazenger Golf brand in Europe to JJB Sports.
