Between the wars
Great Britain · born Beighton, Norfolk, 1897 · died 1953 · Wimbledon doubles champion 1931 as an unseeded player
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1931
Wimbledon ladies' doubles title, unseeded, with Phyllis Mudford
5
Wimbledon finals: one doubles win, one doubles defeat, three mixed defeats
109
Matches played at Wimbledon, 1920 to 1939
15
Wimbledon Championships entered
1924
Olympic bronze in doubles with Evelyn Colyer
Dorothy Cunliffe Shepherd was born at Beighton, Norfolk, on 24 November 1897. She first played Wimbledon in 1920 and reached the singles quarter-finals in 1921. That September she married an engineer in Bombay, and took the name Shepherd-Barron. The couple lived in India for several years, where their son John was born in Shillong in 1925.
She was a doubles player first. She lost Wimbledon mixed finals in 1923 with Lewis Deane and 1924 with Leslie Godfree, and in 1924 won an Olympic bronze medal in Paris with Evelyn Colyer and reached the Wimbledon singles quarter-finals again. In 1929, with Phyllis Covell, she lost the ladies' doubles finals at both Wimbledon and Forest Hills to Phoebe Watson and Peggy Michell.
Her title came in 1931. Unseeded, she and Phyllis Mudford beat the fourth seeds Doris Metaxa and Josane Sigart 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the final. That summer she captained the British Wightman Cup team in the United States, and she reached the US singles quarter-finals. She lost a third Wimbledon mixed final in 1934 with Bunny Austin and played the Championships until 1939, 109 matches in all.
She later captained the Wightman Cup team from the sidelines in 1932 and from 1950 to 1952. She died on 20 February 1953 near Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, aged 55, in a road accident.
| Wimbledon doubles finals | 1929: with Phyllis Covell lost to Phoebe Watson and Peggy Michell 4-6, 6-8. 1931: unseeded with Phyllis Mudford beat Doris Metaxa and Josane Sigart 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon mixed finals | 1923: with Lewis Deane lost to Randolph Lycett and Elizabeth Ryan 4-6, 5-7. 1924: with Leslie Godfree lost to Brian Gilbert and Kitty McKane 3-6, 6-3, 3-6. 1934: with Bunny Austin lost to Ryuki Miki and Dorothy Round 6-3, 4-6, 0-6 |
| US Championships 1929 | Doubles final at Forest Hills with Phyllis Covell, lost to Watson and Michell 6-2, 3-6, 4-6 |
| Wimbledon singles | Quarter-finals in 1921 and 1924. Record 16-12 |
| Wimbledon record | Singles 16-12, doubles 26-14, mixed 27-14, across 15 Championships from 1920 to 1939 |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1931 | Women's doubles | with Phyllis Mudford King |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
The person behind the player.
Forest Hills, 1931
Time magazine's report of the 1931 Wightman Cup noted that Mrs Dorothy C. Shepherd-Barron was the British captain, and that her civil-engineer husband travelled with the team as its coach and chaperon. The British lost the cup five matches to two.
Source: "Sport: Wightman Cup", Time, 17 August 1931Wimbledon 1931
She and Phyllis Mudford came through the 1931 ladies' doubles without a seeding and beat the fourth seeds, Doris Metaxa and Josane Sigart, from a set down in the final. Metaxa and Sigart came back to win the title a year later.
Source: Wimbledon Compendium 2025 (AELTC)Shillong, 1925
Her son John Shepherd-Barron, credited with inventing the cash machine, was born at the Gordon Robert Hospital in Shillong, India, in June 1925, while his father was chief engineer of the Chittagong Port Commissioners. When the State Bank of India placed an ATM at the hospital in 2021, the reports described his mother as an Olympic tennis player and Wimbledon doubles champion.
Source: ATMIA, August 2021Paris, 1924
At the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris she won the bronze medal in the women's doubles with Evelyn Colyer and reached the singles quarter-finals, losing to Julie Vlasto.
Source: Olympedia; WikipediaBombay, 1921
Two months after her first Wimbledon quarter-final, in September 1921, she married an engineer in Bombay. Her years in India kept her away from Wimbledon in 1922; she returned in 1923 and played the Championships, with gaps, until 1939.
Source: Olympedia; Wimbledon Compendium 2025Free membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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