Southward-
Bound
The 33-week tour began on Friday, September 21, 1894, when the 13 English cricketers, all born in that land, assembled at London’s Fenchurch Street railway station and fought their way through a colossal throng of cheering, back-slapping admirers. With the combined Melbourne and Sydney colours—stripes of light blue, red and white on a dark-blue background—on their neckties and around their straw boaters, they squeezed through the crowds which extended from the street, through the booking-hall, up the long staircase, and along the platform. The reporter from the Sporting Life thought that the loudest cheers were reserved for Stoddart, Brockwell and Briggs, but they were all given the reception of established heroes, even though all now was anticipation and expectation.
The boat-train pulled out at 11.15 am, and at Tilbury a tender took them to RMS Ophir, the largest of the Orient Line fleet at 6910 tons, with a passenger-list of 602. Here, more telegrams awaited the cricketers, and the tension rose as the hour of goodbye approached. The wives of Johnny Briggs, Bobby Peel and Walter Humphreys were there, and Briggs seemed to be fighting a losing cause in trying to cheer his weeping wife. A few feet away, ‘handsome Tom Richardson cast longing eyes after the pretty maiden who left him with more than a suspicion of moisture in her eyes’.
Farewell to old England. The players line the ship’s railing as departure from Tilbury approaches. Nine of them can be identified by their straw boaters.
RMS Ophir, 6910 tons, passenger list of 602, the Orient liner which carried Stoddart and his players safely to Australia—and in due course bore most of them home again.
At Fenchurch Street, the last thing the Star’s man on the spot had seen was ‘Andrew Ernest Stoddart’s handsome bronzed face beaming out of the train window’, but now a slight flush touched that face as the captain responded to a brief champagne toast of farewell, with musical honours, in the ship’s smoking-room. He spoke of his team of ‘tryers’. The Hon. Ivo Bligh, leader of the famous 1882–83 expedition, whose wife was returning to Melbourne to visit family, joined in the chorus of For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow as the All Visitors Ashore message echoed round the decks.
Away chugged Ophir, under her 10,000 horsepower: first call Plymouth; then Naples on September 30 (where Philipson would join the team); Port Said, October 5; Colombo, October 17; Albany, October 29; Adelaide, November 2.
As the faces lining the ship’s rail became indistinct and then invisible, the last vestige of contact for those left standing on the wharf was Bill Lockwood’s shrill and faintly desperate whistle.
They were soon into a heavy sea-swell, with mist and rain. In the time it takes modern touring cricketers to zoom from London to Sydney, Stoddart and his men were still tossing in an angry grey ocean, only one-fortieth of the way through their journey. Briggs, Ward and MacLaren alone were well enough to face the first church service, while Stoddart, a good sailor, tried to cheer the rest of his team with personal calls.
Matters improved once Ophir had steamed past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean, though there was a noisy storm as they approached Naples, where Philipson duly came aboard. There was cricket on deck almost daily, and concerts in the evenings. Lockwood went down with a chill. The cricketers gallantly batted left-handed against the team got up from female passengers. And Richardson compensated for his six ducks by taking all 12 wickets for 6.
Into the Indian Ocean they sailed, with the rising temperature the centrepoint of most discussion, and great sunsets for those who strolled the deck. The only serious problem was Peel, who seemed compelled to make mischief. One night he thought it fun to slash his cabin-mate’s hammock rope with a carving-knife, sending him thudding to the floor. Next, he locked the same chap in a boiler-room, where the temperature was close to Hell. MacLaren just saved him.
The English cricketers had another big greeting when they landed in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Landing at six in the morning, they were playing a local XVIII at 10 o’clock, batting all 13 players themselves and mustering 76, reasonable for men who had not yet found their land legs’ and were trying to put bat to ball on a pitch which was described as ‘shifting sand’. Brown and MacLaren were both out first ball, Ward carried his bat through the innings for 24 not out, and a local youngster named Raffel, fastish left-arm, took 9 for 43. By 1 o’clock (‘tiffin time’) Mr Vanderspar’s local team were 23 for the loss of three wickets—to be all out for 58 by 4 o’clock, Briggs 6 for 6, Lockwood 5 for 10. There was just time for Stoddart’s team to reach 88 for 8 in their second innings, Raffel adding to his glory with another five wickets, bowling Stoddart for a second time, something on which to dine out for the rest of his days.
Ophir now carried its sporting cargo down the Indian Ocean, berthing at Albany, Western Australia before braving the Bight across to Adelaide. The campaign was about to begin. And the Australian socialite, Maud Power, whom MacLaren had befriended on the voyage, was destined to be his wife.
