Warming Up
The long and often idyllic voyage behind them, the English cricketers braced themselves for the rounds of civic receptions. George Giffen was among those to greet them when Ophir reached Adelaide, as was Major Ben Wardill, the Melbourne Cricket Club secretary, representing the club as one of the tour co-organisers. The players shook themselves down at the South Australian Hotel before a mayoral reception at the Town Hall, when Stoddart made a gracious response to the Mayor’s enthusiastic welcoming speech, and Wardill caused laughter by saying that Australia might have had the beating of an English combination of five professionals and eight amateurs, ‘but, by Gad, we can never beat eight professionals and five amateurs!’ which was the combination Stoddart had been compelled to settle on. The skipper was then asked to introduce his team, which he did, in a loud voice above the cheering, as they stood one by one on the platform. Later, a journalist from a ‘pink’ paper complained that the mayor had been mean with the champagne rations afterwards.
The English team photographed in Adelaide’s Botanical Gardens. Standing: JT Brown, LH Gay, AC MacLaren, H Philipson, W Brockwell, J Briggs; seated: T Richardson, FGJ Ford, AE Stoddart, WA Humphreys, A Ward; in front: R Peel, WH Lockwood, Major BJ Wardill (secretary, Melbourne Cricket Club).
England batting in the tour opener at Gawler: centurymaker Albert Ward on strike, Francis Ford bis partner.
Net practice at Adelaide Oval drew a crowd, and assessments and forecasts sprouted everywhere. Richardson was fast but straight, with an easy action. (He was to take almost a month to adjust his length to Australian pitches.) Brockwell showed a clean, hard and ‘pretty’ drive that scattered onlookers behind the bowlers, but old Humphreys, the lob bowler, looked good only for scheming out any inexperienced batsmen—an accurate forecast. Stoddart opened his broad shoulders and hit Peel and Briggs all over the place, followed by Ford, the tall left-hander ‘whose height and build suggest an Australian’, who also made a good impression. They all worked up a further sweat with some fielding and wicketkeeping practice, adding to the picture of a team of many talents, as described by Jim Phillips in a newspaper interview. Phillips was an itinerant Australian who had bowled for Victoria and Middlesex and was now accompanying the English side as umpire and general factotum, making some extra money with his pen, an unusual combination.
Of all the early opinions, Major Wardill’s on Jack Brown was to have the most amusing repercussions: ‘He won’t get 10 runs in five months, and had better go home.’
The pipeopener was a two-day match at Gawler, against a local Eighteen, after the Englishmen had had a picnic at Mount Lofty. The playing surface was matting over concrete, the thick coating of dandelions had been mown away, and Albert Ward kicked off with a century, Brown with 56, Brockwell 39, Ford 49, Brockwell being surprised at having to change ends every time he hit a ball over the boundary, with five runs awarded. Briggs then spun 10 of the District team out for 94, Humphreys 5 for 29, and Richardson was thought too dangerous to bowl at all on this hard surface. In the follow-on, Gawler made 22 for the loss of five wickets and were satisfied with a draw, though, as the local paper The Bunyip reported, the attendances had not been enough to cover the financial guarantee put up by the locals. It might have been otherwise if Jack Lyons, the strong Gawler-born batsman who already had 10 Test caps, had been able to play. As it was, only 900 watched on the Saturday and 500—plus a few hundred schoolchildren let in free-on the Monday.
The team returned to Adelaide by train, and after three free days, took on South Australia, the Sheffield Shield champions, in the opening first-class fixture. Whether through increasing tension or not, Stoddart declined to be interviewed by the South Australian Register’s reporter, who might therefore have been among those who enjoyed seeing the Englishmen vanquished by the State side.
They began well enough, making 477, Brown (115) and Stoddart (66) adding 110 in 70 minutes for the third wicket on a good, fast pitch, and only Peel (0) of the first nine batsmen failing to reach 38. George Giffen was as inexhaustible as ever, sending down 53 six-ball overs to take 5 for 175, to which he was to add 6 for 49 and innings of 64 and 58 not out to show that at 35 he was still far from a spent force, having trained hard all winter.
South Australia replied with 383, and though Humphreys took a wicket with his second lob while many of the huge crowd were still giggling, Giffen and young Joe Darling (117) put their side back into the game, another left-hander, 17-year-old Clem Hill, coming in at No. 10 and making 20. It was a pleasantly warm day, a public holiday to mark the Prince of Wales’s birthday, and by the end of it, Ward had played on to the local bronco fast bowler Ernie Jones, and the Englishmen were 110 ahead.
On the fourth day, on a pitch still heartless to bowlers, Stoddart’s XI managed to collapse to an ignoble 130. The captain again hit carelessly into the outfield, and Giffen worked his way skilfully through the order. By nightfall, South Australia, needing 225 for a gratifying victory, were already 164 for the loss of Lyons, Walter Giffen and Affie Jarvis. ‘Dinny’ Reedman, who carried his overnight 76 to 83, won himself a Test place with his fine display, and Darling was in at the end with George Giffen, adding an unbeaten 37 to his first-innings century as a glad augury of what would be 10 years of mainly successful combat against England.
Asked why England had lost this opening contest, Stoddart laughingly replied, ‘I don’t think I could give you a reason if I tried,’ adding weightily a little while later, ‘We took risks. Your men took none.’
His continuing courtesy was noted, and even if he was invariably reluctant to submit to interview, it was agreed that his general manner ‘contrasts distinctly with the bombastic way in which old WG used to swagger about. Stoddy moves among the crowd most unpretentiously, as if he were walking upon velvet.’
The touring team caught the overnight express to Melbourne and emerged at Spencer Street station next morning eager to restore their pride. And they did, after the usual warm welcome speeches at the Town Hall and at a luncheon at the MCG, where Melbourne Cricket Club president Frank Grey Smith made the key address. Phil Sheridan, who was the principal organiser of the tour, said, with a twinkle in his eye, that he would take over as what in modern parlance would be ‘liaison officer’ once the team went north of Sydney, ‘Major Wardill not being sufficiently acquainted with the manners and customs of the Australian blacks’ (Wardill was English-born, emigrating to Australia as a young man).
The English team occupied separate hotels, the amateur ‘gentlemen’ at Scotts in Collins Street, the professionals at the White Hart in Spring Street, ‘in the old obnoxious English tradition’.
Their match with Victoria (for whom Trumble was not playing) was another high-scoring affair, but Archie MacLaren towered from the match, stroking a beautiful 228 to go with his 108 for Lancashire on his first-class debut four years earlier. He was tired and 220 not out by the first evening, having shared a stand of 181 with Stoddart, who was now noticeably more cautious, MacLaren keeping himself going, it transpired, with a few whisky-and-sodas.
Play began at 12.15 pm, with lunch at 1.30 and tea at 4 o’clock and close of play 6 pm. In all that time MacLaren gave only one chance, Blackham the wicketkeeper sparing him, as he also did Peel. England, in their colours less showy than those of the last English team’ (Lord Sheffield’s), had a reassuring 379 on the board for four wickets, and were ready to enjoy the concert staged for them that evening by the Lyric Club at the MCG.
They fell away for 416 next day, young Albert Trott taking 6 for 103 with his mixture of pace and spin, and Victoria struggled to 201 for 7 by the close, a fire in the wooden grandstand adding to the excitement. A cigar-butt caused it, and volunteer firemen put it out with a wild spray of water which half-drowned some of the spectators, 11,000 of whom in total were there that day. Briggs and Peel, the left-armers, took the wickets, and old Humphreys, with five men around the boundary and no slip, managed to snare Frank Laver. But Jack Harry lodged a claim for a place in the Test team with 70, batting at No. 8, and Victoria got up to 306, 110 behind. So bland was the pitch and so full was Richardson’s length still, off his 12-yard run-up, that some of the batsmen here, as at Adelaide, did not even bother to wear batting-gloves.
The third day brought brightening weather, the glare troubling the players. Richardson continued to be troubled, too, by his lack of success, and when he left the field, his spikes were bent and worn from his labours on the hard ground. Victoria would have been better placed had they failed to avert the compulsory follow-on, but Blackham refused to connive by throwing tailend wickets away. By the third evening the English XI were already over 300 ahead, with six wickets remaining.
Appreciated by a little old man in a tall hat who ran onto the field and shook his hand, Stoddart added a careful, responsible 78 to his first-innings 77, while Peel (65) and Briggs (43) showed they could bat too, helping their side secure a long lead: 398. By the end of the fourth day, Victoria were 160 for 6; and Peel and Briggs spun them out next day for 253, Harry Trott (63) and Bob McLeod (62) leading the runmaking. The Englishmen, having banked an important win, headed happily off to Sydney.
Over 600 people waited to greet them at Central Station, from where they were driven in drays to the Town Hall. There the Mayor delivered an interesting speech, saying he loved cricket and that Australians were related to ‘that great country, England, which possessed to an extraordinary degree the genius of colonisation’. He felt it was remarkable that such a young community could compete on equal terms with the cricketers of the country from which it had sprung. Major Ben Wardill again managed to say the right thing, following Stoddart’s elegant response; he felt that these matches helped generate the spirit of Australian federation; and so far the attendances and the takings were up on the previous tour by Grace’s team.
The players were then driven to their hotels, the amateurs to the Hotel Australia, the pros to the Empire, and in the evening they were guests at the Lyceum Theatre.
After the run glut of the Victoria match (1353 runs), the New South Wales match threw up fewer runs but much absorbing cricket. The Sydney public must have sensed it, for a record 10,029 turned up on the opening day (paying £479). Lockwood was fit to play, and generated enough pace to have three slips in at the start and to bowl four men out as well as finding the edge frequently. There is record of the Englishmen shouting ‘Catch it!’ as the ball flew from the bat, proving that it is more than a modern childishness.
Bobby Peel shared the new ball, and between them he and Lockwood did most of the damage as NSW were bowled out for 293, Frank Iredale shoring up the innings with 133. Again there was enormous curiosity about Walter Humphreys, never before seen at Sydney, but the rotund, grey-haired underhand bowler was ineffective again.
As many as 23,579 people crammed in for the second day’s play, Saturday, lifting the ground record and again dwarfing the figures for the Lord Sheffield/WG Grace tour of 1891–92. When any umbrella was raised against the sun the owner was instantly shouted at by those whose view it threatened to block, the penalty for resistance being a hail of missiles. So many women were among the gathering that some had to be accommodated in the members’ pavilion.
They all saw NSW finish their innings, but by the end the English XI were only 85 behind and only three wickets down. MacLaren, the double-century hero at Melbourne, fell for 4 to Charlie Turner, but Stoddart, 77 and 78 at Melbourne, now made 79, and Jack Brown, having scored a century on his Australian debut at Adelaide, now made another at Sydney, completed on the third day, when the temperature was 98°F in the shade. Brockwell’s careful 81 helped the Englishmen to a lead of 101, and when NSW went in again, only the stunted figure of Syd Gregory stayed at the crease for any length of time. He made 87 nice runs in two hours, but Iredale added a duck to his century, and Harry Donnan’s 39 was second-highest score. Stoddart’s men needed 80 for victory.
In the making of them, for the loss of two wickets, there were two curious incidents to match one similar at Melbourne, when Harry Graham was the fielder. The fashion of the time seems to have been that successful catchers tossed the ball in the air; not out of sight, into the sky, as is the modern practice, but just a few feet or so. But there was around this time an embarrassing outbreak of dropped rebounds and consequently disallowed catches.
The NSW supporters were not discouraged, for most of their men had done something worthwhile. Gregory’s innings was thought to be the best so far played against the Englishmen, and three other players who were to play Test cricket had made successful debuts: Tom McKibbin, Bill Howell (5 for 44 in the first innings), and Jim Kelly, the wicketkeeper who stood up at the stumps to all but the very fastest bowling, and who bore a fair resemblance to Rod Marsh, who would fill his place some generations later.
Stoddart’s approach was now obvious. Eschewing risks, and deaf to the barrackers who wanted him to hit out, he was taking his leadership responsibilities seriously. Callaway had tested him with some fast stuff at his ribs, which he had played down calmly. Turner, his old adversary, tempted him in vain (he finished with I for 100 in the first innings), but his drives went along the turf over the beautifully manicured SCG outfield.
Now he marshalled his players onto the northern mail-train, bound for Armidale, where XXII of New England tensely awaited their glamorous overseas visitors.
The Englishmen nearly went north one short. On the Sunday of the NSW match they had cruised on Sydney Harbour, pulling into an inlet after lunch. Bill Lockwood bullishly ignored warnings about sharks and dived in for a swim, while Stoddart and Ford took potshots with firearms at flotsam in the water. Halfway to the shore, Lockwood began to struggle and splash and gurgle. Some of the players reckoned it to be a brilliant impression of a drowning man. But the Surrey and England fast bowler was genuinely in trouble, and had a lifebuoy not been thrown to him from a passing yacht and two of the sailors not brought him round with the aid of some brandy, England would probably have gone north minus a key player. It must have taken Stoddart’s mind back to 1888, when he stayed on after his first cricket tour of Australia to play for the rugby side brought out by Arthur Shrewsbury. The captain, Dick Seddon, had drowned while sculling on the Hunter River, and ‘Stoddy’ had taken over the leadership.
When the train reached Armidale, Stoddart asked for it to be shunted into a siding so that his men could get a little extra sleep before braving the town’s reception. They checked into Tattersall’s Hotel at 11 am and began the match at noon before 1400 spectators, whose relief after all the preparations for this great match was undisguised when yesterday’s thunderstorms failed either to swamp the ground or to come back next day.
The Englishmen drew lots for the batting order and managed to fade away for 67, to which New England replied with 147, the crafty Humphreys lobbing out 10 of the 22 batsmen for 52 and Richardson perhaps frightening one or two in taking 9 for 46, including a hat-trick. Ford top-scored with 49, MacLaren 44, as the Englishmen made 196 on the second day, avoiding humiliation, and the game was drawn. The chief distraction while they were in northern NSW was a visit to Bakers Creek goldmine, the richest in the State, and then they entrained again, bound for southern Queensland.
Another concrete pitch awaited them at Toowoomba—and, of course, another earnest reception with speeches. All was gaiety, with the newly enlarged grandstand (capacity 260) the central pride. Now it was Leslie Gay’s turn to top the score. He made 49 in the English total of 216 in reply to the Toowoomba Eighteen’s 113 (Brockwell 8 for 60, Humphreys 9 for 48), and when the Toowoomba second innings closed, Jennings had made himself a local hero by hitting Peel over the boundary not only to save the innings defeat but to leave England insufficient time to make the three runs needed for victory when the 17th and final wicket fell. With typical Queensland generosity, the local captain offered Stoddart time to make those runs, but he refused firmly, thanking him for the thought.
Down the mine: another eyeopening experience for the touring cricketers. Brockwell is seated to the left, with Richardson standing behind him; Lockwood stands at the rear, in straw boater, with Ward in front of him, Briggs (arms folded) to the right, Brown (hat-brim turned up) in front of him; Humphreys seated extreme right, with Wardill behind him.
The train journey to Brisbane was not a long one, and there the customary enthusiastic crowd awaited them, QCA officials in their midst. At the reception, Drewy Stoddart began with the curious remark that ‘although he had the misfortune to have been born an Englishman, he was very proud of his country’. Although more at home with a cricket bat or rugby ball in his hands than making speeches, he was carrying out his duties well, with great charm and diplomacy, though it had been remarked upon in Sydney that ‘he can talk well but his natural gentleness makes him swallow the soft mellifluous voice instead of throwing it off his chest’.
This time, having spoken for a couple of minutes, he handed over to his friend Hylton Philipson, one of the two English wicket-keepers, to propose the Mayor’s health.
At the Exhibition Ground, where Queensland’s first Test match would be played 34 years later (with Don Bradman on debut), only around 500 were present to see the Queensland XI take on Stoddart’s English team under a grey sky. A brass band brightened up proceedings, and so did the English captain, as the crowd built up rapidly.
Stoddart’s innings, delayed by a 10-minute rain shower, saw him glad to leave another round of speeches behind in the luncheon room, and soon he was into his stride, playing a range of glorious strokes against Coningham, the fast-medium bowler who had had such a disappointing time in England with the 1893 Australians, and Pierce, a skilful lob bowler, and three other striving but unsuccessful bowlers as Percy McDonnell, captain of the 1888 Australians in England, rang the changes. On his way to his century, Stoddart took particular liking to a series of Coningham deliveries, hitting them for 4, 4, 5, 4 and then 6 clean out of the ground. ‘Conny’ always had a short fuse, and this treatment was stored for future reference. In another match on another day, he would show ‘Stoddy’ what he thought of him and his fancy batting.
Albert Ward, although the ideal supporting player, batted with charm and style, and the stand of 249 was achieved in only 160 minutes, the Lancastrian finishing with 107, his captain 149 (having been beaten when 98 by a ball which clipped the wicket but failed to disturb the bails)—described as the best innings ever seen in Queensland. MacLaren chimed in with 74 not out and Philipson, at No. 10, took his chance against the wilting bowling by making 59.
Arthur Coningham, undaunted by the efforts of 51 overs (5 for 152), then opened the Queensland innings and scored 43, the highest return in their 121, and on the third day 4000 people turned up to see the last eight wickets go down for 70 to give the English XI an innings victory. Tom Richardson had taken 8 for 52 and 3 for 11, 10 of those 11 wickets bowled, the other lbw.
The team enjoyed its success in the backwaters of Queensland, with a Sunday cruise on SS Otter thrown in on the Sunday and success at the races after the match with a £27 dividend on Memory, winner or the one-mile December Handicap. It all helped reduce the tension before the first Test match as they embarked on the long train trip down to Sydney.
