WG Grace

by Low, Robert

  When a boy the Grace brothers were always pointed out to me as an example because of the way they looked after their mother. If it was a concert one of them would take her; if it was a meet of the hounds they would see that she was at it in her pony-carriage, and if the ice would bear on the old quarry they would get her in a chair and push it about in front of them as they were skating.

  Henry, the oldest, was apprenticed to his father until he moved to take over a mining practice at Kingswood Hill, Gloucestershire. He was also medical officer to the Bristol workhouse infirmary, and took a keen interest in health education, on which he gave several lectures. Of all the brothers, he was probably the most interested in the wider application of his medical expertise, followed by Alfred. E.M. and W.G. were general practitioners par excellence, but showed little interest in broader medical matters. Henry was also a fine cricketer, however. A contemporary record described him thus: ‘He is an energetic and excellent bat, bowls well, round-armed of middle speed, and fields generally at point, where he is both good and active.’ He played at Lord’s several times, his first appearance being for South Wales in a two-day match against MCC at Lord’s in July 1861, when he made top score of 63 not out in the first innings (South Wales won by seven wickets thanks to an undefeated 41 by nineteen-year-old E.M. Grace) and he maintained a close connection with the game throughout his life. He died of apoplexy in 1895 at the age of sixty-two.

  Alfred, seven years his junior, was the least gifted or interested in the game of the five but still capable enough to score several hundreds in club cricket. He rated a mention in Haygarth’s Cricket Scores and Biographies: ‘Mr Alfred Grace never appeared at Lord’s … he is, however, a pretty good cricketer … and his post in the field is usually long-stop.’ He qualified as a doctor in 1864 and took over a practice in Chipping Sodbury, which he developed very successfully: his records showed that he attended to one hundred and fifty confinements a year. He had a whole series of public appointments in addition to his private practice: medical officer to the local workhouse, public vaccinator, certifying factory surgeon for the district, deputy coroner for the Lower division of Gloucestershire and medical officer to the Coalpit Heath collieries. He also took over the post of surgeon to the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars from his father, eventually becoming Lieutenant-Colonel.

  He was a good boxer but his great passion was for country pursuits, particularly hunting: he followed the Duke of Beaufort’s hounds several times a week, and was famous throughout the district for his flair and daring. He was once claimed to have jumped a thirty-foot-wide stream on an Irish thoroughbred, and it was said of him that for thirty years he never had to buy a hunter of his own, but was given the most difficult horses to ride by his friends. He was an immensely popular figure, often referred to in local literature as ‘the hunting doctor’. The wonder is that he was able to find time for all his interests. He was the only smoker of the five brothers, yet he lived the longest: he died in 1916, aged seventy-six.

  If W.G. had never existed, old Dr Grace could still have boasted of siring one of the finest cricketers in England. At his adult height of 5ft 7 ¾ in, E.M. was the shortest of the brothers and the liveliest. His love of cricket manifested itself from an early age. Local lore had it that he was spotted staggering towards the West Gloucestershire ground clutching a full-sized bat before his first birthday, which sounds like another tall story dreamt up for seekers after Grace myths.

  Whatever the truth, he certainly practised when young with a bat that was too big for him – the cause of his unorthodox batting style. He did not play straight but hit most deliveries to leg with a cross bat, and continued to do so as an adult. At school he owned his own set of stumps, presumably a gift from a father delighted that his third son should be as passionate about cricket as himself. If events were going against him E.M. would simply hurl himself over the stumps and refuse to allow the game to proceed. While he never went that far in later life, he was always a fierce competitor who hated to lose.

  He developed into a great all-rounder – a brilliant batsman, a shrewd and effective bowler and, by general consent, the best fielder in England, always at point, his speed, athleticism and eye making a lethal combination. There were numerous stories of him appearing to pick the ball almost off the face of the bat. One such victim was Surrey’s Bobby Abel, who cut a ball from W.G. with a full swing of the bat and started running up the wicket. No one else moved, and W.G. roared ‘Where’s the ball?’ E.M. calmly fished it out of his pocket and Abel was given out caught, although nobody had seen E.M. catch him. Similarly, in a match at Clifton College, E.M. stopped a rocket of a shot, turned and pointed towards the boundary. Cover-point ran off in that direction while the batsman started off up the wicket. At that, E.M. strolled up to the stumps, ball in hand, knocked off a bail and ran him out.

  His MCC biography described him as ‘one of the most successful batsmen that ever appeared, and the rapidity with which he can score is something marvellous, being a tremedous hitter … Is overflowing with cricket at every pore, full of lusty life, cheerily gay, with energy inexhaustible.’

  The story of his first appearance in the celebrated Canterbury week in 1862 gives a flavour of the man. Still only twenty, he was acquiring a considerable reputation and the Kent secretary, his side being a man short, asked Dr and Mrs Grace, who were in town for the cricket, if E.M. would make up the eleven. Dr Grace consented on condition the young man was asked to play in two matches. Summoned to Canterbury by telegraph, E.M. arrived on the second day of the first game but made a duck. In the second innings, he made up for it with 56 not out.

  When he was invited to play for MCC against Gentlemen of Kent in the next match a row broke out, some of the Kent players objecting to the fact that E.M. was not an MCC member, to Dr Grace’s ire. The Kent secretary, who was away from the ground when the complaint was aired, returned and confirmed the arrangement. So E.M. guested for MCC and made the Kentish men pay for their punctiliousness. Opening the innings, he carried his bat for a superb 192 not out and demolished Kent with the ball in their second innings, taking all ten wickets. Earl Sefton, President of MCC, presented him with a bat and the Hon. Spencer Ponsonby sent him a ball mounted on an inscribed stand commemorating his feat. There is no record of what the Gentlemen of Kent thought of it all, but the episode typified E.M’s fiery nature: if any man tried to do him down, he responded explosively. It is not hard to imagine what an influence such a larger-than-life character must have had on the young W.G., seven years his junior.

  E.M. toured Australia with George Parr’s team in 1863/64 although he did not do himself justice there, mainly because of an injured hand. He played once for England, in the historic first Test match in England, against Australia at The Oval in 1880. He was by then thirty-nine years old and would undoubtedly have played far more often for his country had Test cricket existed while he was in his prime.

  He qualified as a doctor in 1861 – one of the examiners wrote, ‘Dr Grace is requested not to write with a stump’ – and first practised at Marshfield before moving two years later to the village of Thornbury, twelve miles from Downend, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. Like his brothers, he was deeply involved in the life of the community: he too was surgeon to the local workhouse, parish medical officer and public vaccinator. He was also Registrar of Births and Deaths, and Coroner for East Gloucestershire from 1875, and known to the cricketing press and public as ‘The Coroner’.

  He was quick to take offence at a slight, real or imagined. Playing for Gloucestershire against Somerset in the 1890s, he batted with a badly damaged thumb which was further injured by deliveries from the Somerset bowler Sammy Woods. As play was held up while he was being treated, a spectator shouted, ‘Why don’t you hold an inquest on him?’ E.M. muttered, ‘I can’t stand this’ and headed off in the heckler’s direction to exact retribution. Seeing him approaching, the man ran off, with E.M. pursuing him all the way to the gate. Then he returned to the wic
ket and completed an innings of 70.

  On another occasion, he was batting with W.G. and both were scoring very slowly, unusually for them as both liked to get on with it whenever possible. The crowd began to barrack them, and their criticism intensified as the players returned to the pavilion at an interval. Furious, E.M. reached into the crowd and grabbed one of his barrackers. A spirited tussle ensued, and as the man’s friends dragged him away, one of them told E.M. in a deep Gloucestershire accent, ‘Look yer, Crowner, thee canst sit on carpse with twelve men to help tha, but thee cassent sit on a live man.’

  The story was told of E.M. playing in an away match for Gloucestershire and receiving a telegram requesting him to return at once to Bristol to hold an inquest. As the county had only eleven players, W.G. advised him to reply, ‘Impossible to come today – please put corpse on ice.’

  He bowled both round-arm seamers and tricky under-arm lobs and his impatience extended to batsmen who treated the latter with too much reverence. To one such, in a club match, who was simply blocking and not scoring, he eventually shouted, ‘I’m not bowling for you to play pat-ball. Hit ’em, man!’ The man did so and ran up an impressive score after which E.M., bearing no grudge, congratulated him with the words, ‘If you hadn’t taken my advice, you would have been in still, poking about.’

  Like all the Graces, he was a keen huntsman. A boy playing a scratch game of cricket with some friends at Dursley remembered E.M. arriving on the scene with the Berkeley Hunt. Forgetting the chase, he leapt off his horse and joined in the game, promising a shilling to anyone who could bowl or catch him. Nobody did, but they still got their money.

  E.M. was heavily involved in non-medical matters too, as chairman of the parish council and school board, the last Mayor of Thornbury (the post was abolished under local government reorganisation), chairman of the local Conservative Party and the Tariff Reform League. As Gloucestershire secretary, he had a near-photographic memory for members’ names and faces, which came in handy as he wandered round the club’s many grounds on match days collecting subscriptions. He was married four times, and fathered eighteen children, thirteen by his first wife and five by his second. He died in 1911, aged sixty-nine, and a huge crowd followed the coffin the twelve miles from Thornbury to the family plot at Downend where he was buried.

  Finally, there was Fred. He was the archetypal youngest child, loved by everybody in the family and beyond. However, being the youngest was something of a handicap because by the time he was getting keen and eager to practise on the lawn his two older brothers had married and moved out to different villages, while E.M. was often away playing cricket. For much of the time Fred had to make do with the bootboy’s bowling and his mother’s coaching. An attempt to rope in a nursemaid called Tibbie Jones ended after the poor girl was forced to bowl and field for a day, after which she retired hurt for good. Still, Fred prospered, once he had been persuaded not to bat left-handed, as he wished. Presumably the chief opponent of this was Mrs Grace, and while her prejudice would be disapproved of these days Fred’s subsequent record justified her insistence. ‘He showed promise of excellence at quite as early an age as I did,’ wrote W.G. ‘He was strong for his age and played with a determination worthy of a much older boy.’ (This trait is common among children with much older siblings whom they are desperate to emulate.) He played in his first local match when he was only nine and took thirteen wickets, ten of them clean bowled. By his mid-teens he was known throughout the county and like his brothers grew to be a fine all-rounder, a hard-hitting batsman, a fast round-arm bowler and a brilliant fielder; he too played for England, and studied medicine. But at the age of twenty-nine, he died from pneumonia brought on by a chill, a terrible blow to the family and to the cricket world for he was a handsome, dashing and popular figure.

  As Gilbert grew older, his love of the countryside developed and was never to desert him. Fred, being only two-and-a-half years younger, shared his enthusiasms; they were constantly together. They learned how to use a gun, at first shooting at small birds and going on to hares, but the hunt for the latter on one occasion led them into disgrace. To distract the local harriers (the hare hunt), Gilbert, Fred and Uncle Pocock laid a circular trail of aniseed around the district to put off the hounds and leave the field for themselves. Unfortunately for them, when the dogs came round for the third time, suspicion as to the reason started to grow. The two Grace boys legged it, leaving Uncle Pocock to face the music.

  Life in Downend and the area between the village and Bristol was not to be a rural idyll for much longer. The Industrial Revolution which had transformed the great cities of the North and Midlands had not bypassed Bristol entirely. In the first half of the nineteenth century its population more than doubled, from 72,000 in 1801 to 166,000 in 1851. The city’s most explosive growth was reserved for the second half, the population more than doubling again to reach 356,000 in 1901. In the latter period, its older industries were redeveloped and a host of new ones arose beside them. The symbol of the new Bristol was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, originally a Londoner who came to Bristol in poor health and in search of cleaner air, and swiftly recovered to mastermind the laying down of the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London, which started operations in 1841. In 1844 the line between Bristol and Birmingham was inaugurated, opening up access to the Midlands and the North for the south-western city, and the same year a line to South Wales was approved. (Incidentally, these new lines were to be a major factor in the spread of professional cricket, bearing the players from one end of the country to another in hitherto unimaginable speed and comfort.) The railways’ gargantuan appetite for iron and coal was partly fed by the mines of the Forest of Dean, where iron production rose from 9,800 tons in 1828 to 170,611 in 1871. From the forest’s coal mines came 100,000 tons in 1800; by 1856, that had risen to 460,000 tons and by the end of the century to more than a million. In 1851, 3,600 people were employed in engineering in the whole of Gloucestershire. Fifty years later there were 7,850 in Bristol alone. Entire new industries were born: non-ferrous metal-bashing, boot- and shoe-making, leather-working and tanning supplied by hides from the rich agricultural land around the city. Figures for the port of Bristol confirm the city’s dynamic growth: between 1850 and 1900 the annual registered net tonnage of ships using it rose from 129,254 tons to 847,632. More significantly, the cargo they unloaded had increased from about 175,000 tons in 1850 to more than 500,000 by the 1870s and topped 1.3 million in 1900.

  Most of the city’s industrial and population growth was eastwards, eventually devouring villages like Mangotsfield. The population of Bristol’s eastern area rose from 23,000 in 1801 to 61,000 in 1851. From then until 1901, virtually the exact period that W.G. lived in Downend as a child and a man, the population soared to 177,000. The area accounted for nearly 80 per cent of the city’s nineteenth-century population increase. W.G. grew up, not in a static, unchanging pastoral world, but on the edge of a dynamic, fast-growing industrial landscape, with all the benefits and evils which that world brought with it. Most importantly, as far as he was concerned, there developed a new urban working-class who increasingly looked for sports and pastimes to play or to watch which would give them a break from their grimy, unhealthy and gruelling workplaces. In the latter half of the nineteenth century one game above all caught their imagination – cricket.

  3 · BOY WONDER

  1854–1869

  WHAT was the state of cricket in England when Gilbert Grace was a boy in Downend? In the 1850s it was at a crossroads, in between its birth in the previous century as a village game and its development as a national sport in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the county championship at its apex. Several county clubs had been set up (the first was Sussex in 1841) and an informal championship began in 1864. This left large areas of the country where the only cricket was played between village teams such as Dr Grace had set up in Gloucestershire, but there was a growing number of good professionals whom the public were keen to see.
In the absence of a proper county championship, how were they to do so? The answer came in the form of touring troupes of the top professionals, of which the first and most notable was the All England Eleven set up by William Clarke in 1846.

  It is fitting that W.G.’s first experience of cricket outside the charmed world of The Chestnuts was in 1854, when he was six years old. He was taken to Bristol to see a match between Clarke’s All England team and twenty-two men of West Gloucestershire. The game was organised by his father, who also captained the local team. So the first match seen by the boy who was to be the century’s greatest cricketer involved the man who was the century’s most innovative cricketer until that point.

  William Clarke was as significant a figure in his day as Kerry Packer was in ours and with much the same aim: to capitalise on the growing public interest in the game and establish regular employment and a decent market rate for professional cricketers, whose job prospects had hitherto been precarious. The means Clarke devised to do this was to recruit the best cricketers in the country for All England and tour the country playing any local teams who cared to arrange a venue.

  A Nottingham man, Clarke was first a bricklayer and then an innkeeper. He first played cricket for the Notts Eleven at the age of eighteen and became well known in the North and Midlands as a slow bowler who delivered leg-breaks from waist height. He had a shrewd eye for business, for a good horse and a good deal: he married the widow of the proprietor of the Trent Bridge Inn and laid the foundations of the Trent Bridge ground by buying and developing the adjoining land. He was a late developer on the national cricket scene: his first appearance at Lord’s, for the North v the South, was in 1836 when he was thirty-seven. Ten years later, he was invited by the Marylebone Cricket Club to come to London as a practice bowler at Lord’s. That year he made a belated debut for the Players v Gentlemen (in which he was to play several more times) and in the 1847 fixture he shared all twenty wickets with John Lillywhite, both matches being played at Lords.