WG Grace

by Low, Robert

  Two days later he was back at Lord’s to make 170 not out for England versus a combined Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire side, an innings which included slashing cuts and a 6 to the nursery wall after he had completed his century. The innings took him only 225 minutes and was made out of 283. Although not entirely faultless – he gave sharp chances to short-leg and cover-point – it was nevertheless described thus by the Sportsman: ‘as superfine and irreproachable a display of batting as he has ever shown in his career … Those who have witnessed this performance are to be congratulated on their fortune in seeing such an innings … The unnerving precision of his defence and hitting proved he retains in every way the marvellous skill shown of late years.’

  The Sporting Life provided a rather sniffier description of the admiration Grace commanded from ordinary cricket-lovers, which perhaps unwittingly showed the divide between those who ran the game and those who paid to watch it:

  With that extraordinary love of mobbing celebrities that seems indigenous to the British public, especially that portion of it which frequents cricket grounds, Mr Grace had to pass to his dressing room through a living lane of excited hand-clapping people, who had, directly the last wicket fell, rushed to the pavilion enclosure like a swarm of bees to applaud and stare at the Gloucestershire gentleman. That the applause was well merited we grant; but was the manner of giving it pleasant to the recipient or delicate on the part of the donors? However, Mr Grace must now be well used to such scenes.

  He played another memorable innings when he led Gloucestershire against Yorkshire at Sheffield – his first appearance on the ground – in a benefit for the all-rounder Roger Iddison. It was a huge challenge for Gloucestershire, only recently formed and composed entirely of amateurs, to take on the mighty Yorkshire on their home territory but with W.G. at the helm anything was possible. One columnist wryly described the team as ‘the three Graces and their eight assistants’. Eight thousand people crammed in to Bramall Lane to see him and his opening partner, T.G. Matthews, open the batting on a dull morning. An additional hazard was smoke from adjoining factories spreading over the ground to such an extent that the spectators could sometimes barely see the players. (The smoke was so sooty that when the southern team fielded their white flannels rapidly became filthy; the Yorkshiremen were canny enough to wear darker strip.)

  The Gloucestershire openers put on 208 on the first day without being parted. W.G. hit two balls out of the ground into Harwood Street on his way to 150 and one result was a Yorkshire saying about him that rapidly became legend: ‘He dab ’em but seldom, and when he do dab ’em he dab ’em for foor.’ He was by no means finished; he and E.M. took all Yorkshire’s wickets in their first innings, and he and G.F. eight in the second.

  W.G. also travelled to Scotland for the first time. There was keen interest in cricket north of the border and even keener interest in seeing the English champion. His first biographer, W. Methven Brownlee, was Scottish. He wrote: ‘A visit from the “All England Eleven” had been almost a yearly thing for several years, but we had never seen Grace, and how we had talked and dreamed about him.’ The Scots finally got their opportunity in 1872 when he took a United South team to Glasgow to play a local XXII. The largest crowd ever to watch a cricket match in Scotland turned out to see the great man and had a big let-down when the United South were dismissed for 49, local hero Andrew McAllister taking 7–17, including W.G. In his customary fashion he made up for his failure by demolishing the bowling in the second innings with 114, including six sixes. He struck one out of the ground into a passing cab, and hit a young woman spectator on the arm with another thunderbolt. She moved to another part of the ground only to be targeted again by Grace, this time being hit in the chest by another boundary. When asked how he had got on in the second innings, McAllister replied ruefully: ‘The ground wasn’t big enough today’, putting into words what many of Grace’s victims must have felt before and since.

  5 · MISSIONARY TO AMERICA

  1872–1873

  IN August 1872 W.G. set off on his biggest missionary journey yet. He was invited by the MCC to take part in a tour to Canada, where cricket was struggling to find its feet, and the United States. The tour was the outcome of a visit to England the previous year by two representatives of Canadian cricket, J.C. Patteson, and Captain N. Wallace of the 60th Rifles (who later went on to play for Grace’s county, Gloucestershire). They visited Lord’s and explained to the MCC secretary, Robert Fitzgerald, just how parlous was cricket’s state in their native land. It had not caught on in the same way as it had in Australia, possibly because of the strong French influence in Quebec and the vagaries of the weather. The Canadians were prepared to fund a tour by some of England’s finest with the aim of reviving interest among the general public and giving the players a shot in the arm. Their only stipulation was that one Englishman had to be in the party – W.G. Grace, whose fame had crossed the Atlantic and who was already the sport’s outstanding figure.

  There had been two previous tours of North America, the first in 1859 led by George Parr and containing many fine cricketers including John Wisden, the second in 1868 captained by Ned Willsher.

  Fitzgerald listened with sympathy and enthusiastically set about assembling a team. As it was an MCC tour, all the players had to be amateurs and Fitzgerald had considerable difficulty in finding enough men who could spare the time to undertake a leisurely tour of North America. Grace consented to travel but only three days before the party was due to depart, the two Walker brothers selected fell ill and were forced to withdraw. Panic ensued at Lord’s but after firing off a frantic series of telegrams and letters, Fitzgerald came up with Alfred Lubbock’s brother Edgar and F.P.U. Pickering (Eton and Sussex). Fitzgerald – usually known as ‘Fitz’ – was a colourful pipe-smoking figure with a beard even longer than W.G.’s. He himself was tour manager and captain while W.G. was undoubtedly the leading player in the party. The other members were: the Hon George Harris (later Lord Harris, the formidable Kent captain and MCC overlord), A.N. ‘Monkey’ Hornby, the future Lancashire captain who was to share many a long partnership with W.G., Edgar and Alfred Lubbock, W.M. Rose, W.H. Hadow, C.J. Ottaway, C.K. Francis, who had just come down from Oxford, A. Appleby, a left-arm fast bowler from Lancashire, and Pickering. The batting looked strong but the bowling was weak and a lot of work would fall on Appleby’s shoulders. As veterans of the Gentlemen against the Players, the cricketers all knew each other well. The only professional they took was Farrands of the Lord’s ground staff – and then only to act as their umpire. The party comprised only twelve men, leaving little latitude in case of injury or illness. But if they stayed fit they were all guaranteed plenty of cricket, unlike the professional tourists of today who may go a month without playing.

  W.G. was obliged to leave the Canterbury cricket week early to travel to Liverpool from where the party sailed on 8 August aboard the SS Sarmantian after a farewell lunch at the Adelphi Hotel arranged by a group of local cricketers. The steamship was the flagship of the Allen Line and at more than 4,000 tons was considered to be the ultimate in sophistication. Among the cricketers’ fellow passengers were two hundred children, waifs and strays plucked from the streets of London by the Brompton Home, which was now sending them off to a new life in America. Once past Ireland and out into the Atlantic, the ship ran into rough seas and many of the tour party were badly seasick, particularly Harris and W.G., who while usually the picture of robust health was never much of a sailor. ‘She takes a little playing this morning, George,’ joked Alfred Lubbock to poor Harris, while Fitzgerald noted wryly of Grace: ‘Gilbert the Great was bowled out very early and would have returned in an open boat from mid-Atlantic if such craft were in the habit of plying there.’

  They encountered calmer waters after a couple of days so W.G. and company began to enjoy the voyage, especially the sight of whales and icebergs off Newfoundland, though Harris never found his sea legs and was confined to his cabin for the entire crossing.

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nbsp; They arrived in Quebec after nightfall on 17 August after an exceptionally fast crossing, the cricketers wasting no time in going ashore to sample the night life. They returned to spend the night on the boat. Fitzgerald dreamed ‘that W.G. was not out, 1,000, he couldn’t tell where but he awoke refreshed’. When they went ashore they found that no accommodation had been arranged for them and all the best hotels were fully booked. They were hurriedly found rooms in private houses.

  Being great fishing enthusiasts, Fitzgerald and Grace could hardly wait to get to grips with the legendary Canadian trout streams. When the party undertoook an expedition to see the Falls of Montmorenci, the pair tried their hand in a nearby pool but the dozen or so fish they caught were of miserable size. ‘The worms looked much more likely to swallow the fish than the fish to swallow the worms,’ commented Fitzgerald. So after dinner with the Governor-General, Lord Dufferin, Fitzgerald and Grace and a couple of others who wanted to try the shooting returned upcountry in search of better sport. In a hair-raising fashion, they were taken through the night over rough roads in a coach and pair handled by a French-Canadian driver who spoke little English until they reached a stream above the Montmorenci Falls.

  After breakfast in a log cabin belonging to an Irishman who was the greatest fishing expert in the area, W.G. and Fitzgerald settled down to a good morning’s sport, pulling out 130 small trout until they got bored with the ease of it all. It was 5 p.m. before they and the others, who had gone shooting with a lot less luck, returned to Quebec. ‘Before sundown we had a little cricket practice on the ramparts,’ noted W.G. The only result was that Hadow put a finger out trying to catch a scorching drive by W.G., reducing the party to eleven fit men before the first match.

  The affable chaos which seemed to surround most of their arrangements continued. Having carefully packed the best of the catch in ice for the journey to Montreal, they managed to leave it at the station in the rush to catch the night train. However a private sleeping car had been laid on for them by Captain Cumberland, managing director of the North Pacific Railroad. It contained a well-stocked bar and an affable barman, who, as Grace later commented, ‘gave us … an introduction to the peculiar beverages which the Americans call “cock-tails”, and of which they concoct an endless variety.’

  Their first match was a three-day affair against a Montreal XXII starting on 22 August in stifling late-summer heat – 92° F in the shade. Inspecting it the day before the game, the Englishmen thought the ground in Catherine Street, in the shadow of a mountain and with a melon field on one side, primitive in the extreme and in very poor condition. It was three-cornered and looked like a cross between a rubbish dump and a quarry. They complained vociferously but conscious of their missionary status naturally had to play. In practice Francis was laid out by a ball which struck his head, forcing Fitzgerald, now down to ten fit men, to call a halt before anyone else was hurt. A thunderstorm from dawn to midday threatened the game but it started at 1 p.m. The visitors need not have worried: the opposition was as poor as the pitch. A disappointingly small crowd turned out to see Fitzgerald win the toss as he was to do in every one of the nine matches on the Canadian leg (eight of them so-called ‘first-class’). He opted to bat, W.G. opening with Ottaway and getting the tour off to a good start with a century partnership. A local journalist described him:

  W. Grace is a large-framed loose-jointed man, and you would say that his gait was a trifle peculiar, but when he goes into the field you see that he is quick-sighted, sure-handed, and light-footed as the rest. He always goes in first, and to see him tap the ball gently to the off for one, draw it to the on for two, pound it to the limits for four, drive it heaven knows where for six, looks as easy as rolling off a log.

  He had made 81 in fine fashion with several mighty blows when he cut the ball hard into the stomach of a stout fielder named Benjamin at point, who clutched the ball as he doubled up in agony and was carried shoulder-high around the pitch by his jubilant team-mates for his historic act. The watching journalist was not so impressed: ‘The nonchalance of the elegant Benjamin was a thin assumption,’ he wrote. MCC were 130–3 at the close of the first day. Everywhere they went, the play was followed by a magnificent banquet in town. There were several speeches and to great glee W.G., who hated public speaking, was prevailed upon to reply to the toast to ‘the Champion Batsman of cricketdom’. Grace got to his feet and spoke: ‘Gentlemen, I beg to thank you for the honour you have done me. I never saw better bowling than I have seen today, and I hope to see as good wherever I go.’ Fitzgerald commented: ‘The speech took longer to deliver than you might imagine from its brevity, but it was greeted with applause from all who were in the proper position to hear it.’ A running joke throughout the tour was that W.G. was invited to deliver a speech at various dinners around Canada and made the same one, substituting only ‘batting’, ‘fielding’, or on one daring occasion ‘ladies’ for ‘bowling’. Indeed, the legend of his Canadian oratory was to follow him around for the rest of his life, and there was no doubt that he never enjoyed getting to his feet to make a speech. But he got better at it as he grew older, though he was never in any danger of subjecting his audience to a lengthy address.

  Next day England totalled 255 and shot out the opposition, all twenty-two of them, for only 48 and 67 to win by an innings and 140 runs. Another local paper reported: ‘If they hit a half volley, they were caught in the long field; if they left their ground they were stumped; if they stayed at home they were bowled or caught at point by Mr Grace.’ It was as easy as catching trout for the seasoned Englishmen – and there were only ten of them. The day was rounded off by another dinner, at the St James’s Club, pronounced by Fitzgerald to be quite as good as anything a London club could have laid on, down to the smallest detail. Each Englishman, for instance, found on the table a silk menu with his own name on one side and the names of his hosts on the other. The Canadians’ capacity for hospitality never ceased to amaze the party throughout the tour.

  Then it was on to Ottawa by train and river steamer, the cricketers being impressed as they approached the city by the tang of sawdust in the air and the sight of thousands of logs being floated down the river Ottawa to the sawmills. On 27 August they embarked on their second match, against an Ottawa XXII, on a ground overlooked by the Governor-General’s mansion, Rideau Hall. In contrast to Montreal, a huge crowd was present, the wicket had been well prepared and the outfield was well stocked with long grass, as well as grasshoppers and hundreds of large butterflies. It was ‘a gay and animated sight’, thought Fitzgerald. Grace was feeling below par because of a stomach upset but opened nevertheless and was soon in full flow. The spectators, clearly not well versed in the finer points of the game, kept thinking he was out caught when it was a bump ball. He was eventually out for 73, to a daisy-cutter from an underarm bowler named Boothroyd. The pattern of the game was very similar to that of Montreal: England made 201 and had little trouble in dismissing the locals for 43 and 49 to win by an innings and 110 runs.

  It was becoming clear to the tourists that Canadian cricket had some decent enough bowlers and enthusiastic fielders but the batsmen had little clue and were never remotely a match for the English bowlers. They were excellent hosts, however, as they showed again with dinner in Ottawa’s Parliament Square, featuring among other delicacies the hind leg of a bear, which the Englishmen found tough and unpalatable. In his speech, the chairman made a clumsy reference to The Three Graces which was so far above W.G.’s head that he thought he was referring to his sisters and was heard to comment that he was sorry they could not be there to reply for themselves.

  On 30 August the party left Ottawa by train at 7 a.m. to travel up the St Lawrence towards Toronto. Again, Patteson’s arrangements went awry. He had apparently fixed up a match in a town called Belleville but when the party reached the railhead at Prescott they could find no one who knew where Belleville was. It later emerged that hundreds of people had converged on Belleville to see ‘The Unapproachable�
�, as Fitzgerald dubbed W.G. and were sadly disappointed when neither he nor anyone else showed up. Instead, the Englishmen ended up at a country picnic at a place called Brookville where by the side of Lake Ontario they drank champagne, danced with the local ladies and gave an impromptu demonstration of cricket with a broom handle for a bat and a turnip for a ball.

  They moved on to Toronto, the centre of cricket in Canada, where they spent a week. They drew large and appreciative crowds to the cricket ground; a temporary stand had been put up capable of seating two thousand people, and there were tents for the scorers and umpires. The Englishmen in their turn were appreciative of the better facilities, particularly the soap and towels they found in their changing room for the first time on the tour. On Monday 2 September they embarked on a match against a local XXII on a well-watered pitch, whose greenness stood out against the parched, brown outfield.

  Grace’s stomach upset in Ottawa had grown into something rather more serious in transmission across the Atlantic. The Times reported that he had cholera, to the alarm of his family in Gloucestershire. Unaware of this, W.G. opened the batting as usual with Ottaway, on a steaming hot day, and proceeded with caution until the fifth over when he opened his shoulders and struck a mighty six out of the ground. After that he was unstoppable. As in Ottawa, the crowd thought he was out caught but it was a bump ball and he was also dropped at point off a genuine chance but while wickets fell regularly at the other end he despatched the bowling all over the place. He proceeded to compile the first century of the tour, before John Brunel, the fielder who had dropped him earlier, held on to another chance to dismiss the great man for 142. It was ‘a great performance and gave great pleasure to the spectators’, noted Fitzgerald, who batted at number 12 and made 13 in three balls with two sixes and a single to take MCC’s total to 319.