by Low, Robert
By then the match was into its second day but Toronto’s batsmen were little better than their compatriots elsewhere. Before the day was out the XXII were dismissed for 97 and the match was over by 1 p.m. on Wednesday, with Toronto following on and making 104 to give MCC victory by an innings and 118.
During the game Fitzgerald had a taste of the brisk American way of doing business. He was approached by a man who wanted England to add a fixture in Chicago to their schedule. There was one drawback: no ground existed. ‘By the time you get there I have no manner of doubt they will have made one,’ he assured Fitzgerald. Another visitor was so taken with W.G. that he offered him two young bears to take back to England. ‘I could not quite see to what use I could apply the creatures when I got them home,’ commented Grace, ‘so I declined the seductive offer.’
Later in the week, the Lieutenant-Governor and his wife, who watched every day of the cricket, gave a ball for the Englishmen, who were, not for the first time in Canada, much taken by the many attractive young ladies present. W.G. distinguished himself on the dance floor. According to a local paper, ‘Mr Grace, who must now be known by sight to more people in England than Mr Gladstone himself, was especially noticeable for the skill and agility of his movements.’ The ladies were much in evidence next day on an excursion to Lake Simcoe and the town of Couchicing on the North Pacific railroad, a massive and ambitious project still under construction destined to unite Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
At Port Banic, the party disembarked and took a short train journey to Allandale, where the locals had gone to enormous trouble to lay on a splendid open-air feast for their distinguished visitors. The station was decorated with a huge banner which left the stranger with no doubt as to the allegiance of the inhabitants of this far corner of the Empire: ‘Welcome to the England Cricketers. God Save the Queen!’ Mischievous reference was made at the banquet to the Englishmen’s intentions towards the local ladies.
But there was a more serious side to such outings. The Canadian hosts saw the tour as important not only for encouraging cricket but for stimulating interest in emigration from Britain and assiduously exploited the chance to bang the drum about their country’s glories. The tourists were impressed by the spirit of enterprise they found all around them and the opportunities available to anyone willing to work hard to create a new life for themselves. ‘Canada is not a country for the loafer,’ observed Fitzgerald. ‘But a loaf is at hand for as many as will ask, so that they are willing to put their strong shoulders to the common wheel.’
The cricketers were also struck by the democratic atmosphere. Coming from class-ridden Britain, and representing furthermore one of the most snobbish and patrician of its institutions, they were amazed at Canadians’ relaxed and informal manner. Fitzgerald admitted: ‘It was at first almost strange to us, Englishmen with our insular prejudices of caste or superior education, to be greeted, as we were, in the familiar, but not vulgar, manner of our brothers in Canada. It took us a week or two thoroughly to understand the relation in which man stands to man in the New World …. The hard crust of old English prejudice does not crumble without a struggle in the operation. But it did crumble ere we left the Dominion.’
The week in Toronto ended with a light-hearted twelve-a-side match between two mixed English-Canadian sides, one captained by Fitzgerald, the other by W.G., who won the toss on another hot day with hundreds of butterflies adorning the outfield. W.G. went in to bat with George Harris but to the crowd’s disappointment he danced down the wicket to Rose’s second ball and was stumped by Hornby for a duck. He was obviously a great hit with the local ladies, for he delayed his second innings at the specific request of a group of them with whom he was chatting. His compatriots in Fitzgerald’s team were not so considerate. Indeed, they played an elaborate practical joke on the great man.
Batting at six, he had struck a whirlwind 27 in seven blows when a ball from Alfred Lubbock hit him on the pad. The whole field appealed and W.G. was given out, much to his disgust. Although like everyone else he claimed not to be taking the game too seriously, he left the field most reluctantly, muttering that the umpire had been bribed, much to the merriment of his friends. He had the last laugh, taking seven wickets in Fitzgerald’s team’s second innings as his side won by 178 runs. That evening the party went to the Lyceum Theatre and were greatly moved on entering when the band played ‘Rule Britannia’ and the rest of the audience rose to applaud them. Even the actors joined in.
So smitten were Appleby, Ottaway and Francis with the charms of the young ladies of Toronto that they asked permission to stay on and attend church with them on Sunday morning while the rest of the party went on to London, Ontario. Predictably, the trio failed to get to London for the start of the next match, on Monday 9 September, and those who were at the ground rather wished they were elsewhere too. They had already found the town a dismal place and their hotel primitive, the one consolation being that the streets were full of delectable young women.
The ground was small and badly tended. Fitzgerald remarked that they had walked across the wicket without realising it was there. The place had clearly been occupied at some stage by the military for there were rifle pits everywhere and they discovered that a line of wooden buildings on one side had formerly been a barracks, in such poor repair that the captain thought it must recently have been under siege. Inside, where lunch was served, it was even worse: ‘Rats and vermin had long since left, as much too comfortless,’ wrote Fitzgerald. But the local people made up for these shortcomings by turning out in their thousands to watch.
Without his usual opening partner, Grace opened with ‘Monkey’ Hornby and made 31, top score in MCC’s 89 (the missing three players had finally arrived in the afternoon). That night he felt out of sorts and did not attend a dance laid on for the tourists but he was well enough next day to make 76 out of 161 all out. The London team fell to 55 and 65 and lost by 130 runs, displaying, thought Fitzgerald, ‘the same unwillingness to open the shoulder, the same preconceived dread of the straight long hop’ as the other Canadian teams the MCC had met.
Fitzgerald and Grace had one more sporting challenge: a game of croquet against the local lady champions (the women of London being sporty in every sense). The two bearded grandees eventually emerged victorious in a tight game. If the Englishmen were not being stretched on the field of play, they were getting plenty of exercise on the dance floor. The social whirl continued that night with another ball, hosted by the local ladies, young Canadian men being too busy, in Fitzgerald’s judgment, for matters of the heart.
On by overnight train to Hamilton for their last game in Canada, the English players were impressed by the comfort of the sleeping cars but less so by the ban on smoking, which was strictly enforced by the conductors. It appears that the anti-smoking lobby was well to the fore in North America even in those days.
On another small ground, but in better condition than the previous venue, the match ended in scenes of low farce. MCC made 181 (Grace 17) and dismissed the Hamilton XXII for 86. They were anxious to finish the game in two days and thus have plenty of time next day to enjoy the splendours of nearby Niagara Falls. But the nights were closing in and by 6 p.m. it was almost dark but the Canadians in the second innings were only 43–10 (!). As the moon rose, MCC worked their way steadily through the batting and by 6.25 p.m. the score was 60–18, with the fielders crouching on the ground to try to follow the progress of the ball. The last pair hung on grimly but were finally undone by W.G. with an underarm delivery – ‘skittles rather than cricket’, thought Fitzgerald.
After a day at the Falls, the tourists held a ball of their own at the Clifton House Hotel, Niagara, to thank the Canadians for the welcome they had enjoyed. It was not easy to assemble a lot of people from such a huge country at short notice and the numbers were rather depleted. So invitations were despatched to the hotels on the American side of the Falls and a quorum was eventually assembled.
Had the mission to spr
ead the cricket message been successful? A reader of the Toronto Mail who signed himself ‘Vigilans’ wrote to the newspaper from Ottawa to congratulate the visitors on the impact they had made. ‘There is scarcely a vacant lot in the vicinity of our cities that has not of late been utilized by our schoolboys for cricketing purposes, and if the game grows more into favour with our youth a great end has been obtained … The ethics of muscular Christianity seem to have pervaded the community …’ He was particularly impressed by cricket’s moral side. ‘There is an esprit de corps pervading every eleven of real cricketers which crowds out all selfish tendencies, while the quiet submission of individual opinion to the absolute rule of the umpire or captain often calls for the greatest self-control.’ This might have raised a wry smile from W.G.’s closest acquaintances.
Fitzgerald certainly thought the tour had achieved its aim. He too wrote to the Mail to thank the Canadian people for their extraordinary hospitality. ‘We leave the Dominion as if we were leaving a second home,’ he wrote. ‘I am confident that our expedition will establish a more enduring result than that of simply promoting our national game.’ But, he added: ‘Cricket was the primary object of our visit, and if we shall have helped to encourage a love for the game and to promote a generous cause of emulation amongst your young athletes, our efforts in the field will not have been in vain.’
Alas, as the history of cricket in Canada has shown, they were.
On 17 September they arrived in New York by steamer down the Hudson from Albany and enjoyed ‘a dinner fit for the gods’, feasting on oysters of a size they had never seen before. After the wide open spaces of Canada they were astonished by the hustle and bustle of New York. The ground on which they were to play a city XXII was in Hoboken, an area then being developed, and it was surrounded by unfinished streets and half-built houses. Fitzgerald lost the toss for the first time in North America and the Americans batted, but they were no better than the Canadians had been. Harry Wright, a baseball star from Boston, was heartily cheered as he aimed a few lusty blows but the New Yorkers were all out for 66 soon after lunch. Grace and Ottaway opened for MCC and proceeded to record a century partnership by stumps, the only blemish being a skyer by W.G. which fell to earth. He finished on 67 not out and a local journalist described him: ‘A monarch in his might – of splendid physique, he at once won attention by the play of limb and easy exercise of muscle.’ Of his team-mates, he was perhaps less impressed: ‘John Bull’s sons are generally fond of good cheer. They have a strange proclivity for taking their ease at an inn,’ which shows, if nothing else, that cricketers on tour have not changed much over the last century and a quarter.
Two thousand spectators watched next day but saw little more of the Leviathan, who added only a single to his total. MCC were all out for 249 and shot the New Yorkers out for 44 in an embarrassing hour and twenty minutes. W.G. shared the bowling with Appleby, their respective figures being 11–26 and 9–18 (Appleby took 20 wickets in the match). At least the fielding was ‘simply magnificent’, thought Grace, ‘as the fielding of all baseball players is.’ How strange, then, that it took the English cricket establishment another 130 years or so before they thought of applying baseball throwing techniques to fielders, as happened with the England team in the mid-1990s.
The party decamped, perhaps reluctantly, to Philadelphia. Of New York, Fitzgerald observed: ‘No town on earth presents better facilities either for acquiring money or spending it.’ But the reception the tourists received in Philadelphia, historically the home of cricket in the United States, more than made up for any disappointment they might have felt at leaving New York so quickly. They were taken to the theatre, where the band struck up ‘God Save The Queen’ as they arrived to loud cheers from the rest of the audience. Posters abounded giving details of the three-day match to be played from 21–3 September against a Philadelphia XXII, who turned out to be the best side they faced in North America.
On the first day, a Saturday, the road to the German Town Cricket Club ground was packed with people on their way to the game. It ‘might have been the road to the Epsom Downs on the morning of the Derby’, wrote Fitzgerald. ‘By 11.30 a.m. every bough had a boy on it, every hayrick a tenant.’ A band played on the roof of the pavilion and lots of pretty ladies were to be seen. An elaborate programme had been printed, with Shakespearian quotations to illustrate every facet of the game. The ground looked a picture, with not a spare seat in the stand, as the Englishmen took the field.
The usual scenario unfolded, the hosts managing to get only 63 in all, although the last batsman, a young man called Welsh, enlivened things by giving Grace the charge with some success – ‘giving him Yankee all round the shop’ was Fitzgerald’s amused description. W.G. was accorded a tremendous welcome from the seven thousand spectators estimated to be present but he found the going tough on a slow pitch against the best bowling he had faced on the tour plus agile fielding. He scratched 14 in an hour before one Charles Newhall clean bowled him. ‘I have heard many a great shout go up in various parts of the globe at my dismissal,’ he recalled much later, ‘but I never remember anything quite equal to the wild roar that greeted my downfall on this occasion.’
MCC totalled only 105, the Philadelphians 74 in their second innings (W.G. 11–46), leaving MCC only 33 to win and a day to get them in. It did not seem too tall an order although the wicket was crumbling. The crowd came on the field at stumps and demanded that the English players appear on the balcony, a scene presaging the scenes after one-day internationals a century later, and in similar fashion to nowadays declined to disperse ‘until they had been satisfied and given three cheers for Gloucestershire, for Grace and the British flag’.
That evening the players attended a massive dinner at the Union League Club, presided over by the commanding figure of General George G. Meade, a key figure in the American Civil War, who only nine years previously had led the Union army to victory over General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army at the battle of Gettysburg. His son was playing for Philadelphia: he bagged a pair but took six wickets. General Meade died only six weeks later.
When Grace looked at the pitch next morning he remarked that the 33 runs ‘would take some getting’ and he was right. The Americans were anything but cowed: in front of another big crowd they bowled like demons and Grace found the going even slower than in the first innings. When he departed for seven, made in an hour, the total was 18–4 and amid scenes of high excitement the score crawled up to 29–7. Appleby came to the wicket and not a run was scored for half an hour. A leg-bye broke the deadlock and then Appleby swung at the ball and managed to pierce the field for the winning boundary, to the Englishmen’s huge relief. They raced for the Boston train, without stopping to say goodbye properly, which led to some criticism in the press next day, but still contrived to miss it.
They thus arrived in Boston on 26 September, later than planned, and as their ship was to sail on the 28th from Quebec they had time only for a one-day match against another local XXII. Fitzgerald had business in Boston so W.G. took over the captaincy. The match should never have been played. Heavy rain had turned the ground into a sea of mud but the Englishmen felt obliged to do their best for their hosts. The whole field was given a liberal covering of sawdust but in many places the fielders were up to their ankles in slush.
The cricket must have been of a particularly low standard as four innings were managed in the day, both teams compiling 51 in their first innings. Grace was the only batsman who could handle the conditions, scoring 26 in a disciplined and patient manner. Despite the non-importance of the match, Fitzgerald, who turned up at the ground to find MCC 39–8, was scathing about the other batsmen’s lack of application. Perhaps they had simply had enough after five weeks on tour. Set 44 to win, MCC were soon struggling as the light failed. Grace went for only 5 and with the score at 19–6 Fitzgerald decided to join in. He marched out to the wicket but any thoughts he might have had of showing his team how to conquer adversity soon evaporated w
hen in near-total darkness a full toss which he never sighted hit him on the toe. At that, the umpires decided to call it a day. ‘I am sure that we should have been beaten,’ confessed Grace.
Harry Wright, the baseball player who had appeared against MCC in New York, also played in Boston, along with his brother George, also a distinguished baseball player. George presented each of the Englishmen with a baseball to take home as a memento, a gift which W.G. for one treasured for the rest of his life. Fitzgerald was under no illusions about Americans’ preference for their own game. ‘It will hold its own in America, and cricket can never expect to attain to its popularity.’
The party caught the train for Quebec, where they boarded the SS Prussian for the voyage home, arriving back in Liverpool on 8 October. It was a tour none of them would ever forget.
Fitzgerald was in no doubt as to who the star had been. ‘Victory is of course largely due to the never-failing bat of W.G. Grace,’ he wrote. Grace amassed 540 runs on the tour at an average of 49.1 (second best was Alfred Lubbock with 146) and took 66 wickets. Fitzgerald added: ‘No Canadian is likely to become a second W.G. if he lives to be a hundred and plays till past four score.’ The MCC secretary’s delightful memoir of the tour Wickets in the West, or The Twelve in America came out the following year. The cover was embossed with a gold-coloured portrait of the Untouchable, and was signed, ‘Yours Truly, W.G. Grace’.
6 · HONEYMOON IN AUSTRALIA
1873–1874
IN 1873 W.G., though still only twenty-five years old, completed his tenth year in first-class cricket. He returned from North America and after an understandably slow start re-emerged to dominate bowlers in much the same way as the previous seasons. His superiority was continually emphasised by a comparison of his performances with those playing alongside him. When he scored 145 for Gentlemen of the South v Players of the North at Prince’s, it was out of a total of 237 and the next highest scorer was E.M. with 26. When he made 134 v Players of the South at the Oval, it was 12 more than the entire opposition combined. His – indeed, anybody’s – highest score of the season was 192 not out for South v North, again on his happy hunting ground of The Oval, made out of a total of 311 against a strong attack, including Jemmy Shaw and Tom Emmett.