by Low, Robert
Thus by mid-afternoon, when the crowd had grown tenfold as word spread of the amazing turn of events, MCC embarked on their second innings and contrived to fare even worse. Having been dropped at the wicket by Murdoch off the first ball he faced, W.G. again went second ball, clean bowled for a duck by Spofforth. The bowler recalled: ‘The … ball knocked his leg bail thirty yards, and I screamed out “Bowled”.’
The crowd greeted the wicket ‘with extravagant delight’, according to the Sportsman. W.G. did go out to the middle once more, to act as runner for Hornby, but was not called upon to expend much energy. MCC were all out for the derisory total of 19 (Boyle 6–3, Spofforth 4–16), leaving Australia 12 to win, which they duly did by nine wickets. The humiliation of MCC and of W.G. was complete. Spofforth’s performance earned him the sobriquet ‘Demon’ by which he would always be known.
Spofforth had a good record against W.G. You can almost hear the laconic Australian accent in his comment: ‘I never had any particular difficulty in getting him out. I clean bowled him seven times.’ Spofforth reckoned most bowlers were so in awe of Grace that they held back against him (and therefore presumably enabled him to plunder them even more easily). ‘Never in my case,’ he added. He was not averse to a bit of psychological warfare against W.G. He always posted a silly mid-on for him, which he claimed worried him, and in addition would wrap his fingers around the ball in a strange fashion because he knew Grace would be scrutinising him carefully. Indeed, he claimed to have dismissed him at least once by persuading him to play for a non-existent off-cutter which carried straight on and had him leg before. It appears that Spofforth was more than a match for Grace in the mental game at which the Englishman generally excelled.
Grace played twice more against the Australians that summer. He appeared for Gentlemen of England at Prince’s, where the playing area had shrunk still further because of building developments on the perimeter, and made a handy contribution to the Gentlemen’s innings and one run victory, scoring 25 and taking 6–52 in the match. But the Australians had their revenge when they took on Gloucestershire at Bristol, inflicting the county’s first-ever home defeat by a crushing 10-wicket margin. Spofforth was again the bogeyman, taking 12–90 in the match and rubbing salt in the wound with a top score of 44. He took particular pleasure in hammering the bowling of Grace, who incurred some criticism for keeping himself on too long. Perhaps he was determined to get his own back on Spofforth but, if he was, the plan misfired badly.
The Australian tour provoked one extraordinary incident involving W.G. It concerned Midwinter, who was contracted to play for both Gloucestershire and the tourists. According to Grace, Midwinter had promised him he would turn out for the county in all its matches but when the West Country men arrived at The Oval to play Surrey, they were told that Midwinter was unavailable as he was appearing for the Australians at Lord’s.
This was too much for W.G. Accompanied by E.M. or the burly wicketkeeper Arthur Bush, and by one account both of them, he hailed a cab and headed for St John’s Wood in high dudgeon. Back at Kennington, the start of play was delayed because of the the sudden absence of the Gloucestershire captain. At Lord’s, W.G. marched in, confronted Midwinter and somehow persuaded him to desert his compatriots and return with him to The Oval, where E.M. had finally tossed, in his brother’s continuing absence, and put Surrey in, Gloucestershire taking the field with three substitutes.
W.G. never explained how he pulled off what amounted to a kidnapping. One can only surmise that he appealed more to Midwinter’s wallet than his better nature. He was immediately pressed into service with the ball, taking 1–36 off 27 overs, while W.G., doubtless invigorated by his successful raid, returned the highly economical figures of 43.3–21–43–4.
The Australians were furious and mounted an unsuccessful expedition to attempt to recover their man from the clutches of the enemy. They were not content to let the matter rest, for Midwinter was now ineligible to play for them any more on the tour, having appeared for a county. Their manager, Conway, bombarded Gloucestershire’s secretary, E.M., with protest letters. The affair was finally settled when W.G. climbed down and sent an abject letter of apology in July, particularly for his ‘use of unparliamentary language to Mr Conway. I can do no more but assure you that you will meet a hearty welcome and a good ground at Clifton’.
When the Australians arrived at Clifton in September, Midwinter sat the game out with an injured thumb, which was perhaps just as well. The tourists extracted a measure of revenge by beating the county comprehensively, dismissing W.G. for 22 and 5 in the course of a ten-wicket victory wrapped up in less than two days. Spofforth not only took 12–90 in the match but was top-scorer too, with 44. It was the first time Gloucestershire had lost at home.
There were few other excitements in 1878. Grace scored only one first-class century, for his county against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. The Midlanders had one of the strongest attacks in the country and Grace’s second-innings 116 was an example of him at his most patient and watchful: it took him five hours and twenty-five minutes, although he should have been stumped on 85. Eventually he ‘fluked a ball up to point, and retired amid deafening cheers’.
W.G.’s next best score, but his finest display of the season, was a sparkling 90 for the Gentlemen v Players at Lord’s, terminated only by a brilliant one-handed catch by Alfred Shaw. In the first Gentlemen v Players game at The Oval in early July he opened the innings as usual and was last man out, having ground out a dogged 40 while his team-mates amassed only 36 between them. Fred Grace, with 10, was the only other batsman to reach double figures. Facing a deficit of 46, the Gentlemen were struggling on 45–3 when Fred came in to join W.G. and transform the situation. In the liveliest batting seen so far in the game, the brothers put on 89 before W.G. was given out lbw to Barlow for 63. ‘I don’t fear the bowlers but I do fear the umpires,’ he gruffly observed back in the dressing-room, but Fred went on to make 35. The Gentlemen totalled 202, and dismissed the Players for 101 (W.G. 3–20) to run out convincing winners by 56 runs. For the South v North in the Whit weekend fixture at Lord’s, before a crowd of more than ten thousand holidaymakers, he scored 45 and 77 and took nine wickets.
There was an even bigger crowd at Old Trafford to watch Gloucestershire’s first match against Lancashire, where some eighteen thousand people were estimated to have squeezed into the ground, a couple of thousand of them scrambling over the walls after losing patience with the long queues at the gates. This is the match that inspired the most famous poem about cricket, by the Lancastrian Francis Thompson (1859–1907), although its title ‘At Lord’s’ is liable to mislead. The refrain at the end of the first and last stanzas has achieved immortality but the references to the Graces are less well known.
It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,
Though my own red roses there may blow;
It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,
Though the red roses crest the caps, I know.
For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast,
And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,
And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host
As the runs-stealers flicker to and fro,
To and fro:
O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!
It is Glo’ster coming North, the irresistible,
The Shire of the Graces, long ago!
It is Gloucestershire up North, the irresistible,
And newly-risen Lancashire the foe!
A Shire so young that has scarce impressed its traces,
Ah how shall it stand before all-resistless Graces?
O, little red rose, their bats are as maces
To beat thee down, this summer long ago!
This day of seventy-eight they are come up North against thee,
This day of seventy-eight, long ago!
The champion of the centuries, he cometh up against thee,
With his brethren, every one a famous foe!
The long-whiskered Doctor, that laugheth rules to scorn,
While the bowler, pitched against him, bans the day that he was born;
And G.F. with his science makes the fairest length forlorn;
They are come from the West to work thee woe!
It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,
Though my own red roses there may blow;
It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,
Though the red roses crest the caps, I know.
For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast,
And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,
And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host
As the runs-stealers flicker to and fro,
To and fro:
O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!
Many will have read this poem and mistakenly assumed that ‘the long-whiskered Doctor, that laugheth rules to scorn’ was W.G. It was a perfectly accurate description of him, but Thompson was referring to E.M., to whom it also applied one hundred per cent. W.G. did not qualify as a doctor until the following year. Before that he was often described in the Press as ‘Mr Gilbert Grace’, while E.M. was ‘the doctor’. Once W.G. had qualified, he took over the appellation of ‘doctor’ while E.M. was promoted to ‘the coroner’.
It may not have been a vintage season but W.G. was still one of only two batsmen to exceed 1,000 first-class runs, and he finished second in the aggregate table, with 1,151. He also collected 152 wickets.
The following season – 1879 – was even more restricted for W.G. as it was his final year at medical school. He missed the whole of May but perhaps it was just as well. The winter of 1878–9 was particularly severe, the snow lasting in places until the early spring and it was followed by the wettest summer in living memory and a thoroughly gloomy one for cricket. When play was possible W.G. produced his best form for Gloucestershire, hitting centuries against Surrey, Notts, and Somerset. Against Surrey at The Oval he made 123 and Fred 57 in a total of 239, and took nine wickets in setting up a ten-wicket victory.
At Trent Bridge, he delighted the largest crowd of the season with a vintage 102 in a total of only 197, as well as taking 4–54 off 54 overs in Notts’ first innings. When Somerset arrived for the start of the Clifton Fortnight, they found W.G. at the top of his form. On the first day alone, he took 6–30 while Somerset struggled to 126, then marched out to plunder 113 out of Gloucestershire’s 200–3 by close of play, including one gigantic pull for six out of the ground and into the road.
Against Middlesex, the next visitors to Clifton, he made a masterly 85 in the first innings (sharing a partnership of 160 with W.R. Gilbert) and 81 not out in the second on a tricky wicket to save the game and Gloucestershire’s proud record of never having lost at home to another county. The following match in the Clifton Fortnight was against Lancashire and was a benefit for Billy Midwinter. Grace produced yet another extraordinary all-round display, first taking 7–37 as the northerners were skittled for 53 on a drying wicket, then making 75 not out by stumps out of 123–7, showing again how his technique placed him head and shoulders above anyone else then playing. (Unluckily for Midwinter, the match had to be abandoned as a draw without a further ball being bowled next day because of heavy rain.) In the return against Surrey at Cirencester, W.G. took fifteen wickets in the match.
But his finest hour had nothing to do with his performances on the field. In the summer he passed his final medical examinations and qualified to practise as a doctor. Two years previously the MCC committee had agreed an unprecedented honour for W.G. proposed by its president, the Duke of Beaufort, and treasurer, Lord Fitzhardinge – a national collection in recognition of his ‘extraordinary play’ and ‘great services to cricket’. A subscription list was opened and all the counties and clubs circulated. The response from wealthy individuals and ordinary members of the public was generous. The MCC chipped in with 100 guineas, the Surrey, Kent and Yorkshire clubs each gave £50, and the Prince of Wales, who resembled Grace somewhat in figure if not athleticism, contributed £5. A special benefit match, Over Thirties v Under Thirties, was arranged for 21–23 July at Lord’s.
Grace would not hear of the proceeds going to himself. In a gesture of extraordinary generosity, he insisted that all the receipts should go to his great adversary (on the field, that is) Alfred Shaw, whose own benefit earlier in the season had been ruined by rain. For a professional like Shaw, his benefit was crucial to his future financial well-being, and unlike today there were no secondary activities to generate money. Now thanks to Grace he had a second chance, though this was at risk from the weather too. The omens were not good; it had rained heavily in previous days, the first day dawned overcast and the drenched ground was not really fit for cricket. But play was started in front of a disappointingly small crowd at 1.20 p.m., the under-thirties batting. W.G. was cheered as he stepped on to the field accompanied by E.M. The fielders could hardly stand, let alone chase the ball. The youngest Grace, Fred, was naturally enough playing for the under-thirties. W.G. dropped him at short leg and he was undefeated on 35 when the innings closed at 111 (W.G. 3–54) after an interruption for more rain. On his big day, W.G. did not even receive the easy ball for a single which it later became the custom to deliver to a beneficiary. He was bowled by Morley of Notts third ball for a duck.
At lunchtime on the second day there was a presentation, in front of the pavilion by Lord Fitzhardinge, to W.G. of a clock (worth £40), bronze and marble obelisks, and a cheque for £1,458, £770 of it raised in Gloucestershire alone, the rest by MCC. Because of the overcast weather and sparse crowd, both in the pavilion and round the ground, the occasion lacked the atmosphere it deserved, but those present made as much noise as they could. Fitzhardinge told them that before the previous Christmas the trustees of the Gloucestershire collection, who included the Duke of Beaufort, had at first thought of buying Grace a doctor’s practice but he had not passed his final examination at that stage so they decided to hang on to the money for the time being. Now that Grace had qualified, they thought him ‘old enough and strong enough’ to buy his own practice, so it had been decided to amalgamate the county and MCC collections and present Grace with the money.
Grace made a brief but touching reply. He was not a speechmaker, he said, and wished he could find words to express his gratitude. The testimonial had far exceeded his expectations. Typically, he switched the emphasis to Alfred Shaw, regretting that both his benefit matches had been spoiled by rain and hoping that MCC would consider granting him a third, if not this year, then another. ‘He was deeply sensible of the kindness he had received from cricketers,’ the Sportsman reported him as saying, ‘and he should never look at the clock to see the time without thinking of this happy occasion.’
Lord Charles Russell, one of MCC’s most distinguished members, spoke eloquently and movingly of W.G.’s unique contribution to the game (as well as promising to make the money up to £1,500, which he felt a more suitable figure than £1,458). He even felt able to tease the great man before launching into praise:
I agree with some friends that we have seen better bowling than we see now. You must not be surprised then to hear me say that I have seen better bowlers than Mr Grace, but I can say with a clear conscience that I have never seen anyone approach him as a batter, that I have never seen a better field. But he might be the good bowler that he is, the fine field, and the grand batter, without being a thorough cricketer; more than usual dexterity and agility of limb are required to play cricket – the game must be played with head and heart, and in that respect Mr Grace is very prominent. I have often seen an England Eleven playing an uphill game steadily and well; a sudden change had placed the game in their favour, and a change came over the field, such as there would be were the sun now to break out over our heads. Looking at Mr Grace playing, I have never been able to tell whether he
was playing a losing or a winning game. I have never seen the slightest lukewarmness or inertness in him in the field. Should anyone want to know how he plays cricket let him look at him playing one ball. You all know the miserably tame effect of the ball hitting the bat instead of the bat hitting the ball, but whether acting on the defensive or offensive, in playing a ball Mr Grace puts every muscle into it, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; and just as he played one ball so he played the game – he was heart.
When considering this encomium, it is worth remembering that W.G. was still a week short of his thirty-first birthday.
But as with almost everything in which the Graces were involved, the testimonial was not without controversy. The net receipts of the Gloucestershire v Yorkshire match at Clifton College were designated as part of the county’s contribution to the fund-raising exercise. Without consulting the county committee, E.M. announced that the entrance charge for the match would be a shilling, double the usual rate. Several members of the committee were outraged and five resigned in protest, but after a series of acrimonious meetings E.M. got his way, as the Graces usually did. But the combination of the high-mindedness that W.G. had shown towards Shaw and the mercenary ruthlessness that E.M. exercised for his brother’s benefit was somehow rather typical of the family.
11 · A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
1880–1884
THE 1880s saw several important developments in cricket: the rapid rise in popularity of the county game, a new era of professional players, particularly batsmen, and the swift progress of the game in Australia, including several tours of England which confirmed that the gap in standards between the two countries had narrowed and ultimately disappeared. As the game in England grew in popularity, standards improved at every level, from batting and bowling to the quality of pitches.