by Low, Robert
The omens for the 1895 season were not good. In his opening first-class innings, for MCC against Sussex at Lord’s, Grace was dismissed for 13, but after that he barely made another mistake all summer. That first match was laden with potential symbolism, for it marked the county debut of Ranji, whose silky batting skills had come to their notice in the service of Cambridge University. Sure enough, Ranji glided to a wonderful 150, upon which the MCC captain, Arthur Hornby, tossed the ball to the forty-six-year-old Grace. He dismissed Ranji with his first delivery to him and in MCC’s first innings proceeded to demonstrate to the young master that he was far from finished by hitting a fast century. To complete the symbolism, Ranji dropped Grace in the slips when he had made only 14.
The Champion’s century set the the scene for an extraordinary May and an equally astonishing season which showed that he had lost none of his old power. In its achievement, it was second only to his annus mirabilis of 1876 and, taking the ageing process into account, it ranked equal with that record-breaking season. As a start, Grace scored 1,000 runs in May, the first batsman to reach a goal which was to become one of the most eagerly sought but hardest to reach landmarks in the first-class game. Grace’s achievement was all the more outstanding for he scored all his runs in the twenty-one days between 9 and 30 May.
After the Sussex match, he made scores of only 18 and 25 for MCC against Yorkshire at Lord’s. Then came Gloucestershire’s match against Somerset at Bristol and Grace’s biggest score for twenty years, a herculean 288, which was also his hundredth hundred in first-class cricket and the first time that landmark had ever been reached. No contemporary batsman was even close to such an achievement – Abel, for instance, made a total of 74 centuries in his entire career, Shrewsbury 59. The only member of the ‘hundred hundreds’ club whose career seriously overlapped with Grace’s was Tom Hayward, who reached the magic figure in 1913.
Grace’s record came on Friday 17 May, the second day of the Somerset match. The visitors had made 303 in their first innings, W.G. bowling forty-five overs for a return of 5–87. Demonstrating yet again his extraordinary robustness, he made 38 not out before stumps on the first day. On the Friday morning snow fell over Bristol and a bitter cold persisted throughout the day, but it did nothing to hamper W.G., who swiftly demonstrated that his eye was well and truly in, and moved inexorably towards the record. As he neared it, nerves appeared to get the better of him, a sight no one present could recall. Charles Townsend, who was batting with him at the time, remarked: ‘This was the one and only time I ever saw him flustered.’ The Bristol county ground still did not have a proper scoreboard and two spectators remembered W.G. bellowing to the scorers, ‘How many does Charlie want for his century?’ (the answer was ‘Two’ which he failed to get) and then, ‘How many have I made?’
Finally, Sammy Woods attempted to put batsman and crowd out of their misery with a slow leg-side full toss, clearly deliberately designed to give Grace the record – but even that generous gesture nearly went wrong because the ball’s trajectory was lower than Woods intended, ‘and the least mistake on W.G.’s part might have deferred the consummation of one of the feats which every one [sic] present will never forget,’ reported the Cricket Field. Fortunately, his nerve held steady enough to despatch the ball to the boundary for the record, amid deafening cheers. Woods, one of the most extrovert and sportsmanlike characters in the game, was the first man to shake W.G.’s hand.
The Bristol ground had never seen anything like it. ‘Old and middle-aged men became boys for the time,’ added the Cricket Field, ‘while relations and close friends sought for isolated spots to keep down the throb in their throats that might result in hysterical laughter or tears.’
If the Somerset bowlers had hoped W.G. might reciprocate Woods’s gesture, they were mistaken. That had never been his way. He now proceeded to slaughter the bowling in majestic fashion. At lunch he was 159, and as news spread of his doings, spectators flocked to the ground. When he reached his double century, in only 220 minutes, E.M. carried out to the middle a tray bearing two bottles, or a magnum, of champagne (eyewitness accounts differ). The Somerset players toasted W.G. and he helped himself to plenty of it too. Thus recharged, on he went towards his triple century, which was only thwarted when Tyler at mid-off leapt to hold on to a stinging off-drive one-handed.
‘At the wickets five hours and a half, he had played perfect cricket, and at no time did he give anything like a chance,’ reported the Daily Telegraph. It was the third highest score of his first-class career, ‘a performance’, according to another correspondent, ‘that perhaps no one will live to see equalled, let alone excelled … “W.G.” played the noble game with an amount of vigour and dash that brought to mind his doings in the “seventies”.’ One remarkable fact was that, according to the Somerset wicket-keeper, A.P. Wickham, W.G. allowed only four balls to pass through to him during his entire innings, which would be utterly inconceivable in the twentieth-century game.
Gloucestershire wrapped up the match just after 4 p.m. on the Saturday, much to W.G.’s delight, for it meant he could jump on a train to London in order to attend a dinner in honour of his England team-mate and fellow opener A.E. Stoddart. (W.G. scandalised an old lady in his compartment by changing into his white tie and tails on the way).
The dinner was given by the Hampstead club, for whom ‘Stoddie’ had once made 485, then the highest score ever recorded in a cricket match. Grace was very fond of Stoddart, and claimed credit for having ‘invented’ him as a bowler (he was a useful performer who took 278 first-class wickets in his fifteen-year career). He derived huge pleasure from describing how Stoddart, when being collared by a batsman, once exclaimed, ‘All right, hit away, but it’s all your fault, W.G., and I wish I had never bowled a ball in my life.’
The Rev. R.S. Holmes, author of ‘Cricket Notes’ in the magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record, recorded W.G.’s arrival, fresh from his latest exploit: ‘What a reception we gave him as he rolled in a few minutes late, as fresh as a new pin, and as brown as a berry.’ When W.G. rose to make the main speech at the end of the evening, he spoke of Stoddart’s achievements and their times together, particularly against Australia, but made no mention at all of his own recent deeds. ‘W.G.’s speech was like his cricket,’ commented Holmes, ‘entirely devoid of meritorious ornamentation. It was the man, and was effective just because it was guilelessly natural. He did not orate, he simply talked.’
Just as in 1876, getting one huge score only seemed to whet Grace’s appetite for more – much more. After a spirited 52 against Cambridge University for Gentlemen of England, he travelled to Gravesend for Gloucestershire’s match against Kent. He and his men had to endure long sessions in the field while Kent accumulated 470, Grace suffering the indignity of being twice hit over the pavilion by a newcomer, Percy Northcote. But he made the Kent bowlers pay for such an outrage. The Sportsman’s correspondent was almost lost for words if not split infinitives:
Were we to exhaust all the adjectives at our command, it would be difficult for us to sufficiently express our admiration of the grand athlete who yesterday treated the 5,000 people on the Bat and Ball enclosure at Gravesend to a display which it is unlikely that any of them will ever erase from their memories.
W.G. batted all day, piling up his second double century within a week, going in first and finishing the day undefeated on 210. The next highest score was Kitcat’s 52. W.G. was twice dropped behind the wicket, on 41 and 81, but was otherwise in his most resplendent form, cutting and driving with all his old panache. As the Sportsman continued:
In short, it was just such an innings as ‘W.G.’ might have played when in the zenith of his fame and before half the present generation of cricketers were born. To the close of a long and tiring day for him ‘W.G.’ played the game with the keenness of a schoolboy, and never hesitated to start for a run when there was the least chance of getting one.
He took four hours to make his century, and then accelerated, posting th
e next 50 in only thirty-five minutes, and racing to his double century in only half an hour more. It was his eleventh double century in first-class cricket, and he was not finished by a long way. Next day he made another 47 before being last out for 257, caught in the long field off the only lofted shot he hit in the whole innings. The epic had lasted seven and three-quarter hours.
Gloucestershire still had a first-innings deficit of 27 when a late luncheon was taken. With only the afternoon and evening sessions left, on a pitch on which 913 runs had been scored so far, everything pointed to a tame draw, but fired up by W.G.’s example, Gloucestershire shot Kent out for only 76 in their second innings. That still left an improbable target of 104 to win in seventy-five minutes. Surely not even W.G. could manage that after his exertions so far?
By now he was on a roll. In an hour, he rattled up a superb 73 not out and the game was won by nine wickets with time to spare, the first time a side facing more than 400 in the first innings had rallied to win the match. Grace, at forty-seven, had been on the field for every minute of an absorbing game. More than that, he had uttterly dominated it. It is worth quoting at length from the Sportsman’s report of Monday 27 May, for its vivid description of a remarkable day’s play.
Kent’s defeat would not have been accomplished had not the champion, for champion he is, despite the vapourings of silly scribes, accomplished an achievement which was worthy of anything he has ever done before in the course of his long and honourable career. More praise than this we cannot bestow on one who throughout thirty years of cricket never played better than when his side went in to get 104 runs to win in an hour and a quarter. It was a race against the clock in which the scythe-bearer was always a bad second. Grace’s cricket was perfectly amazing. To set the field for him was actually impossible. First he started placing the ball on the on-side in his old sweet way, and then when the captain of the opposing team put his men in that direction he just as promptly cut or drove the ball to the opposite side. There was really no end to his resources, and when at the end of an hour he had scored seventy-three off his own bat, and enabled Gloucestershire to win the game, the spectators went perfectly frantic. Although their side was beaten the partisans of Kent cheered the marvellous batsman in a manner that did one good to listen to it. Shouts of ‘Bravo, Grace!’ came from 4,000 throats at once, and the Gloucestershire captain had a reception when he returned to the pavilion which will not readily fade from his memory. While he was dresssing the crowd waited for him, and following him to his cab gave him three hearty cheers as he made his way along the street to his hotel. His was a triumphal procession, indeed, through the town, and that he thoroughly deserved it all his opponents were the first to admit …
Grace is not as other men, however, and therein lies the secret. With him time seems to stand still, and he almost seems to have learned the secret of perpetual youth. He was as lively as a kitten during his last period at the wickets, and the way in which he ran between the wickets when bustled would have put many a younger man to the blush.
With one match to play before May was out, W.G.’s total for the month was 847. The setting for his attempt on the record could not have been more appropriate: his favourite stamping ground, Lord’s, where he took his county on 30 May to play Middlesex. Although the match started on a Thursday, some eight thousand spectators turned out to see if their champion could reach his unique target. Fortunately for them, and him, W.G. won the toss and was thus able to proceed at once towards his goal.
It was soon clear from his cautious approach that he was determined to get there. He took no risks against the bowling of Hearne and Nepean and by lunch he was 58 not out, still 95 short of his target. After the interval, he endured a trying spell from Nepean, and was twice within a whisker of being caught off mishits. Gradually he got on top of the bowling again, then slowed down as he approached his century. After he hit Hearne for four and two in the same over, his old friend Stoddart was brought back on at the pavilion end. ‘Stoddie’s’ trundlers were all that W.G. needed: two blows to the square-leg boundary saw him to his century, out of 198.
That seemed to relax him, as he now began to play more freely, ably backed by A.J. Dearlove, a Bristolian making his county debut, who could scarcely have imagined that it would be in such auspicious circumstances. He fell, however, to a brilliant one-handed catch by Webbe at mid-off, Jessop came and went swiftly on his Lord’s debut, and it fell to Captain A.R. Luard, who had played only four games for the county the previous season, to support his captain at this vital period of the innings.
W.G. was visibly tiring, but Luard seized the initiative and with some flashing stroke play rattled up a swift half-century. The dashing captain took the pressure off Grace at just the right time, as he inched towards his target. With 4 more still needed, Nepean produced a leg-side long-hop which Grace seized on with relief and despatched to the fence, bringing up his 150 and his 1,000 runs to the great relief of the crowd, who had lived every run of the day with him. ‘Fully three-quarters of the great company stood up and cheered, frantically waving their hats and showing other signs of delight at the champion’s great achievement,’ went one report. ‘Shouts of “Bravo, Grace,” were heard on all sides, and the applause lasted for minutes.’ Luard was out for 64, but W.G. played resolutely on. Jessop, who had never seen W.G. play a big innings before, watched in rapture from the pavilion. He wrote later:
Though the attack was never loose … he hit it when and where he liked. The wickets that day were pitched on the top side of the ground, but despite the added distance the ‘Old Man’ planted two from Jack Hearne in the same over through the window of the Committee-room … It was afterwards my pleasure to see many other big innings of the ‘Old Man’s’ but none of them succeeded in giving me quite the joy that this one did.
It looked as if W.G. might carry his bat to round off a momentous day, but with only ten minutes left before stumps, after nearly five and a quarter hours at the crease, he finally succumbed, bowled by Dr George Thornton for 169, and departed to another great ovation. The crowd was not finished yet. At close of play, thousands gathered in front of the pavilion to acclaim their hero, who came out on to the balcony to acknowledge their cheers.
To mark these two milestones, the Daily Telegraph launched a national testimonial for Grace, urging its readers to donate a shilling apiece to the great man. It raised £5,381 9s 1d., demonstrating the deep affection which the ordinary public felt for Grace.
On 8 June, W.G. wrote to ‘the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph’ from his home in Victoria Square, Clifton:
Words fail me to express as I should my hearty thanks for the leader with which you have honoured me in your paper of today referring to the part I in common with so many others have been permitted to take in popularising our great national game. I have still further to thank you for the list you have started in your paper and headed with so princely a donation towards a national testimonial and I think I should be less than human if I did not wish it unbounded success however unworthy I may be that it should be so …
But not everybody approved. Some felt it inappropriate for a newspaper to solicit shillings on behalf of a national treasure and would have preferred the MCC to have been its instigators. One such was Grace’s England colleague, A.G. Steel, who wrote afterwards:
I am bound to say I was not altogether pleased with the Daily Telegraph testimonial. A national testimonial in honour of the greatest cricketer the world has ever seen, on his completion of a performance which may be a ‘record’ for all time, was indeed fitting. Surely the greatest cricket club in the world – the MCC – was the proper initiator of the testimonial to the greatest cricketer. Day after day, as one read of the flood of shillings pouring in, accompanied by such varied correspondence, one could not but feel a little alarm for the dignity of our great game.
Belatedly, the MCC realised the same thing and joined forces with the Telegraph, contributing £2,377.2s.6d. from its members. Gloucestershire, too
, got in on the act, and an appeal to their members raised a further £1,436.3s.8d., making a total of £9,073.8s.3d., worth at least £250,000 in today’s money. Ever shrewd in financial matters, Grace asked that two-thirds of this windfall should be invested for him; the rest he took as a lump sum.
A particularly sour note was struck by Max Beerbohm, who clearly did not approve of the wave of national hysteria and the rush to hurl money at a man who, arguably, didn’t need it. He produced a cartoon showing Grace trousering a cheque while the funeral procession of one of his patients passes by. But Grace’s fellow doctors did not share Beerbohm’s view. That sober periodical, the British Medical Journal, was infected by the national mood and urged doctors to give to the Telegraph’s shilling fund:
In this truly national testimonial it is peculiarly fitting that the members of the medical profession, to which Dr Grace belongs, should take part. As doctors, we feel an interest in the great cricketer as a splendid example of what exercise and training, under the guidance of a knowledge of the laws of health, can do for the development and presentation of physical vigour; and as Englishmen we are not less proud of him as a representative of all that is best and most wholesome in manly sports.
Plenty of doctors obviously agreed, for the BMJ raised 906 shillings (£45.6s.), which was sent on to the Telegraph.
Dinners in Grace’s honour were held in Bristol, presided over by the Duke of Beaufort, and London, where the menu at the Sports Club bore a poem:
Now the hundredth hundred’s up,
W.G.,
You have filled the bowler’s cup,
W.G.,
You have filled his cup of sorrow,
Solace he of hope can’t borrow,