WG Grace

by Low, Robert

  In the event, Alletson was taken on to the Lord’s payroll in 1914.

  W.G. had no wish to be involved in controversy in his twilight years, as he made plain in April 1911 when Ashley-Cooper wanted his opinion on the players who would make up the best side of an unstated era. He singled out Willsher, Jupp and Alfred Shaw but added: ‘I certainly do not want to be dragged into any controversy about the best team, so must ask you not to make any remark on what I say …’

  In November 1914, when Ashley-Cooper, who was writing a biography of E.M., wanted more information about a row involving the Coroner, W.G. replied: ‘I should not mention it, it can do no good.’ Inserted in the letter was a sheet of paper detailing W.G.’s record in 1911: ‘Batting: Innings 16, runs 352, highest score 79, average 22. Matches bowled in: 8. Wickets taken: 30.’

  W.G. still turned out regularly for the Eltham club. A photograph taken in 1913 at Gravesend shows him on-driving imperiously, well out of his crease, head steady, eyes following the ball’s progress, still a model for any youngster. On 23 June 1914, he was one of the 250 guests at a dinner to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Lord’s ground at St John’s Wood. Lord Hawke, President of the MCC, presided. He paid tribute to one of England’s greatest players, A.G. Steel, who had died only eight days earlier, wondered whether the slow run-rate then prevalent was not due to better field placing and batsmen’s unwillingness to take risks (shades of 1996), grumbled about the tea interval, declared his belief that unfair bowling had been banished for ever and then reached the climax of his speech.

  Never had English cricket had so many great names to conjure with as in the epoch of ‘the Grand Old Man’, the mere mention of whose name brought a rousing cheer from the tables, Ranji, Stoddart (who was, alas, to shoot himself the following year), Jackson, Sammy Woods, Jessop (W.G.’s protégé) and Hirst. The diners probably did not realize that Hawke had just delivered the memorial address for the Golden Age of cricket – and that they were also cheering and raising their glasses to the Champion in his presence for the last time.

  W.G. played his last game of cricket, for Eltham, a month later, on 25 July. Astonishingly, he made 69 not out, against Grove Park on a bad pitch. He was sixty-six years old, and looks every year of his age in the team photograph taken for the occasion. He and his team-mates had good reason to look sombre. On the Continent, the clouds of war were gathering. A few days later W.G. went to Jack Hobbs’s benefit match at Lord’s, where it had been switched because Hobbs’s home ground, The Oval, had been requisitioned by the War Office. On the night of 3–4 August 1914, German forces invaded Belgium. On 4 August, Great Britain declared war on Germany. The First World War was to cast a deep shadow over W.G.’s last year of life and may have hastened his death.

  As the German army threw back the French divisions and the British Expeditionary Force sent to defend Belgium, Grace’s deep sadness at the turn of events was evident in a letter he sent to the Sportsman, which was published on 27 August.

  Sir, – There are many cricketers who are already doing their duty, but there are many more who do not seem to realize that in all probability they will have to serve either at home or abroad before the war is brought to a conclusion. The fighting on the Continent is very severe, and will probably be prolonged. I think the time has arrived when the county cricket season should be closed, for it is not fitting at a time like this that able-bodied men should be playing day after day, and pleasure-seekers look on. There are so many who are young and able, and are still hanging back. I should like to see all first-class cricketers of suitable age set a good example, and come to the aid of their country without delay in its hour of need.

  Yours, etc

  W.G. Grace

  It was the first time that W.G. had publicly shown any interest in events outside cricket. This was perhaps understandable. The year of his birth, 1848, had been a year of turmoil and revolution on the Continent, but for Britons of his generation, their country remained serenely untouched by events beyond its shores for the next half-century and more. Great Britain may have been involved in war and the problems of subduing a mighty empire but it all happened a long way from home. Now for the first time in Grace’s lifetime, this domestic immunity from the infection of war was threatened.

  The wish he expressed in the letter was quickly granted. The county championship was terminated early, leaving Surrey as champions, and first-class cricket was not resumed until the spring of 1919.

  Most of the last images of W.G. are affected by the war. On Whit Monday 1915 a charity match was held at Catford Bridge to raise money for Belgian refugees. W.G. had been invited to play but on arrival at the ground felt unwell and decided to withdraw. But he offered to take a collecting box around the ground, and presented a bat to the man of the match. A photograph shows him sitting on a chair in front of the pavilion, leaning forward to deposit a coin in a collection box carried on the back of a dog, accompanied by a soldier in unform. Looking on is a moustachioed cricketer in flannels, blazer and cap, who may be Archie MacLaren. Another photograph taken around the same time shows W.G. in his garden (where he loved to potter about), flanked by MacLaren and Ranji, both in uniform.

  While working in the garden on 9 October 1915, W.G. suffered a stroke, somehow struggled indoors and took to his bed. Mrs Grace was clearly worried but in a letter on 12 October to F.S. Ashley-Cooper, the cricket historian and statistician, who had written a biography of E.M. and was working on the definitive version of W.G.’s career figures, was optimistic that he would recover.

  The doctor is ill and may not do anything in the way of going through your proofs for a week at least from now – he was taken ill on Saturday but read the first lot of proofs through and told me of a lot of mistakes but they are not marked and I am sure that I could not remember all, he would be very sorry for it to be published with such a number of errors …

  The following night, 13 October, saw the biggest Zeppelin raid of the war on the capital and outlying towns. Five of the giant German airships wreaked massive damage on central London, Woolwich Arsenal and Croydon, killing 71 people and injuring 128. The Zeppelin L13, captained by Kapitanleutnant Mathy, dropped several bombs, mainly incendiaries, on the Woolwich barracks and arsenal, not far from Mottingham, causing extensive damage. The explosions did nothing to improve W.G.’s condition.

  H.R. Leveson-Gower twice visited W.G., at Mrs Grace’s request, soon afterwards. ‘I don’t like these ’ere Zeppelins,’ complained W.G. Trying to comfort him, Leveson-Gower jokingly wondered why a man who had stood up to the world’s fastest bowlers on rough wickets without a tremor should fear the odd German airship.

  ‘Yes, quite true,’ replied W.G. ‘But then I could see the fast balls. I can’t see those confounded Zeppelins.’

  On Tuesday 19 October The Times reported that ‘Dr W.G. Grace is suffering from slight cerebral hemorrhage, affecting the speech centre only. His condition yesterday was stated to be satisfactory.’ The following day he was said to be ‘making good progress and his condition is now quite satisfactory’. A similar note appeared on 21 October, but then his condition worsened and he died peacefully at home in the morning of Saturday 23 October.

  His death was attributed to heart failure, and was said to have been reported by the German press, and attributed to the effectiveness of their mighty Zeppelins. The issue of The Times which reported his passing carried several columns of death notices of officers cut down in Flanders. Much space was devoted to the international outrage aroused by the execution of Nurse Edith Cavell a few days earlier. The King appealed for more volunteers ‘in order that another may not inherit the free Empire which their ancestors and mine have built’. He added: ‘The end is not in sight.’

  Among the pages given over to news of the war, the paper found space to pay lavish tribute to ‘a cricket career that has not been equalled by any cricketer in the past and is not likely to be in the future’.

  The funeral took place at Elmer’s End Cemet
ery three days later. There was a good turn-out of cricketers past and present, considering the demands of the war, headed by those two giants of the game, Lords Hawke and Harris, and the uniformed Ranji, plumper now than the lithe figure of two decades previously. W.G. was laid to rest beside his children, W.G. junior and Bessie.

  W.G.’s will was published in December 1915. He left estate worth £7,278 (£6,590 net). Probate was granted to Mrs Grace and their son, Captain Charles Butler Grace, then serving with the Fortress Engineers. He left everything to his widow, and his canniness was evident to the end: he had made the will on 24 November 1914, in his own handwriting on a sixpenny form, dispensing with the need for a solicitor.

  Agnes Grace survived him by fourteen years, dying at her home in Hawkhurst, Kent, in 1930. His two surviving sons did well in life but did not live much longer than their mother.

  Henry Edgar Grace had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, commanding a series of cruisers and the aircraft-carrier Vindictive during the First World War and being commended for service in action at Gallipoli, rising to Vice-Admiral. He served in Berlin and Hong Kong, became an ADC to the King, was Rear-Admiral of Submarines and was promoted Admiral in 1934 after his retirement. He died suddenly at Devonport in 1937, aged sixty-one.

  The youngest, Charles Butler, was an electrical engineer, tall and bearded like his father, about whom he loved to tell stories, and an enthusiastic club cricketer all his life, a good batsman and lob bowler like his uncle E.M. As managing engineer of the Weald Electricity Company in Kent, he started a works team which grew into a strong local side. He died in a manner one feels his father would have approved. Playing at Sidley, Bexhill, on 6 June 1938, he collapsed at the wicket seconds after hitting the boundary which brought up the 300, his team’s highest-ever score. At first it was assumed he had merely fainted in the excitement of the occasion but the players rapidly realised it was a lot more serious than that. He was only fifty-six.

  There are surprisingly few memorials to England’s greatest cricketer. The main one is, fittingly, at Lord’s: the Grace Gates, the main entrance, opened in 1923. They were designed by Sir Herbert Baker, who also designed the Grand Stand at Lord’s, demolished at the end of 1996. There was some discussion in 1996 of whose statue might occupy the fourth plinth at the corner of Trafalgar Square, which remains empty. To mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth in 1998, it would be entirely appropriate if a statue of W.G. Grace was erected there. It would make up, belatedly, for the knighthood he deserved but never received. It would also mark the changed perception of the importance of sport’s role in society. And who embodied the finest English qualities better than W.G.?

  W.G.’s grave was at one time neglected but was restored, thanks to an initiative by the Forty Club. Surprisingly, in view of their importance to the history of the area, the Grace family graves in the churchyard at Downend were in very poor condition when I visited them in the summer of 1996. No casual passer-by would have any idea that here lie the remains of such an important family, including two of the greatest cricketers of the Victorian era, E.M. and G.F. Grace.

  There are five Grace family graves situated in the plot, none of them well tended. The biggest one, topped by a cross, is of that of Henry Grace, W.G.’s oldest brother. On it are carved the words, ‘Physician and Surgeon of Kingswood Hill, who died Nov 13 1895 aged 62. A truly unselfish man deservedly beloved and regretted by all who knew him.’ Buried with him is his widow Leanna, who died on 16 October 1898, aged sixty-nine. It was extremely dilapidated: one of the iron railings had fallen down and lay on top of the grave, which was almost obscured by thorns, dock leaves and ivy.

  Next to it is a less impressive, triangular-topped grave, that of Fred and his mother Martha. It also commemorated Dr Henry Mills Grace, who is buried in the church. The tombstone of E.M. and his first wife, Annie White Grace, who died in 1884, aged only thirty-seven, also bears the names of seven of their children who predeceased him. Five died in infancy – Maud, Ada, Sybil, John and George Frederick, who bore the Christian names of his late uncle but lived only sixteen days. The record of all those children dying so young is a reminder of the sadness that Victorian families had to bear; being the children of a doctor was no defence against the deadly illnesses of the age.

  Two of W.G.’s sisters also lie there: Alice Rose, who had married the schoolmaster (and W.G.’s tutor) Mr Bernard, and died in 1895, aged forty-nine; and Fanny, who died in 1900 aged sixty-two. In a different part of the churchyard is buried ‘Uncle Pocock’ – Alfred Pocock, who had coached W.G. in the orchard of The Chestnuts and lived until the ripe old age of eighty-four, but of their connection with England’s greatest cricketer there is no sign.

  At least E.M. and G.F. lie within the sound of willow on cricket ball. On the other side of the churchyard wall is a cricket ground, that of Downend Cricket Club. Formerly a farmer’s field, it was rented from Lady Cave in 1893 and converted for cricket. There was a strong Grace connection – the club’s first president was the Rev. John Dann, vicar of Downend and W.G.’s brother-in-law.

  W.G. brought the Gloucestershire side along for a match in 1896 which attracted a big crowd. Alas, the village’s favourite son was bowled for only 3 by the Downend captain, Ted Biggs, a carpenter. The club flourished and provided the county with some fine cricketers. In 1921 the club bought the ground for £600 and the following year a new pavilion was opened by Mrs Blanche Dann, W.G.’s sister, and the ground was renamed The W.G. Grace Memorial Ground.

  More recently, in 1977, Downend won the Western League, a very strong and hard-fought competition set up in 1970, with the aid of a young Australian who had written to the club asking if he could play for it for a season to broaden his experience. His name was Allan Border, and although he played a big role in Downend’s greatest season, nobody at the club thought he would one day go on to play Test cricket, let alone become one of his country’s most successful captains and score more Test runs than anyone else in the history of cricket.

  Dr Grace would have approved, for Border was just his type of cricketer – devoid of frills, hard, brave and competitive. He also possessed a dry wit that the doctor would have appreciated. In one match for Downend, he held on to a catch in the gully but the batsman stood his ground. ‘Why don’t you go?’ called Border. ‘It’s people like you who give people like me a bad name.’

  The Australian connection is maintained. When I visited the ground on a summer evening in 1996, a match between Downend and an Australian touring team had just concluded, and the tall, blond young visitors were standing outside the pavilion nursing glasses of lager and chatting to the local men. Across the road at the far end of the ground still stands the house where the Champion cricketer was born a century and a half earlier.

  It was easy to imagine his spirit hovering over the scene, and to visualise him standing around after a thousand such games, discussing the day’s play with his usual gruff enthusiasm. What is certain is that his own memory will be treasured by everyone connected with cricket for as long as the game is played.

  As his obituary in Wisden recorded: ‘When he was in his prime no sun was too hot and no day too long for him.’

  APPENDIX

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Altham, H.S., A History of Cricket (George Allen & Unwin, 1926)

  Arlott, J., Jack Hobbs: Profile of ‘The Master’ (John Murray and Davis-Poynter, 1981)

  Bowen, R., Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development throughout the World (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970)

  Brookes, C., English Cricket (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978)

  Brownlee, W.M., W.G. Grace: A Biography with A Treatise on Cricket contributed by W.G. Grace (London, 1887)

  Cross, F.G., A Panorama of the British Medical School (University of Bristol, 1993)

  Daft, R., Kings of Cricket (J.W. Arrowsmith, 1893)

  Darwin, B., W.G. Grace (Duckworth, 1934)

  Davie, M., and Davie, S., (eds), The Faber Book of Crick
et (Faber & Faber, 1987)

  Dunstan, K., The Paddock That Grew: The Story of Melbourne Cricket Club (Cassell & Co, 1962)

  Ellis, C., C.B.: The Life of Charles Burgess Fry (J.M. Dent, 1984)

  Fitzgerald, R.A., Wickets in the West, or The Twelve in America (London, 1873)

  Frith, D., England versus Australia: A Pictorial History of the Test Matches since 1877 (Lutterworth Press, 1977)

  Fry, C.B., Life’s Worth Living (London, 1939)

  Grace, W.G., Cricket (London, 1891)

  ––––––Cricketing Reminiscences (London, 1899)

  Green, B., A History of Cricket (Barrie & Jenkins, 1988)

  ––––––(ed) The Wisden Papers 1888–1946, (Stanley Paul, 1989)

  ––––––(ed) The Concise Wisden: An Illustrated Anthology of 125 years (Macdonald/Queen Anne Press, 1990)

  Green, D., The History of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club (Christopher Helm Ltd, Bromley, 1990)

  Harris, Lord, A Few Short Runs (London, 1921)

  Harte, C., A History of Australian Cricket (Andre Deutsch, 1993)

  Hawke, Lord, Harris, Lord, and Gordon, Sir H., The Memorial Biography of Dr W.G. Grace (Constable, 1919)

  Hawke, Lord, Recollections and Reminiscences (London, 1924)

  James, C.L.R., Beyond a Boundary (Stanley Paul, 1963)

  Jessop, G.L.A., A Cricketer’s Log (Hodder & Stoughton, 1922)

  Kynaston, D., W.G.’s Birthday Party (Chatto & Windus, 1990)

  Leveson-Gower, Sir H., Off and On the Field (Stanley Paul, 1953)

  Martin-Jenkins, C., World Cricketers: A Biographical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1996)

  ––––––The Wisden Book of County Cricket (Queen Anne Press/Macdonald Futura, 1981)

  ––––––(ed) A Cricketer’s Companion (Smallmead Press, 1992)

  Midwinter, E., W.G. Grace: His Life and Times (George Allen and Unwin, 1981)