When Goldsmiths played a team captained by the greatest cricketer of all time Dr W.G. Grace

If you were in the Goldsmiths’ College cricket team there was a time when you had a lifetime opportunity to play against a team captained by somebody hailed then and ever since as the greatest cricketer in the world.

It was something to tell your grandchildren about and dine out on for the rest of your life- certainly if cricket was your thing.

In 1914 cricket was an aspirational game extolling athleticism and what was described at the time as ‘muscular Christianity.’

It was the game advancing the alleged decorum and dignity of the British Empire and the meeting place in the British class system between gentry, farmers and serfs in the villages of England.

Yes, indeed this was the quintessential game played between ‘Gentleman’ and ‘Players.’

It was the game that state secondary and grammar schools pursued relentlessly and somewhat forlornly to emulate the values and ethos, indeed the majesty of the playing fields of Eton, Wellington and Marlborough Public Schools.

It had too many rules and pretended virtues of sportsmanship for revolutionary Marxism. The dress code was white; not red.

But it was also the game of non-violent anti-colonial resistance when the West Indies, India and Sri Lanka could beat the ‘Mother Country’ with centuries and wickets and place down markers for future independence.

Novelists such as D.H. Lawrence and L.P. Hartley would create fictional narratives where the gamekeeper would score a six and bowl out the Squire in village cricket and at the same time seduce the aristocrat’s wife or daughter.

Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, as it then was with its apostrophe, played Eltham Cricket Club twice in the summer season of 1914. And this was the last season and games that Dr. W.G. Grace would ever play.

As Wikipedia now says: ‘William Gilbert Grace MRCS LRCP (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English cricketer who is widely considered one of the sport’s all-time greatest players. Always known by his initials as “WG”, his first-class career spanned a record-equalling 44 seasons from 1865 to 1908.’

The figures are extraordinary. He scored 55,309 runs, 126 centuries, bowled 124,899 balls, took 2,818 wickets, and his catches and stumpings averages were 39/- for Test and 876/5 for Club and County.

in 1873, he became the first player ever to complete the ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season.

To say he was a legend would be an understatement.

To say he was as eccentric as you could possibly imagine a cricketer to be would be entirely accurate.

His Wikipedia entry asserts: ‘He was an extremely competitive player and, though he was one of the most famous men in England, he was also one of the most controversial on account of his gamesmanship and moneymaking.’

The moneymaking issue was a problem for somebody who was ostensibly an amateur. He was notorious for demanding exorbitant expenses that reached such a level they should have been recategorised as prize money.

John Arlott wrote: ‘it was no uncommon sight to see outside a cricket ground’:

CRICKET MATCH
Admission 6d
If W. G. Grace plays
Admission 1/–’

His biographer Simon Rae said he was “notoriously unscholarly.” He was also a bad loser with an overbearing personality. And his height at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), bulk, getting on to 16 stone in middle age, and very long beard presented an unforgettable picture.

He would be variously called ‘The Doctor’ after qualifying as a medical one at Westminster Hospital, ‘The Big-un’, on account of his size, ‘The Old Man’, when he was one, just ‘W.G.’ or ‘The Champion’ which was his preferred sobriquet.

Dr W G Grace came to Goldsmiths’ College with his Eltham team on the 5th of May 1914. The College had a large wooden pavilion to accommodate changing facilities in the south western corner of what is now the College Green.

As the Goldsmithian College magazine for 1914 reports: ‘All were hoping to see Dr. W.G. Grace turn out, but unfortunately he was unable to play, but “Inspected the pitch.” ‘Smiths’ batted well on a difficult pitch, scoring 125.  Splendid bowling by Parkie and Mac, who dismissed the visitors for 46.

Powley, 39; Parkinson , 6 for 17; MacCormick, 4 for 27.’

Goldsmiths went to Grove Park, Eltham on 25th June 1914 and the Goldsmithian reports:

‘Away. Ended in a draw. ‘Smiths 206. Eltham 164 for 8. All were glad to see the Doctor take the field. One of the features of the game were the “lobs” of  C.B. Grace [Dr W.G. Grace’ son Dr Charles Butler Grace] who secured 6 wickets. Parkinson b. C. B. Grace, 3. Brown, 41; Emmerson, 41; Powley, 32. Parkie 3 for 23, All 3 for 32.

His two final games for Eltham were in July and August 1914.

A week after his 66th birthday on the 25th of July 1914 he batted for the last time scoring 69.

He hung up his pads at Grove Park finally when playing for Eltham against Northbrook on the 8th of August.  He neither batted nor bowled. The First World War had been declared four days before.

Dr W.G. Grace hated the air raids over London and was known to shake his fist and shout at the German Zeppelins floating over his home in South London. When a friend complimented him that during his playing career he had not allowed fast bowlers to unsettle him, he is said to have replied: ‘I could see those beggars; I can’t see these.’

In fact the Germans were blamed for giving Dr. Grace his heart attack because it followed one of their Zeppelin raids on London.

On the 29th October 1915, one of the local weekly newspapers published in New Cross, The Brockley News reported:

‘DEATH OF DR.W.G. GRACE.

Dr. W.G. Grace, we regret to state, died from heart failure on Saturday morning at his residence at Mottingham. He was born on July 18th, 1848, and at the age of 17 began a cricket career that has not been equalled by any cricketer in the past and is not likely to be in the future. From first to last he played cricket for 48 years. In 1906 he scored 74 on his 58th birthday for Gentleman against Players at the Oval; this was his last year of first-class cricket, but he played for the Eltham Club till the year before last. His highest score for Eltham was 63.’

The BBC archives have interviews with people who knew and played with Dr W.G. Grace.

Ben Travers took great pleasure in recalling when he saw him play. He was head and shoulders above the rest…literally:

‘The great thing about ‘W.G.’ and his time was that he was the great predominant figure of cricket; more so than any other. He was a very big chap. He had rather an odd stance. He cocked his toe up. He had his left heel on the ground, cocked his left toe up. In those days he also stood and waited for the delivery of the ball, when the fast bowler was half way through his run, with his bat off the ground. Some comments have been made in recent years about modern batsmen who have done that. He started that, or did it in his day.

He was a humorous chap. I don’t think he was very sensible. Like another very large man, G.K. Chesterton, he had a curiously falsetto voice coming out of so huge a frame. He was also incidentally a practising doctor of medicine. My mother was born and brought up in Tiverton, and W.G. Grace was their family doctor. None of them lived very long though!’

James Gilman remembered being selected by Grace in 1900:

‘He invited me to play against the West Indies for his team. When I got there, I think there were six Test players, and four or five very experienced ones. And I felt absolutely the odd man out. The “Old Man” went out to toss and came back, looked at me sitting in the corner all alone. He said: “What’s the matter Jimmy? Are you frightened?” And I said “I’m terrified, Sir.” He said: ‘Well, I’ve won the toss, get your pads on, I’m taking you in with me.”  It’s an example of how he measured somebody’s temperament. I should have been a complete jelly if I’d been waiting there until the middle of the innings when everybody else had been making runs.’

Cricket had a fine tradition on the Goldsmiths’ College back field and what is now known as the College Green since the days of the Royal Naval School in the Victorian age.

In fact, the earliest photograph of the college site in Goldsmiths Special Collections is a daguerreotype of cricket being played by the Royal Naval School New Cross in the late 1870s or early 188os.

Cricket was continued and played with enthusiasm by the Goldsmiths Company’s Technical and Recreative Institute between 1891 and 1904.

Cricket was resumed at Goldsmiths College in the very first academic year 1905 to 1906.

The first history of Goldsmiths’ College, The Forge, published in 1955 said of cricket before 1914:

‘There was no dearth of good cricketers in spite of having to play on a wicket which suffered through many games of rugby and Association Football. In 1911, the College 1st XI scored 229 for 4 wickets and then dismissed East London College (now Queen Mary’s) for 70. I.A. Moulding scored 59 in that match. In the article in Wisden 1954 on Lock, the Surrey and England bowler, we can read how he was encouraged as a [school]boy by a headmaster named I. A Moulding.’

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There are two vintage 20th century films produced by Pathé news reel company in 1938 and the British Council in 1950 which feature moving footage of ‘The Old Man” Dr W.G. Grace playing cricket in his later years and looking very much like he would have appeared at Goldsmiths and Eltham in 1914.

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Cricket 1899-1938 Pathé News Documentary

“The Lord’s Taverners present ‘Cricket Highlights’ Commentary written by Michael Melford and spoken by E.W. Swanton.”

Cricket by the British Council 1950

This fascinating film of England v Australia at Lord’s, narrated by John Arlott and Ralph Richardson, introduces the viewer “to a very revered patch of English turf, plumb in line with the Pavilion” and guides us through the game.

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This posting mirrors the original publication for the Goldsmiths’ History Project ‘When Goldsmiths played a team captained by the greatest cricketer of all time Dr W.G. Grace.‘

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The research and writing for this project is not funded in any way. If you would like to assist covering the costs involved, do consider making any kind of donation and/or subscribing monthly or yearly using the form below. Many thanks for your consideration.

Many thanks to the staff of Special Collections and Archives at Goldsmiths, University of London including Dr Alexander Du Toit, and staff alumni Pat Loughrey, Ian Pleace and Lesley Ruthven.

The Goldsmiths History Project contributes to the research and writing of the forthcoming That’s So Goldsmiths: A History of Goldsmiths, University of London by Professor Tim Crook.

The project is dedicated to being Open Source which means free access for reading and appreciation.

Kultura Press will be publishing in book form a series of volumes preserving the research and writing called The Goldsmiths History Series. These will be a printed format of the online work for future book reading and library research.

The planned volumes are:

The origins and beginning of Goldsmiths University of London 1792 to 1914

The First World War and Goldsmiths University of London 1914 to 1919

The Nineteen Twenties and Thirties at Goldsmiths University of London 1920 to 1939

The Second World War and Goldsmiths University of London 1939 to 1946

V2 on the New Cross Road 25th November 1944

Post War Goldsmiths University of London 1947 to 1959

The Sixties at Goldsmiths University of London 1960 to 1969

Late Twentieth Century at Goldsmiths University of London 1970 to 1999

Early Twenty First Century Goldsmiths University of London 2000 to 2030

Other volumes commissioned are:

That’s So Goldsmiths

One Thousand Short History Stories and Pictures of Goldsmiths University of London

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