A Singular Honour (Part 8)

                                                              TP STRICKLAND 1875-1955

When you next visit Melbourne and when you next hop on a Melbourne tram, tip your hat to Tom Percival Strickland.

His senior cricket career was brief and mostly insignificant but he straddled the old ‘Sydney Club Cricket’ competition and the revitalized ‘Sydney Electoral Cricket’, the forerunner of Grade Cricket or Premier Cricket.

Aged 17 and recently enrolled in Engineering at Sydney University, Strickland appeared twice in the University 1sts in 1892-93, the last season of Club Cricket, and one more time in 1893-94, at the dawn of Electoral Cricket. (1st Grade cap no17). His four innings in the 1sts realized just 14 runs: 6,4,0 and 4. He played no more at that level. He achieved more, however, outside the boundaries of the cricket fields.

From 1887 until 1893, he had flourished in the classrooms and on the cricket fields of Sydney Grammar School.

In the 1891-92 SGS 1st XI, he batted early in the order. But for “nervousness”, he “would have been one of our best batsmen.” He played straight drives crisply and cut the ball sweetly. In 1892-93, just before going up to the University, he again opened the batting for SGS and in a low-scoring season, he was considered the best batsman in the school.

In the Matriculation Exams of 1893, he achieved Class I passes in Latin, German and French and Class II in Maths. Armed with three scholarships and a Gold Medal for Proficiency at the Senior Examinations of 1892, he enrolled in the Department of Engineering.

His family lived at the majestic sandstone home, ‘Dun Aros’ in Crescent Rd Manly. While he had two sisters, he was the only son of Annie (nee Mason) and Thomas Arthur Strickland 1835-1888, a Sydney merchant, partner in Young and Lark in Moore St. His father’s tragic death, drowned in a boating accident outside North Head on Sunday 3 June 1888, forced 12 year old Tom into becoming ‘head of the house.’ Mr Strickland had left home with a ‘servant’ early in the morning to go fishing in a dinghy. A sudden squall overturned the boat and, even though he was a strong swimmer, Mr Strickland drowned as he struck out for shore to get help for his servant. Tom was required to give evidence before the Coroner’s Court which convened a few days later.

Tom went back to school, now responsible for his widowed mother and his sisters and he responded with maturity in his studies and with increasing prowess on the cricket fields.

When a Manly side of 22 was selected to play at Manly Oval against the touring English Test side captained by the formidable WG Grace just before school resumed in February 1892, 16 year old Tom was chosen. But he was bowled by the left arm slows of Bobby Peel for 0. Peel was to take 1754 wickets in 1st class cricket and 102 wickets in only 20 Tests before misbehaviour under the influence of alcohol all but terminated his career. Manly’s XXII scraped together 98 and the Englishmen won comfortably. What stories might Tom have told his Grammar classmates at College Street when he returned to school? He’d played against the legendary WG and had faced the enigmatic Bobby Peel.

His reputation as a cricketer reached the University selectors who chose him in the 1sts’ side to play Carlton in March 1893 when he had just begun attending lectures. The University 1sts were held together only by the consistency of their veteran captain, Tom Garrett. On University no1 Oval, TP Strickland batted at number 8 and made 6 but Garrett’s 90 was more than half the total.  Carlton replied promisingly at first but Garrett’s damaging bowling earned him 6 for 30 and University led by 72. When University batted again, Strickland batted at first drop but was bowled for 4. Nevertheless, he was selected for the next match, against Belvedere. This time, University’s collapse, was complete. Garrett made 1. No one got to double figures and University were knocked over for 31. Strickland was out for 0. When Belvedere reached 0 for 60, rain set in a reduced University’s misery  to a 1st innings loss only.

Strickland prospered in Civil Engineering and prepared for another cricket season. 1893-94 was the first season of Electoral Cricket but this did not seem to affect the University side significantly as they were able to select students, graduates and some who were neither. When 18 year old TP Strickland was chosen for the round 3 match against East Sydney at the SCG, he took the field behind 35 year old Tom Garrett and some other older undergraduates such as the 22 year old Engineering student Norman White.

Again he batted at 8; again he failed with 4; again University was bowled out cheaply, for 136. But something different happened. On the second day, Easts lost their last 7 for 30 (Garrett 5-34) and University had a slender lead which they had increased to 254 when stumps were drawn. 3rd Year Medicine student, Erskine Robison was 113 not out, University’s first century in Grade Cricket. He was to die only six years later while working in a TB sanitorium in Germany. The third day was washed out and University remained the only side to defeat the Premiers, East Sydney.  Strickland had played his last 1st Grade game but he continued to score runs in 2nd Grade and to act as Honorary Secretary of the Club for two seasons and to play tennis and to win glittering academic prizes, When he graduated, B Eng in March 1897, it was with 1st Class Honours and with the Gold Medal.

He was awarded a scholarship to McGill University in Montreal where he earned a Masters in Science before working for some time in New York. Returning to Sydney in 1902, he was appointed Assistant Engineer of the NSW Government Railways and Tramways and he married Gertrude Emily Hayes 1875-1961. They were to have three daughters.

From 1921 to 1938, Strickland was Chief Engineer of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board. He inherited a ramshackle 216 trams with an astounding 21 different designs and he set about designing a new standard tram. The ‘W Class’ tram was in operation until 1969 and a successor the ‘W8 Class’ which survives.

He made just 14 runs in 4 innings for University 1sts and he played just one ‘1st Grade’ game but when he died aged 79, many Melbournians tipped their hat to him.

JAMES RODGERS

A Singular Honour (Part 7)

Professor WC Gissane CBE lived and worked for most of his adult life in England, from 1927 until his death 54 years later.

From 1941, he was the first Clinical Director and Surgeon-In-Chief of the Birmingham Accident Hospital where he did invaluable work in reducing the number of road and industrial accidents. A medical device was even named after him. ‘The Critical Angle of Gissane’ helps determine the presence of a calcaneous fracture on a lateral foot x-ray on a radiograph. From 1964, he was Honorary Professor of Accident Surgery and, in recognition of his services to Medicine, he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1964. He was a Vice President of the Warwickshire County Cricket Club.

In Sydney, he had played one 1st Grade game of cricket.

Or had he?

He had been born in Redfern on 26 April 1898, the son of a tea merchant, and he completed his school education at St Ignatius’ College Riverview from 1915 to 1917. He was appointed one of five College Prefects and was a confident speaker in the debating teams. He played for the 1st XV Rugby team as a winger and for the 1st XI cricket team as vice-captain and a batsman/keeper. In the 1st XV competition, Riverview finished second, beaten only by Sydney Grammar, and fair haired Gissane earned praise for “handling and kicking” and criticism for being “weak at tackling.” He was small in stature but was to grow to 5 feet 9 inches over the next few years. In the 1st XI, captained by Jim Sullivan (1899-1993), a future Sydney University player, Gissane was a reliable batsman early in the order and his figures were creditable, 491 runs @32. Both Sullivan and Gissane were selected for the Combined GPS 1st XI that played Sydney University in December 1916 on University no1 Oval in front of a few hundred spectators. The GPS side was thoroughly outplayed as University rattled up 8 for 288 in reply to the GPS total of only 110. Gissane, batting down the order, shaped nicely for 11. University’s rather casual attitude drew sharp comment from The Referee. The University players were inexcusably late back from lunch and had left the schoolboys and the umpires waiting. Gissane kept wickets untidily.

Nevertheless, when Gissane came to study Medicine there, he turned out for the Club’s 2nd Grade in 1919-20 where he scored steadily, 173 runs @21.6, including a commanding 74 against Randwick. He also represented the Sydney University Football (Rugby) Club’s 2nd Grade side. From then on, his appearances in the University teams were confined mainly to 2nd and 3rd Grades where, in cricket, he scored some runs regularly and even took up bowling with some success in 3rd Grade. He worked diligently at his studies.

When Malcolm Jagleman was unavailable for the 1921-22  game on 8-15 October, Gissane was summoned to University no1 Oval to keep wickets for 1st Grade against Balmain (SUCC 1st Grade cap no190). The first day was affected by weather and Balmain batted strongly to go to stumps at 2 for 86. Gissane took the first catch from the bowling of Albert Kendall when the future Test player, ‘Hammy’ Love, snicked one. On the second day, Balmain collapsed for 143 and University batted out the day to finish at 9 for 243. Ray Boyce (76) and Max Hesslein (74) led the way but Gissane, batting at number 9 was bowled by Storey for 2.

Gissane went back to 2nd Grade and then 3rds and onto graduation and to England where he did further studies, practised Medicine and  married a nurse, Marion Dorothy (nee Mason), in 1938. They were to have one son, William (1940-2015) who became a chemical engineer.

What hasn’t been realized until recently was that before brief war service and before beginning studies in Medicine, Gissane had actually played two other 1st Grade games. But not for University! In March 1918, when he was living in Auburn, he played for Wests against North Sydney and batted at number 3 on his 1st Grade debut before being bowled by the ageless Clarrie Hogue for 11. Then, next week, against Sydney, Gissane was caught for 6 and that was the end of his 1st Grade career with Wests. 2 innings, 17 runs.

Seven months later, Gissane enlisted in the AIF at South Head. He had grown to a size where he was to box in the light heavyweight division at University. The Armistice was signed two weeks after Gissane enlisted and he soon swapped his military uniform for an academic gown.

Jim Sullivan admired him. Years later, he referred to ‘Bill’ Gissane as a “tidy cricketer”, a “good cobber” and a “smart cove.”

One footnote to his brief 1st Grade career was that he came up against two of the most enduring slow bowlers who have ever played in Australia.

When he made his 1st Grade debut for Wests in 1918, he was bowled by North Sydney’s Clarrie Hogue who was then less than half-way through his astonishing career. Hogue had first played in 1887 and he was to continue to play for 72 years until finally putting his creams away in 1959.

When Gissane played his one 1st Grade game with University in 1921, the peripatetic ‘H Ironmonger’, who had come up from Victoria at the start of the season, opened the bowling. This was ‘Bert’, ironically nicknamed ‘Dainty’, Ironmonger who consistently claimed to be younger than he really was. During the 1921-22 season, he turned 39 but was yet to play Test cricket where he took 74 cheap wickets. When he played the last of his 14 Tests for Australia in the infamous ‘Bodyline’ series of 1932-33, he had already, extraordinarily, celebrated his fiftieth birthday. He played on in club cricket at a reasonable level until he was 60.

Jim Sullivan ensured that Bill Gissane, his classmate and teammate, was not to be forgotten.

Here is a little more about a man who played one 1st Grade game for University in a remarkable career of service.

JAMES RODGERS

A Singular Honour (Part 6)

  AMBROSE WILLIAM FREEMAN 1873-1930

In 1941, as the war in the Pacific edged ever closer to Australia's doorstep, a widow donated a stately family country home, Berida in Bowral,  to the Red Cross for the use of convalescing Australian servicemen.

Doctor Jessie Strathorn  Aspinall (1880-1953) married Ambrose William Freeman (1873-1930) in 1915 and from 1925, they lived with their four children at Berida, 6 David Street, Bowral. One of their granddaughters was named Berida.

From 1990, Berida with its 43 guest rooms, adjacent to Berida Golf Club, has been known as Berida Manor or Berida Hotel.

The Freeman family was clothed in mourning during the Great War. Six weeks before Jessie and Ambrose were married by Jessie's father, Reverend Arthur Ashworth Aspinall (1846-1929), the first Principal and co-founder of The Scots College in Sydney,  one of Ambrose's brothers, Douglas, was killed at Quinns Post, Gallipoli on 3 May 1915, the week after their cousin, Colonel HN MacLaurin, was killed at what is now known as MacLaurin's  Hill.

In September 1917, Jessie's youngest brother, a medical doctor, Captain William Robert Aspinall MC, aged 24, was killed at Ypres while attending to a wounded soldier.

Service and duty and sacrifice were never far from the family. Jessie Aspinall had graduated MB ChM from the University of Sydney in 1906. Her appointment as the first female Resident Medical Officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital had been initially refused by the RPA Board who were forced to relent when newspaper editorials and correspondents railed against the injustice of their decision.

Ambrose Freeman, second son of William Freeman, one-time President of the NSW Land Court, was educated at Newington College and the University of Sydney. He graduated BA 1896 and BEng (Mining and Metallurgy) 1904. He and an older brother owned tin mines in the Malayan States. On a trip back from Malaya in October 1930, he fell fatally ill and was buried at sea.

Ambrose's richly varied life had portentous episodes and brushes with fame. He had been a 1st grade cricketer for exactly one game - for Sydney University against Sydney CC at Rushcutters Bay Oval in October 1902. He took no wickets in the Sydney first innings, made 0 not out batting last in University's faltering reply and then, entrusted with the ball for a few overs in Sydney's second innings, he had Quist stumped by Edgar Waddy for 37.

We are talking of Karl Hugo Quist (1875-1957), a batsman with three States (NSW, Western Australia and South Australia), father of Adrian Quist (1913-1991), the Australian Davis Cup player, once ranked third in the world. Freeman played no more. His recondite statistics: one first grade game, no runs, one wicket.

Between degrees, Freeman worked on the Western Australian goldfields. He had business dealings with an engineer who became the thirty-first President of the USA, Herbert Hoover.

At Sydney University he was an inveterate organiser amid the insouciance of university life, variously Honorary Secretary of the Rugby Club, St Andrew's College Ball Committee and the Grounds Committee of the Sports Union. He was also a Vice President of the Undergraduates' Association in 1903.

Did he have a famous connection with Bowral before he and Jessie built there in 1925? Or was there just a coincidence in surnames?

Ambrose's father was William and his grandfather was Henry. Earlier genealogical family details seem to peter out there.

Was he related to another William Freeman (1770-1820), an English convict who had been transported to NSW in 1792? William married another convict, Elizabeth Chaffrey (1780-1816). They produced seven sons and Lucy (1804-1827), their only daughter.

Was Ambrose Freeman's grandfather Henry the son of one of the seven sons?
Lucy married William Augustus Cupitt (1797-1866).  Either before Lucy died or just after, William took up with and eventually married Rebecca Charlton and they moved to Mittagong. The historians, Bernadette Mahony and Rodney Cavalier, first established that one of Rebecca's and William's children was Mary Cupitt (1827-1871) whose extra marital affair with Emmanuel Neich (Danero) (1807-1893) produced Sophia Jane Cupitt (1846-1926), the grandmother of Don Bradman. See Between Wickets (Summer 2014-15).

Sophia married William Whatman. Their sixth child, Emily, was Don's mother. Neich's first wife. Mary Ann Comer, was the daughter of a convict, James Comer.

In 1925 when the Freemans were moving into Berida in David Street, another family had just moved from 52 Shepherd Street to 20 Glebe St, just a few minutes' walk from each other. This was the cricket season when 17 year old Don Bradman, playing for Bowral against Wingello, scored an astounding 234, batting against his future Australian teammate, Bill O'Reilly.

Were Ambrose and Don related? Ambrose Freeman played one first grade game. Don Bradman was statistically the greatest cricketer the world has known. Don was a great great grandson of William Cupitt, the first husband of the  daughter of William Freeman, a convict.

Was Ambrose the great great great grandson of the convict William Freeman?

               We may never know.

              But he did play one 1st Grade game with Sydney University.

                            JAMES RODGERS

A Singular Honour (Part 5)

Percy Brereton Colquhuon 1866-1936

In tumultuous political times in NSW during the first two decades of the twentieth century, on the conservative side of politics, lawyers with established connections were seen as ideal managers of parliamentary business and as representatives of the people.

Australian political parties of the first decade of the new century, however, were fluid rather than exclusively tribal entities. Amalgamations, alliances, mergers, coalitions were all common. Changes of name and various iterations abounded.

Candidates for the conservative parties in NSW benefited from friendships, alliances and connections. Sporting ability was considered especially useful. Birth into well-connected families was a distinct advantage.

Charles Gregory (known as Greg) Wade (1863-1922) led the Liberal Reform Party for ten years after Joseph Carruthers’ resignation because of ill-health. Carruthers himself had been a useful cricketer and was associated with the Sydney University Cricket Club. A Gladstonian Liberal, Carruthers had revitalised the Liberals by adopting some of the ideas of the right wing Peoples’ Reform League. Wade became the seventeenth Premier of NSW 1907-10. David Clune, pre-eminent historian of NSW politics, describes Wade as “a man of poor judgement and inflexible temperament . . . which cost him dearly at the 1910 election.”

Before the 1913 election, Wade, now in Opposition, sponsored a distinguished sportsman who stood for and won the newly-created seat of Mosman.

Wade and his new parliamentary colleague shared a number of similarities. Both were lawyers before entering Parliament. Both were from the comfortable, ruling classes. Born three years after his leader, Percy Brereton Colquhuon (1866-1936) enjoyed established connections in Sydney society as the son of English-born George Colquhuon (1830-1901), NSW Crown Solicitor from 1894.

Colquhuon had been educated by a tutor at home in Maitland and then, when his family moved to Sydney, at St Paul’s Redfern, a school aligned with St Paul’s Church of England in the same suburb.  At Newington College Stanmore 1881-85 he captained both the 1st XI and 1st XV. In his early years he came under the influence of the Headmaster Joseph Coates (1844-1896) a towering figure of the Sydney University Cricket Club who had captained the NSW Sheffield Shield side, taking 76 extraordinarily cheap wickets in first class cricket. Coates’ ability as a sportsman endeared him to the boys at Newington and then at Sydney High School where he was also Headmaster.

Colquhuon played cricket and Rugby for Sydney University from 1885 but was not an undergraduate except for the two years he was enrolled in Arts I, 1885 and 1891 (when he was an evening student and also resident at St Paul’s College). Qualifications for the University sides were loose. Colquhuon took advantage of liberal interpretations while working by day for many of these years as an articled clerk to his father at Allen and Allen’s legal firm. He was admitted as a solicitor without taking a degree in 1891.

Although he had been a dominant cricketer at Newington, Colquhuon saw cricket as a mere pastime after school. He played irregularly in the University 1sts of 1885 and 1886 as a lower order batsman, before answering the call in February 1896 for one last and relatively successful appearance in 1st Grade against Cumberland when he scored 19 not out. This was his only game for the Club in the recently instituted ‘Electoral Competition’ and, thus, this was his only 1st Grade appearance. The team was short of numbers and Colquhuon happened to be in Sydney. Another Newington old boy, the former Test player, Tom Garrett, was captain. Colquhuon was available on the three Saturdays so he played  at the SCG, the ground on which he had won the 220 yards handicap race at the University sports in 1891.

University had been having a dismal season. Bowled out for 30 in Round 1 by Easts, the batting faltered in almost every game. In this game, University’s 151 owed much to Roley Pope, the former Test cricketer, who made 52. Colquhoun’s 19 was third highest score. But when Cumberland batted, Frank Iredale made 124 and his side won comfortably. Colquhuon was needed no more but things went from dismal to chaotic in the next game when three University players were ‘absent’ in the side’s 2nd innings.

In rugby Colquhuon excelled. He was an outside back in the formidable University Rugby sides especially in the 1880s. He represented NSW in 33 games including some as captain. Connections with the Wade family were established. One of Greg Wade’s brothers, Leslie (1864-1915), also played rugby for NSW in the same years as Colquhuon.

“In his day, Mr Colquhuon was probably the most notable all-round athlete in Australia,” observed the Newingtonian in September 1918.

He represented NSW 55 times in tennis. When his time in rugby and tennis concluded, he played for the State in lawn bowls and golf.

While playing tennis that he met Mabel Ann Shaw (1867-1914), a second cousin of George Bernard Shaw. (Mabel’s grandfather, John Shaw, was GBS’s great uncle.) Miss Shaw was Colquhuon’s doubles partner when they won the NSW Championships in 1896. They were married on 30 April 1897. In November 1909, Colquhuon, by then President of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australasia, refereed the first Davis Cup to be held in Sydney when Australasia defeated USA 5-0.

Percy Colquhuon won the Mosman seat for the Liberal Reform Party at the NSW election held on 6 December 1913 although he had lived in the electorate for only a short time. The  Labor Party under the leadership of William Holman was returned to government reasonably comfortably with 49 seats in the 90-seat Legislative Assembly.

Because of their ages, neither Wade nor Colquhuon served in the Great War (Wade was 51 at the beginning of the War and Colquhuon was 48), both had served as Senior NCOs in the Cadet Units at King’s and Newington and Colquhuon served as a Lieutenant in the part-time 1st NSW Infantry in the 1890s, another factor to give him credibility among the conservatives.

When the next NSW election was held on 24 March 1917, Colquhuon again stood for Mosman as a representative of the new party, Liberal Nationalist, which won in a landslide with 52 seats to the 33 held by “Honest John” Storey’s Labor Party. Colquhuon, back in government in the Holman administration, was Chairman of  Committees. In such an important role, his debating skills and knowledge of constitutional law were invaluable.

In 1920 with the introduction of proportional representation, individual constituencies were absorbed into an agglomeration of approximately five former seats. Mosman became part of the seat of Middle Harbour. Colquhuon left politics. Labor was back in power with a majority of one. Wade had returned to Australia and was a Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW until his death in 1922. Colquhuon, now a widower of seven years, concentrated on his legal practice until 1935, played tennis for Mosman, was a trustee of Taronga Zoo, surfed, grew flowers at his Mosman home where died in 1936.

The two party system threw up contrasts and conflicts, often based on backgrounds and formal education. Sport united briefly and occasionally but distinctions remained.

For all that, Percy Colquhuon remains one of the more multi-talented sportsmen ever to enter NSW politics.

And he played just one 1st Grade game in the competition that came to be known as ‘Grade Cricket’.

A version of this article appeared in the ‘Southern Highlands Newsletter’ in 2018 and I am grateful for the editor’s invaluable assistance.

James Rodgers

SUCC Trivia Night

Date: Thursday September 30
Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Format: Online Trivia via Zoom
Teams: Teams of 4 to be nominated by team captain prior to 12pm September 25 or participants can individually register to be allocated to a group by event admin
Admins: Admins are AJ Grant, Max Hope & Ash Cowan
Prizes: Prizes and bragging rights on offer

Registration opens from next week!

Any questions or queries get in touch with AJ Grant:
aj-grant@hotmail.com

A Singular Honour (Part 4)

  WHO FACED THE FIRST BALL? WCF BURFITT or EH BURKITT (1st Grade cap #2)?

127 years after he played his only game in 1st Grade for Sydney University, a player whose name has been confused for so many years was found.

Walter Charles Fitzmaurice Burfitt was the name of the player who, it has been thought, opened the batting in University’s initial 1st Grade game in Electorate Cricket (later called ‘Grade Cricket’ now ‘Premier Cricket’) in 1893. Burfitt was eventually a distinguished surgeon who, as an undergraduate, resided at St John’s College during the 1890s. He had been a cricketer at school (Riverview) and it would have been reasonable to conclude that it was he who played this game.

But, in various places, the name was given as either ‘BURFITT’ or ‘BURKITT’.

There wasn’t much to go on and Walter Burfitt was listed in the stories of the Sydney University Cricket Club as the more likely player.

Why would this be important? At best, it sounds trivial, obscure, irrelevant.

Except that, whoever this was, appears to have been the University batsman who faced the first ball bowled in University’s 1st innings of the first game of Electorate Cricket on the first day (of a three-day game) between University and Glebe at Wentworth Park on 7 October 1893.

Historically, it’s reasonably important to know just who this was.

His partner who walked out with him to the polite applause of the 2000 spectators after University had dismissed Glebe for 128 was ‘H Moses’. Harry Moses? The Test cricketer who played six Tests 1886-1892 and who played briefly for University? No, this was Henry C Moses, Harry’s nephew who has also been difficult to track down. After this, he played one more match for University (3 innings, 36 runs); he dosen’t appear to have been an undergraduate; he disappeared from the Club. ‘Burfitt’ or ‘Burkitt’ is caught from the bowling of Andy Newell for 10, doesn’t bat in the 2nd innings and plays no more.

So, Burfitt or Burkitt?

More research reveals…

EH Burkitt was also a Medical student at Sydney University about this time although Burkitt was eight years older than Burfitt.

In 1892, EH Burkitt had been awarded one of the first twelve University Blues for Rugby. A little more research uncovers these facts:

Edmond Henry Burkitt was born on 14 November 1867 in the village of Charlton in Wiltshire, England, son of Reverend WE Burkitt, and he was educated at Saugreen preparatory school at Bournemouth and then at Hurstpierpoint, the Anglo-Catholic College in West Sussex. He and his three brothers emigrated to Australia in 1886. From 1887 until 1890, he was employed to teach at The Kings School Parramatta.

Why Kings?

Well, WR Burkitt was Senior Master at Kings from 1868 until 1886. He was a player with the Wallaroo Rugby Club in Sydney and he introduced Rugby Football to Kings in 1870. He is well remembered at Kings. One of their Houses is named Burkitt and the Burkitt Shield has been awarded as a senior prize since 1910.

Were WR Burkitt and EH Burkitt related?

Edmond Burkitt entered St Paul’s College at Sydney University and enrolled in Medicine in 1891.

‘Burkitt’ played 2nd Grade cricket for University (5 innings for 29 runs) and then, in December 1892, he scored 11 in University’s mammoth score against the old Warwick Club. Then in October 1893, is it Burkitt, not Burfitt, who opens the batting in that historically significant game?

EH Burkitt was Senior Student at St Paul’s in 1894; graduated MB ChM in 1896; married Amy Theodora Hungerford in 1898; practised medicine for a few years at Coonamble before spending the rest of his life at Dubbo where he and his wife raised three daughters and a son. They name the family home ‘Westbury’, the name of the town near Charlton where Edmond was born and where the famous chalk figure of a horse is cut into the hillside.

At the age of 48, Dr Burkitt enlisted in the 1st AIF in 1916 and sailed to France with the 4th Australian Field Ambulance and was eventually promoted to the rank of Major. During the horrific slaughter in France, his care for the wounded was much appreciated by the soldiers.

When he returned home in late 1917, he resumed medical practice, was President of the Dubbo Branch of the RSL, an Alderman on the Dubbo Council and an enthusiast for a number of sports, including cricket. When he died of inoperable cancer in 1925, grief was widespread.

One of his obituarists mentioned that Dr Burkitt had played his last games of cricket the previous season when he would have been 56.

At the Sydney University Cricket Club, there was no obituary. He was forgotten, not even known by his correct name.

Until now…Edmond Henry Burkitt faced the first ball on the first day of the first match in Electorate Cricket that Sydney University ever played.

And this was his only game in 1st Grade.

James Rodgers

A Singular Honour (Part 3)

                                                                         JOHN WALTER FLETCHER

                                                                                 1847-1918

                                                                   “The father of football in Australia”

.

What is the connection with cricket’s famed Ashes and with the establishment of Football (Soccer) in Australia?

One man, John Walter Fletcher, who also played just one 1st Grade game with SUCC.

              In late 1875,  a recently arrived Englishman, John Walter Fletcher, was employed as an Assistant Master in a country school in NSW Southern Highlands. Fletcher was a graduate of Oxford, and an enthusiastic sportsman who immediately introduced Tennis to the school and constructed what is thought to be the first tennis court in Australia, at Oaklands. Fletcher introduced the study of History and Geography to the school but he quickly became disillusioned with its administration. Numbers were small. The boys were rough and dishevelled and bullying was in much evidence. In addition, the Headmaster’s insistence on religious instruction in the Roman Catholic faith was at odds with Fletcher’s adherence to the Church of England. By 1876, Fletcher had moved to Sydney and within a few years, he established his own school, Coreen College, firstly at Bondi, then at Katoomba.

Fletcher had been born in London on 11 May 1847 and christened John Walter Rolt Fletcher. But Fletcher was his mother’s surname (Harriett Amy Fletcher 1823-1904) and Rolt was his father’s surname (Sir John Rolt, 1804-1871, Member of Parliament and Attorney General for England). JWR Fletcher was born out of wedlock, product of a brief liason between the unmarried Harriett and John Rolt who was at the same time married to Sarah Bosworth. At some stage, JWR Fletcher  dropped Rolt from his name and he seems to have had little to do with his father. JW Fletcher was well educated firstly at Redhill School in Surrey and then Cheltenham Grammar School before he went up to Pembroke College Oxford University in 1865, aged 17. He majored in History and graduated with a class II degree, BA, in 1869 and MA (for which he paid rather than studied for) in 1871. In 1867, he was admitted to Inner Temple beginning pupillage as a barrister. At Oxford, he was a one-mile runner, earning his blue for Athletics, and he played cricket for ‘an Oxford XI’ (not the 1st XI) in minor matches.

 In 1877, Fletcher married Anne Marian Clarke (1851-1936) who had been born in Dublin and she eventually managed her husband’s boarding school at Katoomba. It was Anne Fletcher who, in 1883, embroidered a red velvet bag with a design created by the Yorkshire-born artist, William Blamire Young (who later taught at Katoomba College). This velvet bag contained the urn presented to Ivo Bligh’s English cricket team following their victory over Australia in 1882-83. The urn contained the ashes of a bail, presented to Bligh at Rupertswood, home of Sir William  and Lady Janet Clarke. A letter from Ivo Bligh to Anne Fletcher is still at Lords along with the legendary ‘Ashes’.

 Fletcher  also played cricket in Sydney. During the 1877-78 season, just after leaving Mittagong, he made runs regularly and reliably (128 at 21.3) for Sydney University’s 1st XI before ‘Grade cricket’ commenced. On unpredictable wickets and with rough-hewn implements, he played patiently  with an admirably straight bat. He kept wickets and occasionally bowled his ‘underhand slows’, although the writer of the Club’s 13th Annual Report admonished him for bowling no balls at practice from 18 yards.

 After this one season with University, Fletcher transferred to the Albert Club, batting low in the order and bowling occasionally. In November 1881, he scored 39 against his old club, and in University’s rapid innings of 328, he was given the ball as an afterthought. In 8 overs of varied bowling, he took 6 for 36 including the wickets of three Test players. Admittedly, Sam Jones and Reginald Allen  had put on 231 for the 1st wicket before Fletcher was summoned to the bowling crease  with his underarm lobs, but Jones hit a catch to mid off,  Allen was caught and bowled and then Garrett, Teece, Powell and Wright all succumbed to catches from Fletcher’s erratic offerings. There is record of him playing in Hobart in January 1881 for ‘EW Wallington’s XI’ against Hobart Town in a two day match when he made 23 and kept wickets. In December 1882, an unlikely selection placed him in the ‘NSW Squad’ for the Intercolonial game against Victoria in Melbourne. He was not selected in the XI but was probably the thirteenth man and acted as scorer. He did not come as close to selection for NSW ever again.

  Fletcher’s cricket career had one final resurrection.

 When JW Fletcher walked onto the Association Ground (the SCG) on 3 March 1894, he was resuming a career with the Sydney University Cricket Club that had begun and apparently ended 16 years previously. He is cap number 25 among the Club’s 1st Graders and the oldest 1st Grade debutant in Grade cricket for the Club.

How did a 46 year old come to play in a side, in this first season of ‘Electoral Cricket’ or Grade Cricket, that included  eight undergraduates half his age? The depression of the 1890s had forced Fletcher to close his school, Katoomba College, and to reinvent himself as a barrister now living in Sydney and once more available to answer Garrett’s call to play for his old Club.

This was the first season of ‘Electoral Cricket’ but while other clubs’ players represented their electorates, University’s players were permitted to play for the University even though their connections with the institution may have been tenuous. So, when Tom Garrett called Fletcher into the team, he joined eight undergraduates and two other veterans. RC Allen, aged 35, was making his only appearance for the Club for the season. He had played one Test Match in 1886-87 and had been playing for University since 1876. Tom Garrett was also 35. He had played for University since 1873 when he was 15 years old and he had since  played 19 Test Matches. Fletcher, a graduate but not from Sydney University, was an elderly 46 years of age.

In this three day game played over three Saturdays, play was delayed by wet weather until 4pm on the first day. Paddington batted first ”to the delight of the Varsity men.” Harrie Wood took 5 cheap wickets. Garrett took 3. Fletcher took 2 catches and Paddington was dismissed for 62. When play continued on 10 March, University resumed  at 0 for 2  but was all out 54 . Fletcher, batting at eight, made just 3 but this was fifth highest score in a dismal innings. In conditions that favoured batting on the third Saturday, Paddington made 9-314. Garrett who bowled 39 productive overs (5-84) threw Fletcher the ball but his five overs cost 30 without success and he had played his first and last game in ‘Grade’ cricket.

In November 1893, Fletcher had been admitted to the NSW Bar. For one school term he returned to his original profession when he served as ‘locum tenens’ at the Shore School in North Sydney. For 16 years he was then a police magistrate in various NSW country towns until he retired in 1914 and lived in Neutral Bay where he died in 1918. He was seemingly forgotten and unrecorded by  his first and last cricket club, Sydney University.

If this was all that he ever did, JW Fletcher could be said to have led a full life. But that’s not all.

One of John and Anne’s sons was John William Fletcher (1884-1965), who, like his grandfather Sir John Rolt, was a parliamentarian, Nationalist member for Port Curtis in Queensland from 1920, when he won the seat from the sitting ALP member, George Carter, to 1923 when Carter retook the seat. While the University Club’s Report of 1878 had predicted incorrectly that John Walter Fletcher would be an intercolonial player, John William did represent his State. In 1909-10, he played three games for Queensland, twice against NSW and once against Victoria. In his second game, in Sydney, he made a stylish 47 but his other five innings produced only 50 runs and the game against Victoria in Brisbane in February 1910 was his last first class game (and Bert Ironmonger’s first, in a career that lasted until 1936 when he was aged 55). He was appointed OBE in 1941.

Of John and Anne’s daughters, one, Nora Kathleen, worked in England and France during the Great War in charge of the first batch of Red Cross nurses, matron in chief of the British Red Cross. She was awarded the CBE in 1920. Another daughter, Anne Judith (1886-1971), was a well-known photographer with studios in George St in Sydney.

Finally, this remarkable man, John Walter Fletcher, whose career illustrates much about Australian colonial life, is known as “the father of Football in Australia.” Philip Mosely has written a significant history, Soccer in Australia 1880-1980, and a biographical sketch of John Walter Fletcher. Mosely reports that on 3 August 1880, Fletcher was elected honorary secretary of the committee set up to form an ‘Association Rules’ football club. He then arranged for the first match to take place eleven days later. Mosely writes:

                                  “Although others had been involved in the foundation years of soccer in Australia, Fletcher stands central to the key developments.”

On Saturday 14 August 1880, on Parramatta Common, the first organised game was played between a team representing The Kings School Parramatta and ‘The Wanderers’. When the Western Sydney Club joined the A League in 2012, it was named ‘The Wanderers’. In 1999, John Walter Fletcher was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame.

He first taught in Australia at Mittagong, where he introduced Tennis to Australia.

He was a schoolmaster, a barrister, a cricketer, an athlete, a footballer, and….the father of football in Australia.

James Rodgers