Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868

The Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868 was a cricket team made up of Australian Aborigines that toured England between May and October 1868, the first Australian cricket team to travel overseas. The first tour by an Australian team classed as representative was not made until 1878. International sporting contact was rare in this era. Previously, only three cricket teams had travelled abroad, all English: to the United States and Canada in 1859, and Australia in 1861–62 and 1863–64.

Background

From the early 1860s, cricket matches between Aborigines and whites were played on the cattle stations of the Wimmera district, in western Victoria, where many Aborigines worked as stockmen. The athletic skills of the Aborigines were evident and eventually a series of matches were played with the intention of forming a strong Aboriginal team.

Tom Wills managed and coached the team, which played a match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day 1866 that attracted 8,000 spectators. An entrepreneur, Captain Gurnett, persuaded the team to play in Sydney with a plan to travel on to Brisbane and then tour England. However, after their arrival in Sydney, Gurnett embezzled some of the funds raised to finance the enterprise, leaving the team stranded.

The Aborigines returned to Victoria and a second attempt to organise a tour of England was initiated by new financial backers. The former Surrey professional cricketer Charles Lawrence, who coached the Albert Club in Sydney, became coach and manager of the team.

Team members

*Johnny Mullagh - traditional name: Unaarrimin
*Bullocky - traditional name: Bullchanach
*Sundown - traditional name: Ballrinjarrimin
*Dick-a-Dick - traditional name: Jungunjinanuke
*Johnny Cuzens - traditional name: Zellanach
*King Cole - traditional name: Bripumyarrimin
*Red Cap - traditional name: Brimbunyah
*Twopenny - traditional name: Murrumgunarriman
*Charley Dumas - traditional name: Pripumuarraman
*Jimmy Mosquito - traditional name: Grougarrong
*Tiger - traditional name: Boninbarngeet

During June, King Cole died from tuberculosis and was buried in Tower Hamlets in London. Sundown and Jim Crow went home in August due to ill-health.

The tour

The team arrived in London in May 1868 [ [http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/98/98650.html Surrey Club v Australian Aboriginals] ] and were met with a degree of fascination - that being the period of the evolutionary controversies following publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" in 1859. Reaction was mixed. "The Times" described the tourists as, "a travestie upon cricketing at Lord’s", and, "the conquered natives of a convict colony." "The Daily Telegraph" said of Australia that, "nothing of interest comes from there except gold nuggets and black cricketers."

The first match was played at The Oval and attracted 20,000 spectators, presumably many attending out of curiosity for a strange-looking race rather than for cricket. "The Times" reported:

"Their hair and beards are long and wiry, their skins vary in shades of blackness, and most of them have broadly expanded nostrils. Having been brought up in the bush to agricultural pursuits under European settlers, they are perfectly civilised and are quite familiar with the English language."

"The Daily Telegraph" wrote:

It is highly interesting and curious, to see mixed in a friendly game on the most historically Saxon part of our island, representatives of two races so far removed from each other as the modern Englishman and the Aboriginal Australian. Although several of them are native bushmen, and all are as black as night, these Indian fellows are to all intents and purposes, clothed and in their right minds.

Altogether, the Aborigines played 47 matches throughout England over a period of six months, winning 14, losing 14 and drawing 19; a good result that surprised many at the time. Their skills were said to range from individuals who were exceptional to two or three who hardly contributed at all. The outstanding player was Johnny Mullagh, who scored 1,698 runs and took 245 wickets. An English fast bowler of the time, George Tarrant, bowled to Mullagh during a lunch interval and later said, "I have never bowled to a better batsman."

In addition to playing cricket, the Aborigines frequently put on an exhibition of boomerang and spear throwing at the conclusion of a match. Dick-a-Dick held a narrow parrying shield and had people throw cricket balls at him, which he warded off with the shield. The Aboriginal side was narrowly beaten in a cricket ball throwing competition by 20-year-old W. G. Grace, who threw 118 yards.

Aftermath

The team arrived back in Sydney in February 1869. They played a match against a military team the following month, then split up. Twopenny later moved to New South Wales and played for the colony against Victoria in 1870. Cuzens died of dysentery the following year. Mullagh was employed as a professional with the Melbourne Cricket Club and represented Victoria against the touring English team in 1879, when he top-scored in the second innings.

The Central Board for Aborigines ruled in 1869 that it would be illegal to remove any Aborigine from the colony of Victoria without the approval of the government minister. This effectively curtailed the involvement of Aborigines in the game.

Film

A 2002 documentary film — "A fine body of Gentleman" made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Film Illawarra and directed by Geoff Burton described the background to each of the players and the matches in detail. [cite web|url=http://www.filmillawarra.org.au/finebody.html|title=A Fine Body of Gentlemen|accessdate=2005-22-05|work=Film Illawarra]

Footnotes

References

*cite book|title=Lords' Dreaming: Cricket on the Run - The 1868 Aboriginal Tour of England|author=Ashley Mallett|year=2002|isbn=ISBN 0-285-63640-5
*cite book|title=Passport To Nowhere: Aborigines In Australian Cricket 1850-1939|author=Bernard Whimpress|publisher=Walla Walla Press, Sydney|year=1999|isbn=1-87671-806-4
*cite book|title=Cricket Walkabout: The Australian Aborigines In England|author=John Mulvaney and Rex Harcourt|publisher=Macmillan Australia|year=1988|isbn=0-333-43086-7

ee also

*Australian cricket team
*History of Test cricket (to 1883)

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20051228003828/svc003.wic001g.server-web.com/events/cricket/Cricket_2003/history/1868.asp ATSIC article]
* [http://www.atmitchell.com/journeys/social/cricket/first/score.cfm First Tour Scorebook - State Library of NSW]