Tour of Australia 1878-79                Captain : Lord Harris

Second Test-playing tour of Australia by an English side

(September 1878 - March 1879)

In the spring of 1878 Curtis Reid, secretary of Victoria’s Melbourne Cricket Club, had invited a team of English amateurs described as 'The Gentlemen of England' to tour Australia, urging that two professional cricketers should accompany them to ensure that the bowling was strong. The Middlesex cricketing family, the Walkers, took responsibility for all the tour arrangements though they were subsequently prevented from participating on the tour because of a death in the family.

Isaac Walker, who would have been captain, assessed that his party "…ought to hold its own against any but the very strongest team. I certainly think it would defeat the Australian eleven now over here."

Lord Harris, who had previously accompanied an English cricket side to North America in 1872, was asked to captain the side In his absence. Harris led the team to victory in the colony matches but lost heavily the sole "Test match" played against the 1878 touring Australians.

Accompanying the team was its own umpire, a 22 year-old from Victoria, George Coulthard, who travelled with them from match to match. At Sydney his decision to dismiss the New South Wales batsman Murdoch run out, whereupon the non-striking batsman was called off in protest, provoked uproar. The crowd invaded the pitch and jostled the team; Lord Harris was twice struck with a stick, and play was called off for the day while peace was restored. Eventually, the presumed culprits were charged with assault and fined but his lordship was not satisfied.

The Englishmen, or particularly Harris, held the actions of a few ruffians against the whole country and he had by then already cancelled the planned return match against the Australians that would have been the tour’s second Test match. Wounded feelings between the two sides festered and Harris made the most of the quarrel, partly because of his indignation that the Australians were, like his own team, amateurs yet received payment. He would not be mollified until the following year when he agreed to get up a team to play the Australian tourists at The Oval.

All England tours

Previous Test tour

Australia 1876-77

 (James Lillywhite’s eleven)

Next Test tour

Australia 1881-82

   (Shaw's eleven)

Members of the Test tour party  (13)

Opening batsmen : ‘Bunny’ Lucas, Albert Hornby,

Middle-order batsmen:Lord Harris, Alexander Webbe, Vernon Royle, Frank Penn, Francis Mackinnon, Henry Maul

Wicket-keeper: Leland Hone

All-rounder   George Ulyett

Medium-paced bowlers: Charles Absolom, Sandford Schultz

Faster bowler:  Tom Emmett.

 ‡  The absence of a title indicates a professional cricketer

County representation

Ex  - Essex  (1)

Kt  - Kent (4)

La  -  Lancashire (3)

Mx  - Middlesex (1)

Yo -  Yorkshire (2)

Wk  - Warwickshire (1)

Maul never played first-class cricket

Ire  - Ireland (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

 (2 January 1879) :

      27 yrs 7 months.

Test Appearances made before the tour

Emmett 2,  Ulyett 2,   all others 0.

Tour officials

Selectors

The Melbourne Cricket Club received a letter in May 1878 from Isaac Walker, in which he stated that he "had got a team together" but his brother Russell Walker, the Middlesex batsman and a prominent committeeman at Lord's, played an equal part in choosing the side on behalf of the Melbourne club.

Selection

Unavailable:  Many leading cricketers, such as the Graces, were not invited.  Left-arm fast bowler Arthur Appleby of Lancashire was wanted but was unavailable for business reasons. Fred Morley was asked to tour as one of the professionals but declined to go.  Mr F R Ayres, rather than Mr Frank Penn, was originally expected to tour.

I D Walker's letter in May said that, as well as himself, his brother Russell Walker and Thomas Pearson (both of Middlesex) and George Longman (of Hampshire) were among the ten he had then chosen but none of them toured:

Original selection: Absolom, Harris, Hornby, G H Longman, Lucas, T S Pearson, Penn, I D Walker, R D Walker, Webbe.

In the end, because of the death on 4 October of their brother, A.H.Walker, none of the Walkers felt they could leave England;  nor Pearson or Longman. 

In Walker’s next list the two professionals had been added but Penn’s name was missing and David Buchanan, the best gentleman bowler in England, was included in the team.  Mackinnon, Maul, Schultz and Royle now filled the vacant places.  Leland Hone, an Irishman who never appeared for a first-class county, received a last minute invitation to tour because the team contained no other wicket-keeper, but he was scarcely up to the job.

Tour Party Announced:     September 1878

Withdrawal : David Buchanan -  Harris’s county compatriot Penn would join the tour.

Travel

Southampton  T    Adelaide

           ‘Australia’/‘Assam’

On 17 October 1878 ten of the team left Southampton on the P. & O. ship ‘Australia’, Lady Harris and Mrs Hornby accompanying their husbands. They sailed, via Gibraltar and Malta, to Suez where they were joined by Messrs Hone, Penn and Webbe who had travelled overland to Brindisi before taking a ship on to Suez. 

The whole party then sailed together on the mail ship ‘Assam’, via Galle and Calcutta, arriving at the Adelaide Bay on 3 December 1878.  That evening a coach conveyed them to Adelaide for ten days of practice before their first match.

Time spent in Australia

   98 days

(3 December - 11 March

Reinforcements

None, although Penn injured his knee at Yarra Bend (Melbourne) on 17 February and could not play again until the match in America.

Fixtures/Results

Though renamed in 1877 as the Association Ground, the cricket ground at Sydney continued to be known as Moore Park

† not first-class

Time spent in Australia before First Test:

   30 days

(3 December - 2 January)

Test appearances on tour

1 -   Absolom, Emmett, Harris, Hone, Hornby, Lucas, Mackinnon, Royle, Schultz, Ulyett, Webbe.

0 -   Maul, Penn.

Match appearances

T  Test match

x other match 

∙  played for opposition

W won  L lost  D drawn  

N no result   A abandoned  

u unknown result

England’s previous Test tour result:

in Australia 1876-77 (2 Tests)

 - drew 1 -1

Highlights

•   In the 'Test' match against Australia, 'The ‘Gentlemen of England' never recovered from their first seven wickets falling for 26 runs, and eventually lost by 10 wickets.

•  Nevertheless Emmett and Ulyett were not disgraced. They bowled 121 overs between them out of the 160 overs bowled, with Emmett taking 7- 68.

Tour Summary

† includes odds matches, limited overs, and any other non first-class.

Finances

The Melbourne Club lost about £150 on the tour. The receipts showed a gross revenue of £6500 but the club had to meet all the expenses of the amateurs and give the two professionals a fee of £200 each. The expenses of the amateurs were reckoned about £500 a man.

Return to England

Melbourne  T    San Francisco

          ‘Albion’/’Australia’

New York    T    Liverpool

                ‘

Lord Harris would not agree to play the scheduled return match against the Australians at Sydney (which would have been the second Test match), so the tour ended with the Melbourne Club's farewell dinner on 8 March. 

Emmett and Ulyett returned via Suez and arrived in England on 11 May.  

On 11 March 1879  Harris, Hornby, Hone, Schultz, Mackinnon, Absolom and Webbe embarked from Queen’s Wharf, Melbourne, on the  ss Albion  to Dunedin, New Zealand, from where they took a train to Christchurch and, after a visit to Otira Gorge, played a match against Christchurch.

The cricketers then joined the RMS Australia  at Auckland on 1 April for Honolulu and San Francisco (24 April). Before sailing from New York there was a banquet organised by the  Melbourne Cricket Club.

Lucas, Hornby, Penn, Webbe, Royle, Schultz and Hone arrived at Liverpool on 19 May;  Harris, Maul, Absolom, and Mackinnon arrived home later.

Accounts of the tour

“Diary of tour to Australia with Lord Harris’s team”  by V P F A Royle.   Copy of ms in Lancashire CCC library at Old Trafford (Padwick 2571)

Postscript