Tour of Australia  1911-12                  Captain :  Pelham Warner             

England’s twenty-first Test tour.

(September 1911- April 1912 )

Fifteenth Test-playing tour of Australia by England

   (previous tour  1907-08)

Captain C B Fry was asked to go as captain but had other commitments - on the Royal Navy training ship Mercury at Hamble, near Southampton - and prevaricated until late summer. When he finally turned it down, Pelham Warner (who had led the M.C.C. side in 1903-04) was asked to take the captaincy.

Warner scored 151 in the first match of the Australian tour but then fell ill and was unable to play again on the whole tour. He nominated Johnny Douglas to be skipper in his place although Warner continued to direct operations from his sick bed.

There are different ways in which a tour’s success can be analysed but by some measures this one might be regarded as M.C.C.’s most successful in Australia even more than Hutton’s in 1954-55, which also recovered from losing the first Test to win the Ashes. England came to the first Test in Brisbane unbeaten in all their preliminary matches but were well beaten by strong batting and Hordern’s leg-spin. However, the remaining four Test matches were all won.  Jack Hobbs took the laurels with his batting feat of scoring three centuries but the success of the tour was surely down to the two opening bowlers Foster and Barnes.

All England tours

Previous Test tour

South Africa 1909-10

Next Test tour

South Africa 1913-14

Next tour of Australia

1915-16  cancelled

1920-21

Members of the Test tour party (16)

Opening batsmen: Jack Hobbs, Wilfred Rhodes

Middle-order batsmen Frank Woolley, George Gunn,  Jack Hearne, Phil Mead, Pelham Warner, Sep Kinneir

Wicket-keeper: Herbert Strudwick, Tiger Smith

All-rounder:  Johnny Douglas, Frank Foster

Medium-paced bowler   Jim Iremonger

Slow bowler: Joe Vine

Fast bowlers: Sydney Barnes, Bill Hitch

County representation:

Ex  -  Essex (2)

Ha - Hampshire (1)

La - Lancashire (1)

Mx - Middlesex (1)

Nt - Nottinghamshire (2)

Sy - Surrey (2)

Sx - Sussex (2)

Wk - Warwickshire (3)

Y - Yorkshire (3)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(15 December 1911)

 30 yrs 8 m

Test Appearances made before the tour

Rhodes 31, Warner 13, Barnes 12, Hobbs 12, Gunn 6, Woolley 6, Strudwick 5, Douglas 0, Foster 0, Hearne 0, Hitch 0, Iremonger 0, Kinneir 0, Mead 0, Smith 0, Vine 0

Tour Officials

Selectors

Lord Harris,  C B Fry and P F Warner  (David Lemmon wrote that C B Fry (chairman), Lord Hawke, Lord Harris and J.R.Mason chose the team).

Selection

Firstly, Mr Tom Pawley, secretary of Surrey, was invited to act as manager on 24 July.

C.B.Fry was named as propspective skipper on 30 June and allowed time to consider taking the captaincy, but he declined on 16 August and next day Warner was appointed, being promoted from the vice-captaincy. There was afterwards no official vice-captain appointed.

Unavailable  :  F L Fane, C B Fry, G L Jessop, R H Spooner (business reasons), Frank Tarrant  (owing to objections because he was an Australian); Claude Buckenham.

Tour party  announced : In June Frank Foster, Jimmy Iremonger and Jack Hearne accepted places ; in July, Sep Kinneir, Sydney Barnes, Jack Hobbs, Bert Strudwick, Johnny Douglas, Tiger Smith, Wilfred Rhodes and Pelham Warner ; in August  Phil Mead, George Gunn, Frank Woolley and Bill Hitch (instead of Buckenham) ; finally, Gilbert Jessop, who was invited late, made himself unavailable, declining on 23 August and so Joe Vine was invited instead.

Time between selection and departure from England

   37 days

 (23 August - 29 September)

Travel

Tilbury      T      Adelaide

               ‘Orvieto’

Leaving Fenchurch Street  by train on 29 September 1911, the team sailed from Tilbury docks on the  ss “Orveito”.  Strudwick and Hobbs were given permission to join the ship at Marseilles.

The M.C.C sailed by way of Naples (where they were not allowed ashore because of cholera), Taranto, Port Said and Colombo (21 October) and Fremantle ten days later.

Delayed on route, they did not arrive at Adelaide until 4 November.

Time spent in Australia

    125 days

(4 November  -  8 March)

On-tour selection panel

Pelham Warner, Johnny Douglas, Frank Foster, Jack Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes.  It might be argued that there was really no selection committee, and that Warner made all the decisions.

Reinforcements

Warner nominated Johnny Douglas as deputy captain when he fell ill on 28 November after the opening tour match. He had some problem with ulcers. Frank Foster would be captain should further need arise.

Bill Hitch was unable to play because of a strained groin injury in the early part of the tour.

Captain W.J.H. (Wilfred) Curwen (Sy), 28, played in two matches in upstate Victoria when rested players remained in Melbourne. Curwen was aide-de-camp to the Governor of Victoria. He took 4-23 in his first match at Geelong.

Fixtures/Results

The programme of fixtures was not finalised or available to the MCC touring party even when the team landed at Fremantle.

The Test matches were timeless.

† not first-class

Time spent in Australia before First Test:  

 41 days

(4 November - 15 December)

Test appearances on tour

5 -   Barnes, Douglas,  Foster,  Gunn,  Hearne,  Hobbs,  Rhodes,  Woolley.

4 -   Mead,  Smith.

3 -   Hitch.

2 -   Vine.

1 -   Kinneir,  Strudwick.

0 -   Iremonger,  Warner.

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 six previous Test tour results:

in South Africa 1909-10 (5 Tests)

 - lost 2-3

in Australia 1907-08 (5 Tests)

 - lost 1-4

in South Africa 1905-06 (5 Tests)

 - lost 1-4

in Australia 1903-04 (5 Tests)

 - won 3-2

in Australia 1901-02 (5 Tests)

 - lost 1-4

in South Africa 1898-99 (4 Tests)

 - won 2-0

Highlights

•  The tour began with three men making a century (Foster 158, Warner 151, Gunn 106) and MCC winning by an innings.

•  The start of the second Test saw Australia losing four quick wickets, all to Barnes, costing him only one run.

•  Jack Hearne’s century, at 20 years and 324 days, was the youngest for England against Australia.

•  Jack Hobbs (178)  and Wilfred Rhodes (179) added 323 for the first wicket at Melbourne (fourth Test), a new record.

•  Sydney Barnes broke the record with 34 wickets in the Test series, while Foster’s 32 equalled the previous record.

Tour Summary

F  Fixtures   W  Won   L  Lost   D Drawn   T  Tied  Canc  Cancelled  Aban  abandoned

Return to England

Adelaide      T      Tilbury

               ‘Orveito’

Warner, his wife, George Gunn and the scorer Campbell left Sydney on the Orient Line steamer 'Orvieto' on 2 March 1912.  Being able to take the almost traditional procedure of using the same ship, there and back, the cricketers boarded the 'Orvieto' at Adelaide on 8 March. The ship passed through Fremantle on 12 March.

Travelling overland from Toulon, the team arrived home in London on 8 April 1912

Time away from England

  190 days  

(29 September -8 April )

Finances

MCC lost £695  - Warner said that while M.C.C. did not seek to make a profit from these tours, it did not mean to make a loss either, and it was rumoured that the Australian Board would make good the loss.

Accounts of the tour

“Recovering The Ashes.  An Account of the Cricket Tour in Australia 1911-12”  by Jack Hobbs  (Pitman, 1912)

"The Record of a Remarkable Tour"  by Pelham Warner  (Mills & Boon, 1912).

Postscript

On return M.C.C. organised a banquet in the team’s honour at a London hotel in the Strand.

The Triangular Tournament 1912