William Gilbert "W. G." Grace, MRCS, LRCP (1848 – 1915)
Amateur Cricketer who was important in the development of the sport
and is widely considered one of its greatest ever players.
W. G. Grace was born in Downend, near Bristol, on 18 July 1848 at his parents' home, Downend House. He was called Gilbert in the family circle, except by his mother who called him Willie, but otherwise he was universally known by his initials W. G. Downend is near Mangotsfield and, although it is now a suburb of Bristol, it was then "a distinct village surrounded by countryside" and about four miles from Bristol. Henry and Martha Grace had nine children in all: "the same number as Victoria and Albert – and in every respect they were the typical Victorian family"
MM
Grace was "notoriously unscholarly". Grace never went to university as his father was intent upon him pursuing a medical career. But Grace was approached by both Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. In 1866, when he played a match at Oxford, one of the Oxford players, Edmund Carter, tried to interest him in becoming an undergraduate Then, in 1868, Grace received overtures from Caius College, Cambridge, which had a long medical tradition. Grace said he would have gone to either Oxford or Cambridge if his father had allowed it. Instead, he enrolled at Bristol Medical School in October 1868, when he was 20.
MM
Henry Grace founded Mangotsfield Cricket Club in 1845 to represent several neighbouring villages including Downend. In 1846, this club merged with the West Gloucestershire Cricket Club whose name was adopted until 1867. It has been said that the Grace family ran the West Gloucestershire "almost as a private club". Henry Grace managed to organise matches against Lansdown Cricket Club in Bath, which was the premier West Country club. West Gloucestershire fared poorly in these games and, sometime in the 1850s, Henry and Alfred Pocock decided to join Lansdown, although they continued to run the West Gloucestershire and this remained their primary club.
MM
Alfred Pocock was especially instrumental in coaching the Grace brothers and spent long hours with them on the practice pitch at Downend. E. M., who was seven years older than W. G., had always played with a full size bat and so developed a tendency, that he never lost, to hit across the line, the bat being too big for him to "play straight". Pocock recognised this problem and determined that W. G. and his youngest brother Fred should not follow suit. He therefore fashioned smaller bats for them, to suit their sizes, and they were taught to play straight and "learn defence, with the left shoulder well forward", before attempting to hit.
MM
Grace recorded in his Reminiscences that he saw his first great cricket match in 1854 when he was barely six years old and he himself played for the West Gloucestershire club as early as 1857, when he was nine years old!
MM
The earliest match in Cricket Archive which involved Grace was in 1859, only a few days after his eleventh birthday, when he played for Clifton Cricket Club against the South Wales Cricket Club at Durdham Down, his team winning by 114 runs. Several members of the Grace family, including his elder brother E. M., were involved in the match. Grace batted at number 11 and scored 0 and 0 not out. The first time he made a substantial score was in July 1860 when he scored 51 for West Gloucestershire against Clifton; he wrote that none of his great innings gave him more pleasure.
MM
It was through E. M. that the family name first became famous. His mother, Martha, wrote the following in a letter to William Clarke's successor George Parr in 1860 or 1861:
MM
I am writing to ask you to consider the inclusion of my son, E. M. Grace – a splendid hitter and most excellent catch – in your England XI. I am sure he would play very well and do the team much credit. It may interest you to learn that I have another son, now twelve years of age, who will in time be a much better player than his brother because his back stroke is sounder, and he always plays with a straight bat.
Photo: Herbert Rose Barraud/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (age - copyright expired)
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club team in 1880
W G Grace and Bobby Abel
Photo: Alfred Bryan/Wikimedia
Believed to be in the Public Domain
(age - copyright expired)
Grace was just short of his thirteenth birthday when, on 5 July 1861, he made his debut for Lansdown and played two matches that month. E. M. had made his debut in 1857, aged sixteen. In August 1862, aged 14, Grace played for West Gloucestershire against a Devonshire team. A year later, following a bout of pneumonia which had left him bed-ridden for several weeks, he scored 52 not out and took 5 wickets against a Somerset XI. Soon afterwards, he was one of four family members who played for Bristol and Didcot XVIII against the All-England Eleven. He bowled well and scored 32 off the bowling of John Jackson, George Tarrant and Cris Tinley. E. M. took ten wickets in the match, which Bristol and Didcot won by an innings, and as a result E. M. was invited to tour Australia a few months later with George Parr's England team.
MM
E. M. did not return from Australia until July 1864 and his absence presented Grace with an opportunity to appear on cricket's greatest stages. He and his elder brother Henry were invited to play for the South Wales Club which had arranged a series of matches in London and Sussex, though Grace wondered humorously how they were qualified to represent South Wales. It was the first time that Grace left the West Country and he made his debut appearances at both The Oval and Lord's.
MM
The details of Grace's statistical first-class career are controversial but Cricket Archive recognises 1865 to 1908 as its span and lists 29 teams, the England national team and 28 domestic teams, represented by Grace in first-class matches. Most of these were ad hoc or guest appearances. In minor cricket, Grace represented upwards of forty teams. Besides playing for England in Test cricket (1880–99), the key teams in Grace's first-class career were the Gentlemen (1865–1906), All-England aka England (i.e., non-international; 1865–99), Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC; 1869–1904), Gloucestershire (1870–99), the United South of England Eleven (USEE; 1870–76) and London County (1900–04). Apart from the London County venture in his later years, Grace had firmly committed himself to all of these by the end of the 1870 season when he was 22.
MM
Cricket in the 1860s underwent a revolution with the legalisation of overarm bowling in June 1864 and Grace himself said it was.
MM
"no exaggeration to say that, between 1860 and 1870, English cricket passed through its
most critical period"
MM
"it was quite a revolutionary period so far as its rules were concerned"
MM
Grace was still 15 when the 1864 season began and had turned 20 when the 1868 season ended and he began his medical career by enrolling at Bristol Medical School on 7 October 1868. In the interim, specifically in 1866, he became widely recognised as the finest cricketer in England. Just after his eighteenth birthday in July 1866, Grace confirmed his potential with an innings of 224 not out for All-England against Surrey at The Oval. It was his maiden first-class century and, according to Harry Altham, he was "thenceforward the biggest name in cricket and the main spectator attraction with the successes (coming) thick and fast".
MM
In 1868, Grace scored two centuries in a match, only the second time in cricket history that this is known to have been done, following William Lambert in 1817. Summarising the 1868 season, Simon Rae wrote that Grace was "now indisputably the cricketer of the age, the Champion".
MM
In 1869, Grace was made a member of MCC and scored four centuries in July, including an innings of 180 at The Oval which was achieved during the highest wicket partnership involving Grace in his entire career; he shared 283 runs for the first wicket with Bransby Cooper. Later in the month, Grace scored 122 out of 173 in difficult batting conditions during the North v. South match at Bramall Lane, famously prompting the laconic Tom Emmett to call him a "nonsuch" (i.e., a nonpareil) and declare: "He ought to be made to play with a littler bat".
MM
Grace had another outstanding season in 1870, during which Gloucestershire acquired first-class status, and Derek Birley records that, "scorning the puny modern fashion of moustaches", he grew the enormous black beard that made him so recognisable. In addition, his "ample girth" had developed for he weighed 15 stone (95 kg) in his early twenties. Grace was a non-smoker but he enjoyed good food and wine; many years later, when discussing the overheads incurred during Lord Sheffield's profitless tour of Australia in 1891–92, Arthur Shrewsbury commented:
MM
"I told you what wine would be drunk by the amateurs;
Grace himself would drink enough to swim a ship."
MM
According to Harry Altham, 1871 was Grace's annus mirabilis, except that he produced another outstanding year in 1895. In all first-class matches in 1871, a total of 17 centuries were scored and Grace accounted for 10 of them, including the first century in a first-class match at Trent Bridge. He averaged 78.25 and the next best average by a batsman playing more than a single innings was 39.57, barely more than half his figure. His aggregate for the season was 2,739 runs and this was the first time that anyone had scored 2,000 first-class runs in a season; Harry Jupp was next best with 1,068. Grace produced his season's highlight in the South v North match at The Oval when he made his highest career score to date of 268, having been dismissed by Jem Shaw for nought in the first innings. It was to no avail as the match was drawn. But the occasion produced a memorable and oft-quoted comment by Jem Shaw who ruefully said: "I puts the ball where I likes and he puts it where he likes".
MM
Grace had numerous nicknames during his career including "The Doctor", after he achieved his medical qualification, and "The Old Man", as he reached the veteran stage. He was most auspiciously nicknamed "The Champion". He was first acclaimed as "the Champion Cricketer" by Lillywhite's Companion in recognition of his exploits in 1871.
MM
Grace became the first batsman to score a century before lunch in a first-class match when he made 134 for Gentlemen of the South versus Players of the South at The Oval in 1873. In the same season, he became the first player ever to complete the "double" of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season. He went on to do the double eight times in all:
MM
1873 was the year that some semblance of organisation was brought into county cricket with the introduction of a residence qualification. This was aimed principally at England's outstanding bowler James Southerton who had been playing for both Surrey and Sussex, having been born in one county and living in the other. Southerton chose to play for his county of residence, Surrey, from then on but remained the country's top bowler. The counties agreed on residence but not on a means of deciding a County Championship and so the title, known as "Champion County", remained an unofficial award until 1889. Grace's Gloucestershire had a very strong claim to this unofficial title in 1873 but consensus was that they shared it with Nottinghamshire. These two did not play each other and both were unbeaten in six matches, but Nottinghamshire won five and Gloucestershire won four.
MM
Having toured Australia in the winter of 1873–74, Grace arrived in England on 18 May 1874 and was quickly back into domestic cricket. The 1874 season was very successful for him as he completed a second successive double. Gloucestershire again had a strong claim to the Champion County title although some sources have awarded it to Derbyshire and Grace himself said that it should have gone to Yorkshire. Another good season followed in 1875 when he again completed the double with 1,498 runs and 191 wickets. This was his most successful season as a bowler.
MM
One of the most outstanding phases of Grace's career occurred in the 1876 season, beginning with his career highest score of 344 for Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) v Kent at the St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury, in August. Two days after his innings at Canterbury, he made 177 for Gloucestershire v Nottinghamshire; and two days after that 318 not out for Gloucestershire v Yorkshire, these two innings against counties with exceptionally strong bowling attacks.
MM
Thus, in three consecutive innings Grace scored 839 runs and was only out twice.
MM
His innings of 344 was the first triple century scored in first-class cricket and broke the record for the highest individual score in all classes of cricket, previously held by William Ward who scored 278 in 1820. Ward's record had stood for 56 years and, within a week, Grace bettered it twice. In 1877, Gloucestershire won the unofficial championship for the third and (to date) final time, largely thanks to another outstanding season by Grace who scored 1,474 runs and took 179 wickets.
MM
There was speculation that Grace intended to retire before the 1878 season to concentrate on his medical career, but he decided to continue playing cricket and may have been influenced by the arrival of the first Australian team to tour England in May. At Lord's on 27 May, the Australians took part in one of the most famous matches of all time when they defeated a strong MCC team, including Grace, by nine wickets in a single day's play. News of the match "spread like wildfire and created a sensation in London and throughout England". The satirical magazine Punch responded to it by publishing a parody of Byron's poem The Destruction of Sennacherib including a wry commentary on Grace's contribution:
MM
The Australians came down like a wolf on the fold,
The Mary'bone Cracks for a trifle were bowled;
Our Grace before dinner was very soon done,
And Grace after dinner did not get a run.
MM
There was bad feeling between Grace and some of the 1878 Australians, especially their manager John Conway; this came to a head on 20 June in a row over the services of Grace's friend Billy Midwinter, an Australian who had played for Gloucestershire in 1877. Midwinter was already in England before the main Australian party arrived and had joined them for their first match in May. On 20 June, Midwinter was at Lord's where he was due to play for the Australians against Middlesex. On the same day, the Gloucestershire team was at The Oval to play Surrey but arrived a man short. As a result, a group of Gloucestershire players led by W. G. and E. M. Grace went to Lord's and persuaded Midwinter to accompany them back to The Oval to make up their numbers. They were pursued by three of the Australians who caught them at The Oval gates where a furious altercation ensued in front of bystanders. At one point, Grace called the Australians "a damned lot of sneaks" (he later apologised). In the end, Grace got his way and Midwinter stayed with Gloucestershire for the rest of the season, although he did not play for the county against the Australians. Afterwards, the row was patched up and Gloucestershire invited the Australians to play the county team, minus Midwinter, at Clifton College. The Australians took a measure of revenge and won easily by 10 wickets, with Fred Spofforth taking 12 wickets and making the top score. It was Gloucestershire's first ever home defeat.
MM
Despite his troubles in 1878, it was another good season for Grace on the field as he completed a sixth successive double.
MM
Grace missed a large part of the 1879 season because he was doing the final practical for his medical qualification and, for the first time since 1869, he did not complete 1,000 runs, though he did take 105 wickets.[60] Having qualified as a doctor in November 1879, he had to give priority to his new practice in Bristol for the next five years.
MM
Grace was badly upset by the death of his brother Fred in 1880, soon after all three brothers played for England against Australia in what is retrospectively recognised as the inaugural Test match in England. Grace made only 13 appearances in 1881. In 1882, he was in the England team that lost the famous "Ashes Match" at The Oval.
MM
In 1888, Grace scored two centuries in one match v Yorkshire (148 and 153) and labelled this "my champion match". He had reduced his bowling somewhat in the last few seasons and he became an occasional bowler only from 1889. Injury problems, particularly a bad knee, took their toll in the early 1890s and Grace had his worst season in 1891 when he scored no centuries and could only average 19.76. Despite this, few doubted that he should lead the England team on its 1891–92 tour of Australia. Australia, led by Jack Blackham, won the three-match series 2–1. Following his injury problems and loss of form in 1890 and 1891, Grace rallied somewhat during the next three seasons and reached 1,000 runs each time.
MM
Against all expectation, Grace produced in 1895 a season that has been called his "Indian Summer". He completed his hundredth century playing for Gloucestershire against Somerset in May. Charles Townsend, his batting partner when he reached the milestone, said that as he approached his hundred: "This was the one and only time I ever saw him flustered..." Eventually Sammy Woods bowled a full toss which Grace drove for four to reach his century. He then went on to score 1,000 runs in the month, the first time this had ever been done. Following his "Indian Summer", Grace was the sole recipient of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year award for 1896, the first of only three times that Wisden has restricted the award to a single player, there being normally five recipients.
MM
By the time of his fiftieth birthday in July 1898, Grace had developed a somewhat corpulent figure and had lost his former agility, which meant he was no longer a capable fielder. He remained a very good batsman and at need a useful slow bowler, but he was clearly entering the twilight of his career and was now generally referred to as "The Old Man" As a special occasion, the MCC committee arranged the 1898 Gentlemen v Players match to coincide with his fiftieth birthday and he celebrated the event by scoring 43 and 31 not out, though handicapped by lameness and an injured hand. He terminated his association with both England and Gloucestershire in 1899 and relocated to South London where he joined the new London County club.
MM
With the demise in 1904 of London County as a first-class team, the number of Grace's appearances dwindled over the next four seasons until he called it a day in 1908. His final appearance for the Gentlemen versus the Players was in July 1906 at The Oval. Grace made his final first-class appearance on 20–22 April 1908 for the Gentlemen of England v Surrey at The Oval, where, opening the innings, he scored 15 and 25.
MM
Grace's approach to cricket
Grace himself had much to say about how to play cricket in his two books Cricket (1891) and Reminiscences (1899). His fundamental opinion was that cricketers are "not born" but must be nurtured to develop their skills through coaching and practice; in his own case, he had achieved his skill through constant practice as a boy at home under the tutelage of his uncle Alfred Pocock.
MM
Although the work ethic was of prime importance in his development, Grace insisted that cricket must also be enjoyable and freely admitted that his family all played in a way that was "noisy and boisterous" with much "chaff". W. G. and E. M. in particular were noted throughout their careers for being noisy and boisterous on the field. They were extremely competitive and always playing to win. Sometimes this went to extremes....
MM
On one occasion at school, E. M. was so upset about a decision going
against him that he went home and took the stumps with him!
MM
...It developed into the gamesmanship for which E. M. and W. G. were often controversial.
MM
It was because of gamesmanship and insistence on his rights, as he saw them, that Grace never enjoyed good relations with Australians in general, though he had personal friends like Billy Midwinter and Billy Murdoch. In 1874, an Australian newspaper wrote "We in Australia did not take kindly to W. G.. For so big a man, he is surprisingly tenacious on very small points. We thought him too apt to wrangle in the spirit of a duo-decimo lawyer over small points of the game."
MM
But he was just the same in England and even his long-term friend Lord Harris agreed that "his gamesmanship added to the fund of stories about him". The point was that Grace...
MM
"approached cricket as if he were fighting a small war"
MM
and he was
MM
"out to win at all costs"
MM
The Australians understood this twenty years later when Joe Darling, touring England for the first time in 1896, said: "We were all told not to trust the Old Man as he was out to win every time and was a great bluffer".
MM
"W. G." was a very correct batsman. His left shoulder pointed to the bowler. He held his bat straight and brought it straight through to the ball. His beard hung right over the ball as he stroked it – the ball, I mean, not his beard. He was the most powerful straight-driver I have ever seen. When he drove at a ball I was mighty glad I was behind the stumps!
MM
Colonel Frank Crozier, 'The Man Who Played With Grace'
Source: wikipedia.com
Images: Believed to be in the Public Domain or used with permission
Main
Menu
