Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

always known, probably bowled more overs than anyone other than Emmett. On 11 March the party set off for New Zealand without Royle, Lucas and Penn, who stayed behind in Melbourne. The three played in two odds games for the Melbourne Cricket Club against local Eighteens, but their main intention seems to have been to spend a fortnight enjoying the sights and society of Melbourne, where they were altogether more comfortable than in Sydney. Royle’s diary entry for 19 March was fairly typical: Walked over to the Botanical Gardens. They are very pretty indeed and well worth seeing. In the afternoon we went over to the Moores. We left them about six as we had to return to Melbourne to dress as we were to dine with Robinson at South Yarra. Dr Ford called for us a little after 7. We drove out and had a very jovial evening. Throughout his diary, Royle almost invariably referred to men by their surnames, as was the custom of the day, but on 14 March he made an exception: he recorded that ‘Bunny and I dined at the Riddells’, so evidently use of Lucas’s nickname had already spread beyond the Uppingham Rovers. Royle, Lucas and Penn dined out with a fair cross-section of the Melbourne upper crust, 50 which included the shipowner John Hutchinson Blackwood; the Riddell family of Elsternwick, who later gave their name to a Melbourne suburb; Judge W.B.Noel; Colonel William Anderson, commandant of the military and naval forces of Victoria; and Dr David Wilkie, a pioneer of preventive medicine. They kept themselves fit by playing tennis, walking to most of their destinations and going to several dances. They visited the museum, public library and art gallery, which were ‘well worth seeing’. They went with Judge Noel and his family to the theatre, watched the St Patrick’s Day procession and attended the Melbourne Liedertafel, a festival of amateur choral music which they ‘enjoyed very much’. They finally left Melbourne on 24 March and were seen off by many of their new friends. Travelling via Sydney, they rejoined the rest of the party in Auckland on 1 April. The tourists left New Zealand the next day and settled into the routine of shipboard life, although the Pacific did not always live up to its name. On 15 April they arrived at Honolulu, where Lucas, Penn and Royle made the most of a one-day stop. They climbed ‘an old crater above the town, called the Punch Bowl [and] had a very fine view.’ After lunch they ‘got 3 horses and rode about 7 miles to a place called the “Pali” [where] the grandeur of the scenery burst out all at once. It was a beautiful view and well worth the trouble.’ They reached San Francisco on 23 April and crossed America by train. Royle was chiefly impressed by the many marvellous sights and by the high prices, but made no mention of Lucas on this stage of the journey. The Australian tour, 1878/79 53 50 Information about these people mostly from the online Australian Dictionary of Biography.