Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

20 The Unlikeliest Test Cricketer not recorded as a UK birth, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary it seems reasonable to assume that she too was born in Natal. But by May 1896 Ethel had returned to England for the birth of the last two members of their family, twins Humphrey (1896-1979) and Michael (1896- 1965), born at Porlock in Somerset. And here the tale of McMaster’s South African connections gets rather more cloudy. We know that he, his wife and children (apart from Nora) were living in High Halden, near Tenterden in Kent, at the time of the 1901 census, and they were still at that address at least as late as 1903. So, assuming that he was with Ethel in Somerset at the time of the twins’ birth, was McMaster’s return home in the mid-1890s a permanent one? If so, it seems that the South African interests that sustained him for the rest of his life were experienced at first hand for only some half dozen years. Whether the impending Boer War prevented him and his family returning to Natal is not known. Perhaps he returned to South Africa for a few more years after the birth of Humphrey and Michael, but certainly by 1901 he was back in Britain to stay – though not in Ireland. His direct connections with his homeland, and the family business, seem to have ended early in his life. Although he described himself as a ‘barrister-at-law’ in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, and remained on the ‘Counsel’ section of the Law List until 1921, he never practised law in England. 27 Indeed, by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century he had retired altogether and moved with his family to a comfortable, though by no means palatial, house called Afton Bank, on the edge of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. This remained his principal home until he died, although at least some of the time he also maintained a London address at Montagu Street, off Portman Square. 28 On the island, of which he was very fond, Emile was a member of the Yarmouth Town Trust and of the Solent Yacht Club, though we have no record of whether he actually sailed. The notice of his death in the local newspaper also tells us that he was ‘a billiard player of far above the average amateur standard’. But cricket seems to have continued as his first sporting love. In retirement he frequently visited London, combining his business activities with cricket-watching. And although he may only have become a Test cricketer retrospectively, it seems that he was almost certainly aware that he held this distinction, 29 for on his death the report in the Isle of Wight County Press – surely compiled by his family – referred to him as ‘an old player of international repute’. The same source states that he did not enjoy very good health in his later years, ‘although he made a remarkable recovery from a serious operation 27 I am grateful to Michael Frost of the Inner Temple Library for this information. 28 See for example the notice of the marriage of his son Michael in The Times , 25 May 1920. 29 pace Martin Williamson, The ignorant internationals , article on ESPNcricinfo, dated 28 November 2009