Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Richard was now in his 39th year. W.G’s birthday on 18 July, 1874 was his 26th. For nearly ten years, he had stood beyond all comparison with his contemporaries. The question of his status was, as we have seen, already becoming a matter of public discussion. The Grace family were not gentry or heirs to wealth. With his county, W.G. reached an understanding by which he was paid expenses well beyond the money he actually spent in playing the game. He also took the profit from the activities of the United South of England Eleven. In the autumn of 1873, he married and for their honeymoon took his wife on a cricket tour of Australia. Melbourne Cricket Club agreed to pay him £1,500 and first-class travel and expenses for himself and his wife. The team was to be a mix of amateurs and professionals: W.G. offered the latter second-class passage, £150 pay for the trip and £20 spending money. From first to last, W.G. insisted on complete social segregation between his not very distinguished amateur colleagues and the professional members of his team: he turned down any social invitations which included the professionals. The Australians, with their claims to social equality, were quick to notice W.G’s segregationism. A columnist wrote: ‘The consequence of this is what might be expected – insubordination in the ranks, a divided team, and humiliating defeats . . .’ The team were back in England by 17 May, 1874. W.G. celebrated by hitting up 259 for Thornbury against Clifton on 21 May. William Oscroft had been in W.G.’s side and he and Richard did not play together until Notts met MCC at Lord’s on 8 and 9 June, when their reunion can hardly have taken place without a discussion of the tour. Then on Wednesday, 10 June, that piece of gossip appeared in the Nottingham Journal . Was the story an invention of the columnist? It was more likely an echo of the comments of the pros in the touring party, passed on by Oscroft to Richard. W.G’s machinations had already been going on for years, and must have touched a raw nerve of Richard’s in 1874. While on the topic of raw nerves, two defeats by Yorkshire, the first in June at Trent Bridge and the other at Sheffield in August, cannot have improved the captain’s temper. Nor can the observations of the Nottingham Journal reporter, following the June match. The phrases thundered off the page: ‘Inglorious Gentlemen and Players 67