George Coulthard, born August 1, 1856, was an early colossus of Australian Rules Football, a talented cricketer and a versatile man of many talents who attracted career threatening controversies and life threatening sharks with equal elan. In this series Pradip Dhole sketches the extraordinarily interesting life of this extraordinarily interesting man.

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Melbourne larrikins do not make good umpires

A cricket encounter that had generated so much controversy and crowd disturbance so many years ago has naturally been analysed threadbare over the years, particularly with respect to the causative factors involved. The overriding factor appears to be the ugly spectre of gambling that had been the bane of sporting events throughout history.

Richard Cashman, in trying to identify the causes of the ugly disturbance of Saturday, the feb 8, 1879, at the Association Ground of Moore Park, begins by observing: “Gambling constituted a new problem for cricket authorities in the 1870s. The pastime had had a long association with Australian cricket, as it had with the English game, and was originally part of cricket’s fashionable past... By the 1870s, gambling had lost its respectability and was looked upon as an evil….”

In this context, some comments attributed to a Correspondent, and appearing in The Sydney Morning Herald of Feb 19, 1879 under the column News Of The Day may be pertinent here, as follows: “A few years ago, a man could take his wife and children to witness the international and inter-colonial contests, feeling assured they would neither see or hear anything very objectionable, but things are quite different now. If the Association (NSWCA) do not take some steps to put down these evils, they cannot reasonably expect any longer the patronage of the respectable classes.

“Before concluding, I would like to say that a great many persons are beginning to regard these contests with suspicion, and no wonder, when it is known that members of the Association, if they do not bet on the matches themselves, tolerate it in others. The custom which is now becoming common of delivering telegrams to batsmen at the wickets cannot be too strongly condemned.”

According to Cashman, “Lord Harris, a great apostle of the amateur ideal, regarded gambling as a great blot on colonial cricket. He believed that the 1879 disturbance was ‘started and fomented by professional men’ of the bookmaking fraternity and considered it disgraceful that some members of the New South Wales Cricket Association (NSWCA) had ‘aided and abetted the bookmakers’ in raising the shout of defiance against the umpire’s ruling.”

Indeed, the situation at Moore Park, complex as it had been to begin with, had been made even more complicated by vociferous allegations from various sectors of the stands and in the contemporary press of Coulthard having himself wagered against the NSW team winning the contest. The cries against Coulthard prompted Lord Harris to make the following statement addressed to the Editor in the Evening News (Sydney) of Feb 11, 879: “… 1) If we had not known that Coulthard had not one single bet on the result, we should not have employed him in the return match with the NSW Eleven. 2) The engagement of Coulthard as umpire during our tour was completed by myself alone. The only share that the MCC took in the matter being this: that if, on trying him, we considered him to be equal to his duty, they, with the courtesy they have shown us since we landed, would give him leave of absence…”

Another factor that would definitely have come into the reckoning would have been the fierce rivalry between the different Australian colonies with respect to sporting encounters. At this phase in the history of the Australian dominion of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, the land had been split up into six British self-governing Colonies, and whatever loyalties the inhabitants of the colonies may have harboured would have been of a very insular nature and pertaining strictly to their own colony. There had not been, as yet, any Australian Nationalistic concept prevalent among the masses, as opposed to the prevailing British Colonial mentality. That was to come later, with the proclamation of Federation in Australia on Jan 1, 1901.

It was late in 1891 that Fred Spofforth was to clarify the situation regarding the inter-colonial rivalry in his statement: “I should like to point out that the feeling aroused was almost entirely due to the spirit of the rivalry between the Colonies ... The umpire was Victorian, and the party spirit in the crowd was too strong, ‘Let an Englishman stand umpire,’ they cried; ‘we don't mind any of them. We won't have a Victorian.’ There was not the slightest animosity against Lord Harris or any of his team; the whole disturbance was based on the fact that the offender was a Victorian. But Lord Harris stood by his umpire; and as a result, the match had to be abandoned till the following day.”

To wind up the discussion on the unfortunate events of the Sydney Riot of 1879, we may recall two of the more facetious “Brief Mentions” carried by the Evening News (Sydney) on Feb 10, 1879, needless to state, a somewhat brash and forthright Sydney paper, as follows

“Melbourne larrikins do not make good umpires

The ups and downs of colonial life are great. A Lord may any day be yoked to a larrikin.”

Test and other cricket

Let us now consider the rest of Coulthard’s cricket-playing career after the watershed of the Riot.

George Coulthard was not yet 24 years of age when he married Letitia Anne, nee Jackson in 1880. They had two daughters, Mary Ellen and Letitia; the latter died in 1881 in her infancy, at the tender age of only 5 days. Although Coulthard’s wife Letitia was later married to a gentleman named John Gow in 1899, both she and their infant daughter Letitia were also interred later in the same burial plot. Their daughter Mary Ellen survived childhood, married a man called Allen and raised a family of her own, before passing away herself in 1957.

It was almost exactly a year and nine months after the hurly-burly at Sydney that George Coulthard made his first-class debut as a player. Turning out under the banner of the Victoria team led by Donald Campbell, Coulthard played against South Australia, led by James Gooden, at the MCG from 12 Nov/1880. Coulthard was one of 6 debutants fielded by Victoria in the game, another being Patrick George McShane, with whom Coulthard was to share a unique cricket distinction, but more of that later.

While he did not set the Yarra on fire on debut, Coluthard registered scores of 31, his highest first-class score, and 0 and had bowling figures of 3/29 in the South Australia 1st innings, bowling unchanged through the innings of 77 all out in the company of leg-break bowler William Cooper, great grandfather of the latter-day Australian Test cricketer, Paul Sheahan. Cooper had figures of 5/44 in the innings. In the South Australia 2nd innings, Victoria employed as many as 8 bowlers as the total rose to 314 all out. Opening the attack with Cooper again, Coulthard captured 1 wicket for 49. Victoria won the match by 7 wickets.

George Coulthard brief first-class career consisted of only 6 games of which the last was his only Test match. In all, he scored 92 runs, with the 31 mentioned above being his highest. His batting average was 11.50, and he held 3 catches. On the bowling front, he captured 5 wickets at an average of 25.00, with best figures of the 3/29 mentioned above.

England made their 3rd Test-playing tour of Australia in the English winter of 1881/82 with an all-professional squad of only 11 players under the captaincy of the Nottinghamshire stalwart Alfred Shaw. Of the 4 Test matches played on the tour, the visitors had won 2 and drawn 2. Coulthard crossed swords with the Englishmen in the 2nd Test, played at the Association Ground of Sydney, about which he may still have been harbouring nightmares. The Test was played on 17, 18, 20, and 21 Feb 1882.

Ken Williams, writing in his book For Club And Country, states that: “He (Coulthard) was brought into the Australian side for the Second Test at Sydney in 1881-82, following the withdrawal through injury of Alick Bannerman and Fred Spofforth. He batted at no. 11, scoring 6 not out, taking part in a useful last wicket stand of 29 with Australia’s other debutant, Sammy Jones. Although presumably selected for his bowling, he was not called upon to bowl during the match. His selection is something of an oddity as his record in his five previous first-class matches was quite modest, and he had been Victoria’s 12th man against NSW in a match at Sydney which ended two days before the Test started. The Test proved to be his last first-class match – he fell ill not long after and died the following year.”
Coulthard (cap number 29 for Australia) was one of the two debutants in the Test, the other, all-rounder Sammy Jones, who was to later play an important, if unwitting, role in the only Test match at The Oval in 1882, was also being blooded by Australia in the match. The score-line states that Australia had won the game by 5 wickets.

Although Coulthard’s contribution to the Test victory was modest in the extreme, he entered the record books for the interesting reason of his having made his Test debut as an umpire (the only Test, Australia v Lord Harris’s England team, at Melbourne, in the 1st week of January/1879) prior to making his Test debut as a player. Another man whose name is linked with Coulthard’s in this unusual honour is Patrick George McShane, also of Victoria. McShane’s Test debut as umpire was in the 4th Test, Australia v England, at Sydney on 14, 16, and 17 March/1885. He made his Test debut as a player later in the 5th Test match of the series, Australia v England, played at the MCG, from 21 to 25 Mar, 1885

Even though his performance in his only Test match as a player had been nothing extraordinary, it would be difficult to censure him because by this time, he was in indifferent health. The Leader (Melbourne) of 27 Oct, 1883 makes the following comment in a feature entitled Cricket Gossip: “Two or three years ago it would have been hard to find amongst the athletes of Australia a finer specimen of muscular humanity than George Coulthard the cricketer and runner, and the footballer par excellence of the Australian colonies. A couple of seasons back, poor Coulthard began to show symptoms of that most relentless of all diseases – consumption…”

During England’s 4th Test playing tour to Australia under the Hon. Ivo Bligh, when the skipper had vowed to “recover the Ashes”, umpire Coulthard had taken ill during the voyage from Sydney to Newcastle for a 2-day game between Newcastle and the touring English team. During the game, Coulthard had to leave the field because of indisposition, as reported in The Argus (Melbourne) of 12 Dec, 1882, as follows: “…Coulthard, the Melbourne professional, who was very unwell during the voyage from Sydney, and on the second afternoon at Newcastle, had been obliged to retire…

During the last weeks of his life, and even as he was lying on his death bed, George Coulthard is reported to have had an uncannily clairvoyant experience. He was said to have had a surprisingly lucid dream in which he had been privy to the knowledge of which horse was to win the Victoria Derby and which horse would triumph in the Melbourne Cup of the year. Amazingly, he had also predicted that he would pass away before the first of the races would be run. His projected winners were to be Martini-Henri and Dirk Hatterick, respectively. While Coulthard himself passed away on 22 Oct/1883, the Derby winner of 1883 was indeed, the New Zealand bred Martini-Henri, the first horse bred in New Zealand to win the Derby

This set off a flurry of unusual activity among the racing circuits of Melbourne. Writing under the headline Sporting News in The Maitland Weekly Mercury of 21 Sep, 1895, John Stanley James, in his journalistic avatar of The Vagabond, said: “A few months before the VRC spring meeting of 1883, George Coulthard, one of the best all-round and most popular athletes of Melbourne – or Australia, for that matter – has ever known, when lying on a sick bed, dreamt that Martini-Henri would win the Derby and Dirk Hatteraick, the Melbourne Cup, and that he would die before the first-named event was decided.

“Very little notice was taken of the dream at the time; but when Martini-Henri won the Derby shortly after poor Georgie’s death, the rush of superstitious punters to get on to Dirk Hattearick for the Cup was something to be remembered. Although the horse was not half fit, the public, on the strength of the dream, backed Dirk Hatteraick from 100 to 3 down to 5 to 1; but, as a matter of course, the South Australian finished in the ruck, and really never possessed a 100 to 1 chance of winning.”

The prediction for the Melbourne Cup winner, however, turned out to be one prognostication too many. In the words of one turf writer of the time, Dirk Hatteraick, the entry from South Australia, was described as being “as fat as a bacon hog,” and had expectedly finished “at the tail end of the field,” grossly belying Coulthard’s dream. A respected member of the Victoria Parliament, who had been duped by the hype created by Coulthard’s dream, had suffered substantial losses by backing the horse, later remarking that backing Dirk Hatteraick had been “an idiotic thing to do.” In point of historical fact, the record shows that the Melbourne Cup of 1883 had also been won by Martini-Henri.

The last days

By this time, Coulthard was a sick man and the robust vitality of his football-playing days was gradually becoming a thing of the past. Indeed, his only Test match as a player was to be his last first-class game. His last first-class umpiring assignment, out of a total of 7, was to be in the 4th Test match between Australia and Alfred Shaw’s England team at the MCG from 10 to 14 Mar, 1882. He had not yet completed 26 years in age.

Such had been the popular appeal of Coulthard in his active playing days that it was decided by the Football Association that all proceeds for the June game between Carlton and Melbourne at the MCG would be made over to the legend. Moreover, a fund was created to extend succour to the stricken stalwart. Inclement weather, however, curtailed the number of spectators for the game, though an estimate of about 5,000 was reported. It is heartening to note, as reported by the North Melbourne Advertiser that even Hotham Football Club, with whom Coulthard had had his controversial clash resulting in his suspension, thought it fit to contribute £ 5 and 5 shillings to the fund

The edition of the Weekly Times (Melbourne) of 20 Oct, 1883 carried an article named Cricket Notes, written by the enigmatically named “Observer.” A paragraph of the article went as follows: “Cricketers and others will be sorry to learn that George Coulthard, the well-known athlete, who has been suffering from consumption for a considerable time, is at present confined to his bed in a dangerous state.” Going by reports of the local media of the times, Coulthard would often be delirious at this stage of his disease.

The Weekly Times (Melbourne) of 27 Oct, 1883 carried the poignant story, under the heading The Peerybingle Papers, as follows: “Young men – especially those who go in for the rough-and-tumble game of football, are not as a rule credited with possessing very sensitive natures. Poor George Coulthard, who died this week, was, however, an exception. His death was due to consumption, but if mental prostration assists bodily disease, his disqualification by the Football Association some time back contributed to hasten his end. He never recovered his spirit thoroughly after what many considered the unnecessarily harsh action of the Association.

“Coulthard was not the chief offender, but he was made the scapegoat. Somebody had to be punished, and of course a Carlton player, and a man who, as a ‘professional’, had no white-waist-coated friends, was made the victim. How much this treatment of ‘the best football-player of the colony’ preyed upon his mind was never known, but some idea of it may be gathered from the fact that when the once-vigorous athlete lay wasting upon his death-bed, the one melancholy of his delirium was ‘It is not true that they are going to disqualify me. Surely they won’t disqualify me.’ Poor fellow!...”

Once the darling of the football-lovers of Melbourne, the immortal soul of George Coulthard departed his emaciated body on the evening of Monday, 22 Oct/1883, at Carlton, and the body was later laid out in Plot Number C of E, Sec 263, Melbourne General Cemetery, “adjoining the Prince’s Oval, the playing ground of the club with which his name had become identified,” on Wednesday, 24 Oct/1883. He was just over 27 years of age at his death.

Several contemporary newspapers carried the news of Coulthard’s demise, another unfortunate victim of the dreaded disease of tuberculosis. Quoting the Age, The North Eastern Ensign (Benalla) of 26 Oct, 1883 published the following report: “A very large number of persons followed the remains of the late George Coulthard to the grave (on) Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Coulthard, who only a young man, was well-known in football and cricket circles, and was greatly esteemed and liked by all who knew him… A large number of those present at the funeral were members of the various cricket and football clubs.”

The untimely death of Coulthard left his widow and surviving daughter Mary Ellen in dire straits financially. Such had been his popularity during his playing days that the Leader (Melbourne) of 27 Oct, 1883 first suggested the idea of making a public effort to aid the grieving family, as follows: “It is understood that Coulthard’s widow and only child are left in anything but comfortable circumstances, but, judging from the universal sympathy expressed for them by cricketers and footballers of all classes, I have no doubt that some well organised movement will be carried out for their benefit.”

The Fitzroy City Press (Vic) of 8 Dec, 1883 reported “A grand concert and ball” was held in honour of the deceased at the Carlton Orderly Room on the evening of Friday, 30th Nov/1883, and was very well attended by many luminaries from the social and entertainment world of Melbourne. As noted, the “dancing was kept up until the small hours of the morning.”

The above entertainment was arranged by the “Rabbit Club” for the financial support of Coulthard’s widow and daughter. A popular man about town of Melbourne, one Mr. Edmund Finn, wrote a poem about the great athletic prowess of the departed Coulthard, and it was read out at the event. The first verse of the poem went as follows:

“You all knew Coulthard, and full many a time

Have seen that stalwart athlete in his prime

Oft have you marked him where the green turf grows

A tower of strength – a terror to his foes

The foremost he, for football’s manly game

Was ever linked with poor George Coulthard’s name

He never changed – to Carlton always true.

He donned through good and ill the same dark blue.”