Thomas Wentworth Wills. 1857
The epochal first ever Australian cricket tour to England remains one of the most curious tale of sporting relations. In this series, Pradip Dhole traces the journey and deeds of the Aboriginal cricketers, which remain surprising even after a century and half, and also relates the story behind the men who made this incredible venture possible.
Part 1
Part 2
Settling in Australia
When the pioneering Englishmen arrived back in England on May 12, 1862, in time for the 1862 domestic season, and after the completion of the first Australian tour, there was one member less among the numbers. Former Surrey and Middlesex player Charles Lawrence preferred to remain behind in Australia upon the conclusion of the tour. He relocated to Sydney, opened a sports goods shop in Sydney’s George Street, and took up a coaching assignment with Albert Club of Sydney, begun in 1852, for a consideration of £ 300 per annum. It is learnt from the archives of the New South Wales Cricket Association that from 1862 years onwards, most of the business of the NSWCA used to be transacted at Lawrence’s George Street cricket outlet. Consequently, Lawrence’s sports goods shop gradually became an important hub of cricket administrative activity in Sydney.
In his later years, Lawrence was to claim that he had tried to persuade his English team-mates to extend their Australian sojourn by a further year, and to make their fortunes during the extended stay. He would also claim that the principal motivation for remaining behind in Australia was keen his interest in whatever he had seen of Aboriginal cricket, remarking: “If I could teach them to play and take them to England I should meet with success." Lawrence decided to make the development of cricket in Australia his mission for the rest of his life.
Charles Lawrence stayed with Albert Club for about 3 years, moving on to the Warwick Club. Some of his feats on behalf of Albert Club, for whom he forged a strong combination with Nat Thomson, later to be a member of Australia’s first Test team, are still spoken of among the cognoscenti in Australia. In one game against XVIII of Bathurst in 1865, Lawrence captured 12/22 in 37.1 (4-ball) overs. Later in the same year, he had figures of 8/11 against XV of Toxheath before adverse weather intervened to cut the game short.
It did not take Lawrence long to make his first-class debut with New South Wales. We find him turning out for NSW against Victoria at The Domain, Sydney, from 5 Feb/1863, as the designated skipper of the home side. NSW won the match by 84 runs, the skipper distinguishing himself with the ball with figures of 7/48 and 7/25, his 2nd innings effort being his best first-class analysis till date. Between the seasons 1862-63 to 1869-70, Lawrence was to play 5 matches for NSW, captaining the side in all of them, and capturing 25 wickets at 10.44.
When the second English team, this time under the leadership of George Parr of Nottingham, toured Australia in the 1863/64 season, Lawrence turned out for XXII of NSW against the tourists at The Domain, Sydney, three times. The first of these games, billed as “Timeless”, actually ran to 9 days from 16 to 24 Mar/1864, although there was no play on days 4 through to 8 because of inclement weather. The Governor of the then Colony of NSW, Sir H Darling, after whom the Darling Harbour of Sydney is named, is said to have witnessed parts of the game along with his entourage.
To supplement his income, Lawrence became a publican and began to run the Pier Hotel at Manly, the premier Northern Beach resort of Sydney, from around the middle of 1865. He was joined there by his wife, Anne Elizabeth, and their three Dublin-born children. The couple were to have another daughter, named Maud, born later in Sydney. He was not destined to enjoy a prolonged period of domestic bliss, however. In November 1866, his wife passed away at their Sydney hotel, his infant daughter Maud also following her to the grave five days later. It was reported in the local press at the time that both had passed away of natural causes.
Billy Caffyn, the Surrey man, and a member of both the first and second English cricket tours of Australia, chose to remain behind at the conclusion of the 1863-64 tour, coaching members of the Melbourne Cricket Club for about a year before shifting to Sydney with his newly married wife and opening a hair-dressing business in George Street, not far from Lawrence’s shop, his wife also contributing her skills in this regard. He then coached the members of the Warwick Club of Sydney for four years before returning to England in May/1871. In Sydney, he had the opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with his Surrey team-mate Charles Lawrence, then coaching members of the Albert Club, later to join Warwick Club as coach when Caffyn went back to England in time for the 1871 domestic English season.
In his famous autobiography, Seventy One Not Out, lauded by John Arlott, among others, William Caffyn, fellow team-mate from the England and Surrey teams, makes the following observation about Charles Lawrence: “I must, however, take this opportunity to speak of the good work done towards the development of Australian cricket by Charles Lawrence, who by his perseverance, energy, and ability did a great deal towards the raising of the game to its present high standard.”
The second hero
Perhaps it is now time to consider the second thread of this story, and the name associated with it – Thomas Wentworth Wills.
According to an article written for the Australian Dictionary of Biography by CE Sayers, the story begins with the arrival at Sydney harbour of the convict transport vessel, Hillsborough, in July 1799. On board was a man named Edward Spencer Wills, convicted of highway robbery in England and deported for life, and his assigned wife, Sarah, nee Harding. The sixth fruit of this union was christened Horatio Spencer Howe Wills, born on Oct 5, 1811 in Sydney. The child’s father passed away in May, 1811, and his mother re-married on the first birthday of Horatio.
Not having the benefit of much formal education, the child Horatio grew up on the Sydney waterfront, being employed in the office of The Sydney Gazette, the first formal newspaper of Australia, run by his step-father, at the age of 12 years. He became the owner of the journal himself in 1832, adding another journal to his publications, the Currency Lad, from Aug, 1832. Horatio Wills married an orphan named Elizabeth, nee McGuire, aged a sweet sixteen, in Dec, 1833, himself being barely about 22 years old at the time. By 1834, the young couple held a pastoral lease in the Molonglo district where the future Australian Capital Territory would be established.
Their first child was born on Dec 19, 1835, and was named Thomas Wentworth Wills, Tom Wills for short. The child was just over 4 years of age when the family relocated overland to the Port Phillip District in early 1840. By now, Horatio Wills was a well-established pastoralist with several thousands of acres of farming land and over 5000 sheep and 500 head of cattle among his farm animals. In 1842, Horatio Wills acquired a much larger property running to about 120,000 acres in Western Australia and named it Lexington. He lived here for the next 10 years. Young Tom was thrown in amongst the Djab wurrung Aboriginals of the locality and learnt to speak their language fluently, and joined in their native sports.
Having been born in 1835 himself, Tom Wills is reported to have had 8 younger siblings, 5 sisters in Emily (born in 1842), Elizabeth (born in 1852), Eugenie (born in 1854), Minna (born in 1856), and Hortense (born in 1861, prior to the family tragedy). Tom’s 3 brothers were: Cedric (born in 1844), Horace (born in 1847), and Egbert (born in 1849). In his article The Greatest Team Photo in Australian Sporting History, author Martin Flanagan, speaking of the young Tom Wills, informs us that: “In the early 1840s he played with Tjapwurrung kids at Moyston, outside Ararat, speaking their language.”
As a child, Tom was initially educated at Rev William Brickwood’s School and Scotch College in Melbourne from 1846 until 1849, and played his first cricket matches for his Melbourne school. His father Horatio, himself not having had the opportunity for a good education, had a definite plan in mind for the education of his first-born son, sending him to Rugby School in England at the tender age of 14 years. Young Tom arrived in England in 1850 after a 5-month long sea voyage to further his education.
A newsletter entitled Our Warwickshire throws some light on the Rugby experience of young Tom Wills. He attended the venerable institution from 1850 to June/1855, writing back homesick letters to his family in Australia, and being thrilled at his first experience of snow in England. The newsletter also displays a section of a letter he had written to his father on 18 Aug/1951 during a trip to Bayswater.
The young sportsman
Tom turned out to be a natural sportsman, excelling at cricket and in the nascent form of the Rugby code played at his school. It is said that Tom learnt three things while at Rugby: the rudiments of the Rugby code, how to blossom into one of the finest young cricketers in England, and how to drink beer. He made it to the Rugby XI in 1852, principally as a bowler of the round-arm variety. While at Rugby, Tom Willis was under the tutelage of the Rugby cricket coach, John Lillywhite, and was captain of the school cricket team in his final year. “He uses a three-pound bat and hits terrific” said James Lillywhite, his coach, but Tom Wills was more noted for his bowling skills. He was listed in Bell’s Sporting Life as being one of the most promising cricketers in England in 1855.
He is known to have turned out both for the Gentlemen of Kent, and of the MCC, and one game for United Ireland in 1856. Wills also became involved with the rich amateur cricketers of I Zingari at this time. There appears to be some ambiguity about the Cambridge University connection of Tom Wills, however, though his father had entertained fond hopes that Tom would emerge from Cambridge University as a Law graduate. Unfortunately, Horatio’s dream was not to be fulfilled.
Tom failed to matriculate, and did not complete his studies at Cambridge. At a time when non-students were barred from playing in the university matches, Cambridge had reportedly declared being “one man short” and had included Wills in the playing XI in the Lord’s match of 1856 against Oxford even though he was no longer a student of Cambridge university at the time. It is on record that Wills did represent Cambridge University against Oxford at Lord’s in June/1856, scoring 5 runs in his side’s 2nd innings, and capturing 1 wicket in the Oxford 2nd innings, in a game that Cambridge had won by 3 wickets.
In A Biographical Sketch of Tom Wills appearing in The Australasian of 8 May/1869, noted sports journalist William Hammersley, whose relationship with Wills appears to have veered between sweet and sour over the years, says: “I find in looking over Lilly's big book of biographies, it is stated there that Mr. Wills played for Cambridge against Oxford in 1856, but was never entered at Cambridge. The score of the match is in the 5th vol., which I have not got. Curiously, Mr. Wills in his memoranda makes no mention of it; he merely says he played for Cambridge. I gathered once from him in the course of conversation, that he was entered at Magdalen College, and, after keeping one term, changed his mind, and gave up his intention of taking a degree, and accordingly returned to his native land, as above mentioned, in 1856, so he must have played in the June of that year at Lord's.”
Having completed his studies at Rugby in 1855, Tom Wills spent a period of about 18 months in England and Ireland playing cricket and honing his remarkable sporting skills. By the time he was back in Australia, on 23 Dec/1856, and on the brink of adulthood, Thomas Wentworth Wills was a fine figure of a young man, quite the “Beau Ideal,” in fact. About 5’10” tall, with “impossibly wavy hair,” and “blue almond shaped eyes,” it was written at the time that “few athletes can boast of a more muscular and well-developed frame". He was described as being “a model of muscular Christianity.”
On his return to Australia after his English sojourn, Tom Wills joined various cricket clubs, including the highly prestigious Melbourne Cricket Club, acting as the Club secretary for the 1857/58 season. A disorganised individual by nature, Wills was to abandon his duties with the Club midway through the 1858 season, leaving the accounts of the Club in a state of wild disarray.
Wills was immediately in the thick of the action in the match between NSW and VIC, played at The Domain, Sydney, from 14 Jan/1857. This was his first first-class match in Australia and he commemorated the occasion with figures of 6/25 and 4/40 in a match that the hosts won by 40 runs. Visibly improving with every match, and exhibiting the cricket skills he had learnt in England, Tom Wills was soon to become a name to reckon with in Inter-colonial cricket in Australia.
A sportsman to his fingertips, and an inveterate letter-writer, Wills was known to be in frequent correspondence with the leading journals of the time in Australia. One of his letters, dated 10 Jul/1858, and appearing in Bell’s Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle of Melbourne, was to open up a new sport in Australia. Under the headline; “Winter Practice”, it advocated the forming of a “football club” in the off-season for cricketers so that they could keep their fitness levels intact. It also advocated the forming of a committee of “three or more members” to draw up a code of laws for the football games. Along with the aforesaid William Hammersley, Wills would be one of a committee comprising 4 members who would draw up the first blueprint of the laws, based on the Rugby code that he had learnt in England, governing the game now known as Australian Rules Football.
His profile reveals the fact that Tom Wills represented Victoria in 16 first-class matches between Jan, 1857 and Feb, 1876, leading the side in 13 of the games. He is seen to have led Victoria to victory in 10 of the 13 matches where he had been at the helm of the team. Although his overall batting performance for Victoria does not appear to be commensurate with his obvious skills (356 runs from 27 innings at 17.80, with a highest of 58, his only fifty), he had 98 wickets at 8.88, with best figures of 7/44, with 12 five-wicket hauls and 3 hauls of 10 wickets in a match.
Notwithstanding the fact that he had not lived up to the cherished dream of his father of becoming a Law graduate from Cambridge, Horatio Wills was a tenacious character and used his influence to have Tom articled to the firm of a Collingwood solicitor in 1857 in the hope of encouraging his first-born to pursue the legal profession. It was not to be, however, for Tom abandoned the firm at some time in 1860, the lure of his sporting activities proving to be too strong a deterrent.
There were about 25,000 spectators on the ground on the 3 days between 2nd and 4th Feb, 1860, when Victoria took on NSW at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There was no toss, and the home side took first strike. It was a very low-scoring game, with totals of 56, 44, 99, and 42, being registered in the 4 innings of the game for the loss of all 40 wickets. Victoria won the match by 69 runs, skipper Wills returning bowling figures of 6/23 and 3/16. In addition, Wills top scored in the 2nd innings with 20 runs.