When was wg grace born

Apart from tenderness to his relatives and a generous soft spot for children, he was not, I think, a particularly attractive man, though he could sometimes and it is usually recorded as remarkable encourage a young player on his own side with - as the saying went in his day - bluff good humour.

After the Australians had experienced him for the first time, a commentator Down Under observed that, "For so big a man, he is surprisingly tenacious on very small points.

He was also, throughout his career, quite breathtakingly grasping when his eye caught the glint of hard cash. On his second tour in , one-fifth of the entire cost of transporting 13 English cricketers across the world, supporting them in Australia and paying them for what they did there, went into Grace's pocket. No wonder it cost twice as much to get into some English grounds if Grace was playing than if he was not. The astonishing thing about the mercenary Grace, of course, is that he was classified and has ever since been glorified as an amateur.

Nothing more exposed the humbug that used to smother the entire topic of Gents v Players than an examination of Grace's financial rewards from the game; and nothing more reveals the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the humbug than something Grace once said when trying to argue the Gloucestershire committee into playing more amateurs than professionals.

He declared his fear for the future of cricket if it became wholly professional. It will be gathered from the above that he has never been a hero of mine, not since the day in adolescence when I discovered that he was sometimes a shameless cheat in a game that, I was being asked to believe, was wholly honourable. I shall nevertheless drink to his memory on July 18 because his tremendous gifts, especially his phenomenal batting, were largely responsible for the elevation of cricket from just another 19th-century game, which had become popular partly because it lent itself to gambling.

Grace's towering presence, more than any other single factor, transformed it into the unrivalled spectator sport of summer, first of all in England, subsequently in other lands spread widely across the world. I would even suggest that a true measurement of WG's unique stature is that he is instantly identifiable, even by some who are uninterested in his vocation, by his initials alone.

I cannot think of another human being in any sphere, not even WC Fields, of whom this is also true. Geoffrey Moorhouse, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Oldest players 50y d. Oldest captains 50y d. Hundred on debut Also, who has the most international hat-tricks? And is Misbah the oldest Test captain ever? T20 batting will move on from him, but for now, as he stands on the verge of yet another monolithic landmark, he is a reminder of what is possible in the game.

Matches Schedule Points Table Videos. Even in those days when facial hair sprouted luxuriant and lavish, WG was miles ahead in texture and density — often resembling The Creator of the Old Testament. It was apt. If Dr WG Grace plays admission sixpence. It was said that he turned the old one-stringed instrument into a many-chorded lyre. WG topped 1, runs in 28 seasons, 2, in five.

Grace was recognised for his contribution to the game by the MCC with a memorial biography published in This was followed four years later by the installation of the W. Grace memorial gates at the St. Johns Wood road entrance at Lord's. Further recognition has come over the years which saw Grace picked by Wisden in as one of their 6 giants of the Wisden Century and his induction in to the ICC cricket Hall of Fame in One of W. Uneven pitch conditions and lack of suitable protective clothing back then would be completely unacceptable in the modern game, making batting conditions unpredictable at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

Grace introduced batting techniques to help him master these conditions far better than his contemporaries. The fact that his name and his image are instantly recognisable today by so many over a century after his death speaks volumes for his importance to the sport for which he is often referred to as the father of modern cricket.

Open Menu. More About us. Close Menu. Biography of W. Home W. Grace's early life. One of nine children to Henry and Martha Grace, the young William would have been immersed in cricket from an early age. Early career. The cricketing career of W.

Grace is extraordinary for its longevity and impact to this day. A Record-Breaking Career. Because of his medical profession, he was nominally an amateur cricketer but he is said to have made more money from his cricketing activities than any professional cricketer.

He was an extremely competitive player and, although he was one of the most famous men in England, he was also one of the most controversial on account of his gamesmanship and moneymaking. Grace was born in Downend, near Bristol, on 18 July at his parents' home, Downend House, and was baptised at the local church on 8 August. He was called Gilbert in the family circle, except by his mother who called him Willie, but otherwise he was universally known by his initials W.

Downend is near Mangotsfield and, although it is now a suburb of Bristol, it was then "a distinct village surrounded by countryside" and about four miles from Bristol. Henry and Martha Grace had nine children in all: "the same number as Victoria and Albert — and in every respect they were the typical Victorian family".

Grace was the eighth child in the family; he had three older brothers, including E. Only Fred, born in , was younger than W. Grace began his Cricketing Reminiscences by answering a question he had frequently been asked: i.

His answer was in the negative because he believed that "cricketers are made by coaching and practice", though he adds that if he was not born a cricketer, he was born "in the atmosphere of cricket". His father and mother were "full of enthusiasm for the game" and it was "a common theme of conversation at home".

In , when W. All nine children in the Grace family, including the four daughters, were encouraged to play cricket although the girls, along with the dogs, were required for fielding only. Grace claimed that he first handled a cricket bat at the age of two. It was in the Downend orchard and as members of their local cricket clubs that he and his brothers developed their skills, mainly under the tutelage of his uncle, Alfred Pocock, who was an exceptional coach.

Apart from his cricket and his schooling, Grace lived the life of a country boy and roamed freely with the other village boys. One of his regular activities was stone throwing at birds in the fields and he later claimed that this was the source of his eventual skill as an outfielder.

Grace was "notoriously unscholarly". He subsequently attended a day school called Ridgway House, run by a Mr Malpas, until he was fourteen. One of his schoolmasters, David Barnard, later married Grace's sister Alice. In , Grace was taken seriously ill with pneumonia and his father removed him from Ridgway House.

After this illness, Grace grew rapidly to his full height of 6 ft 2 in 1. He continued his education at home where one of his tutors was the Reverend John Dann, who was the Downend parish church curate; like Mr Barnard before him, Mr Dann became Grace's brother-in-law, marrying Blanche Grace in Grace never went to university as his father was intent upon him pursuing a medical career. In , when he played a match at Oxford, one of the Oxford players, Edmund Carter, tried to interest him in becoming an undergraduate.

Then, in , Grace received overtures from Caius College, Cambridge, which had a long medical tradition. Grace said he would have gone to either Oxford or Cambridge if his father had allowed it. Instead, he enrolled at Bristol Medical School in October , when he was Henry Grace founded Mangotsfield Cricket Club in to represent several neighbouring villages including Downend. In , this club merged with the West Gloucestershire Cricket Club whose name was adopted until It has been said that the Grace family ran the West Gloucestershire "almost as a private club".

West Gloucestershire fared poorly in these games and, sometime in the s, Henry and Alfred Pocock decided to join Lansdown, although they continued to run the West Gloucestershire and this remained their primary club. Alfred Pocock was especially instrumental in coaching the Grace brothers and spent long hours with them on the practice pitch at Downend. Pocock recognised this problem and determined that W. He therefore fashioned smaller bats for them, to suit their sizes, and they were taught to play straight and "learn defence, with the left shoulder well forward", before attempting to hit.

Grace recorded in his Reminiscences that he saw his first great cricket match in when he was barely six years old, the occasion being a game between William Clarke's All-England Eleven the AEE and twenty-two of West Gloucestershire. He says he himself played for the West Gloucestershire club as early as , when he was nine years old, and had 11 innings in The earliest match in CricketArchive which involved Grace was in , only a few days after his eleventh birthday, when he played for Clifton Cricket Club against the South Wales Cricket Club at Durdham Down, his team winning by runs.

Several members of the Grace family, including his elder brother E. Grace batted at number 11 and scored 0 and 0 not out. The first time he made a substantial score was in July when he scored 51 for West Gloucestershire against Clifton; he wrote that none of his great innings gave him more pleasure.

It was through E. His mother, Martha, wrote the following in a letter to William Clarke's successor George Parr in or I am writing to ask you to consider the inclusion of my son, E.

Grace — a splendid hitter and most excellent catch — in your England XI. I am sure he would play very well and do the team much credit. It may interest you to learn that I have another son, now twelve years of age, who will in time be a much better player than his brother because his back stroke is sounder, and he always plays with a straight bat. Grace was just short of his thirteenth birthday when, on 5 July , he made his debut for Lansdown and played two matches that month.

A year later, following his bout of pneumonia which had left him bed-ridden for several weeks, he scored 52 not out and took 5 wickets against a Somerset XI. He and his elder brother Henry were invited to play for the South Wales Club which had arranged a series of matches in London and Sussex, though Grace wondered humorously how they were qualified to represent South Wales.

Although there is controversy among cricket statisticians about the details of Grace's first-class career, it is generally agreed that its span was 44 seasons from to , and one source lists 29 teams, the England national team and 28 domestic teams, represented by Grace in important or first-class matches. Most of these were ad hoc or guest appearances. In minor cricket, Grace represented upwards of forty teams.

Besides playing for England in Test cricket —99 , the key teams in Grace's first-class career were the Gentlemen — , All-England aka England i. Apart from the London County venture in his later years, Grace had firmly committed himself to all of these by the end of the season when he was Cricket in the s underwent a revolution with the legalisation of overarm bowling in June and Grace himself said it was "no exaggeration to say that, between and , English cricket passed through its most critical period" with the game in transition and "it was quite a revolutionary period so far as its rules were concerned".

Grace was still 15 when the season began and had turned 20 when the season ended and he began his medical career by enrolling at Bristol Medical School on 7 October In the interim, specifically in , he became widely recognised as the finest cricketer in England. Just after his eighteenth birthday in July , Grace confirmed his potential with an innings of not out for All-England against Surrey at The Oval.

It was his maiden first-class century and, according to Harry Altham, he was "thenceforward the biggest name in cricket and the main spectator attraction with the successes coming thick and fast".

In , Grace scored two centuries in a match, only the second time in cricket history that this is known to have been done, following William Lambert in Summarising the season, Simon Rae wrote that Grace was "now indisputably the cricketer of the age, the Champion".

In , Grace was made a member of MCC and scored four centuries in July, including an innings of at The Oval which was achieved during the highest wicket partnership involving Grace in his entire career; he shared runs for the first wicket with Bransby Cooper. Later in the month, Grace scored out of in difficult batting conditions during the North v South match at Bramall Lane, prompting the laconic Tom Emmett to call him a "nonsuch", and declare: "He ought to be made to play with a littler bat".

Grace had another outstanding season in , during which Gloucestershire acquired first-class status, and Derek Birley records that, "scorning the puny modern fashion of moustaches", he grew the enormous black beard that made him so recognisable. In addition, his "ample girth" had developed for he weighed 15 stone 95 kg in his early twenties. Grace was a non-smoker but he enjoyed good food and wine; many years later, when discussing the overheads incurred during Lord Sheffield's profitless tour of Australia in —92, Arthur Shrewsbury commented: "I told you what wine would be drunk by the amateurs; Grace himself would drink enough to swim a ship.

According to Harry Altham, was Grace's annus mirabilis , except that he produced another outstanding year in In all first-class matches in , a total of 17 centuries were scored and Grace accounted for 10 of them, including the first century in a first-class match at Trent Bridge. He averaged His aggregate for the season was 2, runs and this was the first time that anyone had scored 2, first-class runs in a season; Harry Jupp was next best with 1, Grace produced his season's highlight in the South v North match at The Oval when he made his highest career score to date of , having been dismissed by Jem Shaw for nought in the first innings.

It was to no avail as the match was drawn. But the occasion produced a memorable and oft-quoted comment by Jem Shaw who ruefully said: "I puts the ball where I likes and he puts it where he likes". Grace had numerous nicknames during his career including "The Doctor", after he achieved his medical qualification, and "The Old Man", as he reached the veteran stage.

He was most auspiciously nicknamed "The Champion". He was first acclaimed as "the Champion Cricketer" by Lillywhite's Companion in recognition of his exploits in However, Grace's great year was marred by the death of his father in December. Grace and his younger brother Fred still lived with their mother at Downend. Their father had left just enough to maintain the family home but the onus was now on the brothers to increase their earnings from cricket to pay for their medical studies Fred started his in the autumn of They achieved this through their involvement as match organisers of the United South of England Eleven which played six matches in the season including games in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Grace's first visit to Scotland.

Grace became the first batsman to score a century before lunch in a first-class match when he made for Gentlemen of the South versus Players of the South at The Oval in In the same season, he became the first player ever to complete the "double" of 1, runs and wickets in a season. He went on to do the double eight times in all:. This was aimed principally at England's outstanding bowler James Southerton who had been playing for both Surrey and Sussex, having been born in one county and living in the other.

Southerton chose to play for his county of residence, Surrey, from then on but remained the country's top bowler. The counties agreed on residence but not on a means of deciding a County Championship and so the title, known as "Champion County", remained an unofficial award until Grace's Gloucestershire had a very strong claim to this unofficial title in but consensus was that they shared it with Nottinghamshire.

These two did not play each other and both were unbeaten in six matches, but Nottinghamshire won five and Gloucestershire won four. Having toured Australia in the winter of —74, Grace arrived in England on 18 May and was quickly back into domestic cricket. The season was very successful for him as he completed a second successive double. Gloucestershire again had a strong claim to the Champion County title although some sources have awarded it to Derbyshire and Grace himself said that it should have gone to Yorkshire.

Another good season followed in when he again completed the double with 1, runs and wickets. This was his most successful season as a bowler. Two days after his innings at Canterbury, he made for Gloucestershire v Nottinghamshire; and two days after that not out for Gloucestershire v Yorkshire, these two innings against counties with exceptionally strong bowling attacks. Thus, in three consecutive innings Grace scored runs and was only out twice.

His innings of was the first triple century scored in first-class cricket and broke the record for the highest individual score in all classes of cricket, previously held by William Ward who scored in Ward's record had stood for 56 years and, within a week, Grace bettered it twice.

In , Gloucestershire won the unofficial championship for the third and to date final time, largely thanks to another outstanding season by Grace who scored 1, runs and took wickets. There was speculation that Grace intended to retire before the season to concentrate on his medical career, but he decided to continue playing cricket and may have been influenced by the arrival of the first Australian team to tour England in May.

According to Chris Harte, news of the match "spread like wildfire and created a sensation in London and throughout England". The satirical magazine Punch responded to it by publishing a parody of Byron's poem The Destruction of Sennacherib including a wry commentary on Grace's contribution:.

The Mary'bone Cracks for a trifle were bowled ; Our Grace before dinner was very soon done ,. There was bad feeling between Grace and some of the Australians, especially their manager John Conway; this came to a head on 20 June in a row over the services of Grace's friend Billy Midwinter, an Australian who had played for Gloucestershire in Midwinter was already in England before the main Australian party arrived and had joined them for their first match in May.

On the same day, the Gloucestershire team was at The Oval to play Surrey but arrived a man short. As a result, a group of Gloucestershire players led by W. Grace went to Lord's and persuaded Midwinter to accompany them back to The Oval to make up their numbers. They were pursued by three of the Australians who caught them at The Oval gates where a furious altercation ensued in front of bystanders.

At one point, Grace called the Australians "a damned lot of sneaks" he later apologised. In the end, Grace got his way and Midwinter stayed with Gloucestershire for the rest of the season, although he did not play for the county against the Australians.

Afterwards, the row was patched up and Gloucestershire invited the Australians to play the county team, minus Midwinter, at Clifton College.

The Australians took a measure of revenge and won easily by 10 wickets, with Fred Spofforth taking 12 wickets and making the top score.