“The Coming Man of West Indies Cricket”: The Rise of Ellis Achong

Ellis Achong (Image: The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

One of the ironies of cricket history is that a man who is primarily remembered for his association with a type of delivery known by the now-obsolete (and racist) term “chinaman” rarely, if ever, bowled that style. Ellis Achong was an orthodox left-arm spinner from Trinidad and Tobago who had a brief and largely unsuccessful Test career in the 1930s. He was also an accomplished footballer in his younger days but after a long period in the shadows, he emerged as Trinidad’s leading spinner in 1930. In 1933, he was chosen to tour England with the West Indies team where he worked very hard for little reward. But the legacy of that tour was not just the infamous and probably apocryphal story involving Walter Robins; for Achong, it led to a twenty-year professional career in the English cricket leagues.

Ellis Edgar Achong was born at Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on 16 February 1904. As almost every piece ever written about him is at great pains to emphasise, Achong had Chinese ancestry, but we know nothing about his family except that his father Lawrence Augustus Achong was a cocoa merchant and his brother Harold played alongside him on the football field. His mother may have been called Isabella (in 1930, Achong visited New York with a West Indies cricket team; on the immigration forms, he listed his closest relative as Mrs Isabella Achong). Achong told a London journalist during the 1933 tour of England that he was educated at St Mary’s College in Trinidad, and his travel documents indicate that his occupation was a clerk. Other than this, as in the case of so many West Indies cricketers from before the Second World War, the rest of his early life is a mystery. It is not even clear how he came by his nickname of “Puss”; newspapers commonly referred to him as Puss Achong as early as 1932.

Whatever his achievements as a cricketer — and this was the sport from which he would later make a living — Achong was perhaps a better football player. In Trinidad’s football competition, he played on the left wing for the exceptionally strong Maple team, where his team-mates included his brother Harold and the West Indies Test player Clifford Roach. He was so good that he first played for Trinidad in the Intercolonial Tournament at the age of 15: he was a regular between 1919 and 1932 (after which time he lived in England). Achong’s entry for the Trinidad Sports Hall of Fame stated: “He cast a fine image for himself as a left-winger and was noted for his clever dribbling and crossing”. His reputation was such that even as late as the 1950s, he was still revered as one of the best players to appear for Trinidad.

But there is a hint that there was a hard edge to Achong’s football. In 1929, he was banned for unsporting behaviour in the final of Trinidad’s FA Trophy. The Heritage Society of Trinidad’s Everton Football Club, Maple’s opponents in that game, records what happened:

“In a hard-fought match with Everton leading 3-2 with 12 minutes remaining, the referee George Rochford ordered Leslie of Everton and H. Achong (Maple) off the field. In response, Ellis Achong ordered the Maple players off the field. Ellis Achong and his brother Harold were later suspended by the TAFA [Trinidad Amateur Football Association] for their behaviour, the captain [Ellis Achong] being banned for the remainder of the season and the first four matches of 1931 while his brother got a four-match ban.”

The referee, in his report, stated: “I consider the behaviour of the two Achongs the most disgraceful exhibition of unsportsmanlike conduct that I have ever had the misfortune to witness.”

If Achong was recognised in Trinidad as an excellent footballer, it was his cricket that brought him wider recognition. He was a left-arm spinner — not, as widely and lazily claimed today, a wrist-spinner. He told the Sunday Dispatch in London during the 1933 tour that he had never received cricket coaching but picked up what he knew from watching other players. In cricket, as in football, he played for Maple, a team about which we know plenty, because one of Achong’s team-mates was C. L. R. James, who wrote extensively about the his experiences in Beyond a Boundary (1963). According to James, Maple was the club of “the brown-skinned middle class”, in which skin colour was crucial — those with darker skins were generally excluded.

As was the case for several cricketers whom he must have known well but for whom we have almost no information, James is almost silent on Achong. He mentions that he, Achong and Roach both played and practised together when they were at Maple. He also mentions a time — which he does not date except to say it was in the mid-1920s — in which Achong was playing in the annual North Trinidad v South Trinidad match; at the start of the second day, it had been agreed by the North team that Achong was the most likely bowler to dismiss the South, but the fast bowler George John, who had over-bowled himself on the first day, refused to hand over the ball and the captain was too intimidated to insist.

But there is not a word from James about Achong’s later career in England, even though league cricket is a major theme of his book. While it may simply have been that there was not the space to go into detail about Achong, it does serve as a reminder that we cannot take James completely at face value as a cricket historian, and there may have been other factors at play of which we are unaware.

In Achong’s case, we can piece together the story from elsewhere. When he signed a contract to play for Rochdale in 1933, a feature appeared in the Nelson Leader which quoted from Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle. The cricket competition in Trinidad, known as the Bonanza Cup (after the department store which sponsored it), was slightly more complicated than James described it. There were two divisions and movement between teams was not uncommon. The Sporting Chronicle stated that Achong first played for St Mary’s College in the “second-class” competition between 1921 and 1924, but transferred to Maple for the 1925 season. However, he only stayed there for two seasons: from 1927 until 1933, he played for Queen’s Park Club. This latter move is surprising; Queen’s Park was, according to James, a club exclusively for white cricketers.

There is clearly more to this story than we can know, but along with his fiery football temperament, might hint that Achong was a more complex figure than comes across in the simplistic story which is usually told about him.

Victor Pascall in 1925

For most of the 1920s, Achong’s path to the Trinidad first-class cricket team was blocked by the presence of Victor Pascall, the leading left-arm spinner in the West Indies. Pascall was not only a very effective spinner, who did well during the West Indies’ 1923 tour of England, he was also a capable batter (and far better than Achong). Pascall’s final game for Trinidad was in 1927, and after he was overlooked for the 1928 tour of England (he played in the trial matches), he never played any other first-class cricket. Although he played in the North Trinidad v South Trinidad match in 1929 (he may have played in other important games, but CricketArchive has no record of them), he was left out of the Trinidad team which played in the 1928–29 and 1929–30 Intercolonial Tournament. There may have been health reasons for this, because he died in July 1930 at the age of 43.

By the time the MCC toured the West Indies in early 1930, Achong had secured his place in the Trinidad team. He appeared in both of Trinidad’s matches against the MCC, which were played on the matting pitches of the Queen’s Park Oval. Making his first-class debut in the first game, he took four for 43 and three for 39 as Trinidad won by 102 runs. The Cricketer indicated that it was Achong’s flight and variation in pace on a slightly difficult pitch which brought him success. In the second, he took four for 53 and one for 23. His return of twelve wickets for 158 runs in the two games was enough for him to be chosen in the full West Indies team for the Trinidad Test match (These matches were only retrospectively recognised as official Test matches, and their status at the time was a little uncertain).

There may have been another factor in Achong’s selection. The leading batter on the English side was Patsy Hendren; he had scored two unbeaten double centuries against Barbados and hit 80 and 36 not out in the first Test. But in the two Trinidad matches, Achong dismissed him twice in four innings. In the second innings of the first game he was caught by Constantine off Achong’s bowling for 96. Constantine recalled in his Cricket in the Sun (1947) how Hendren had unleashed a barrage of swearwords at Achong upon his dismissal, which might suggest something had taken place on the field leading up to that moment. But in contrast to his success in Barbados, Hendren scored only 178 runs in four innings.

However, Achong’s inclusion in the Test team may simply have been a result of the chaotic home selection policy. Each West Indies team for the series was picked by local selectors, so for the Trinidad Test it was a selection panel from Trinidad. And so it is hardly surprising that eight home players featured in the Test team. Such selectorial parochialism — and a desire to reduce expenses by keeping travel costs to a minimum — was repeated all series and resulted in 27 players featuring for the West Indies across the four Tests. Making his Test debut, Achong took two for 64 in the first innings, including the wicket of Hendren for 77, but sprained his ankle and was unable to continue after delivering just four overs in the second; Hendren scored another unbeaten two hundred and the England team won by 167 runs.

A review in The Cricketer Spring Annual for 1930 said that Achong “was indebted to Constantine’s fielding and to some bad batting for the majority of his wickets. He is too slow for matting [on which all his games against the MCC were played], and furthermore pitches the ball far too often on, or even outside, the off-stump instead of on the middle and leg. Still, he has a nice action, and can spin the ball well. Might be useful in England.”

Having established his place in the Trinidad team, Achong took part in his first Intercolonial Tournament, which took place in Barbados early in 1932. This gave him his first experience bowling on turf pitches; but according to an interview he gave the following year, Learie Constantine had already coached him on what to expect. Achong was an unqualified success. In the first match, against Barbados, he took four for 26 as he and Ben Sealey dismissed the home team for 71; in the second innings he took one for 24 from 21 overs to keep a tight grip on the scoring. Trinidad won that match by six wickets to qualify for the final against British Guiana, the reigning champions. Guiana took a first innings lead of 33, but Achong’s three for 74 in 34 overs were crucial in maintaining control. Trinidad set Guiana 324 to win, and Achong was the match-winner, taking seven for 73 in 36 overs as Trinidad won by 82 runs.

Such a performance established Achong as the leading slow bowler in the Caribbean, and it was inevitable that he came into consideration for the 1933 tour of England. His choice was unquestioned, at least in Trinidad. As early as May 1932, the sports critic of the Trinidad Daily Mail had picked out Achong as the best choice for the slow bowler: “He is left-handed, a fair swerver, a good finger spinner and generally flights cleverly.” The Sporting Chronicle was more equivocal, noting that he was already thirty years old, and questioned whether Trinidad’s Ralph McGregor was a better and younger option; however it concluded that the latter was not half the bowler Achong had been at the same age, and described Achong as the “coming man” of West Indies cricket. The Trinidad Journal suggested that “Achong lacks real cricket brain, but [Hedley] Verity [England’s slow-left-arm bowler] hasn’t got much on him. He is a strong boy and will get his spin on the best of these wickets.”

Achong was picked for the two trial games played in Trinidad; he took three wickets in the first innings but only one in the other three. Nevertheless, his reputation (and the lack of other good options) meant that he was chosen for the West Indies team, one of six Trinidad players (Constantine played occasionally, making it seven at times).

Achong photographed in 1933 (Image: Illustrated London News, 19 August 1933)

C. L. R. James, writing at that time for the Manchester Guardian, discussed Achong in a preview of the tour: “The problem bowler of the side is Ellis Achong — slow to medium left-hand. On his success or failure much will depend. He is powerfully built, can bowl all day and will probably spin his leg-break quickly away on the best wicket he meets in England. He can flight the ball and keeps a good length. In a wet summer he would get a hundred wickets easily. A dry summer, on the other hand, would help considerably in developing his subtlety and awareness.” A preview in The Cricketer (which made quite a deal of his ethnicity) described him as the best bowler in the West Indies, despite his disappointing performance in the trials.

The tour was to prove a difficult one for the West Indies. The batters struggled, despite a hot and dry summer which produced some good pitches. But a bigger problem was that, unless Constantine was playing, the bowling was largely toothless; everything depended on Manny Martindale, the only dangerous bowler in the team. The Wisden review of the tour said of Achong: “The weakness of the West Indies attack was the lack of really first-class spin bowlers. Achong, left-handed, accomplished much good work and in the Test match at Lord’s bowled admirably for a long spell. Probably, if the season had been a wet one, he would have come out with a much better record than that of 71 wickets for 36 runs each. He, Martindale, [Vincent] Valentine and [Oscar] Da Costa bore the hard work of the attack throughout the tour.” “Second Slip” in The Cricketer merely observed that Achong bowled a lot of overs for his wickets.

The simple fact is that Achong did not have a good tour. Part of the reason was his heavy workload. An injury early in the tour to F. R. Martin meant that Achong was often called upon by the captain G. C. Grant to keep one end going so that Martindale could rest. Of the team’s 30 first-class games, Achong missed just three: only Clifford Roach played more games (G. C. Grant and O. C. Da Costa played the same number but none of the others were specialist bowlers). Achong bowled plenty of overs in the West Indies’ extended series of warm up matches, and took seven wickets in a two-day match against the Club Cricket Conference. But the opening first-class game, played against Northamptonshire, set the template: West Indies lost by an innings but Achong bowled 53 overs (taking two for 77).

He had some success. He took four for 52 against Cambridge, and against the MCC at Lord’s, Achong’s five for 49 in the fourth innings bowled the West Indies to a 152-run win against a strong team. In an interview after the tour, Achong said that the latter was his best performance, and he had been presented with the ball afterwards. But subsequent games were more notable for his workload than his success: 31 overs in an innings against Hampshire, 30 against Surrey, 40 against Glamorgan, 45 against Derbyshire. Later in the season, he also bowled more than 30 overs in an innings against Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, an England XI, and in two of the Test matches. This was quite a step up for a man accustomed to only bowling at weekends; now, he was required six days a week for most of the summer. His workload was perhaps most intense at Old Trafford during the second Test when he bowled for three hours without a break. He later said, in an interview when he had returned to Trinidad: “[Old Trafford] was a hard trial for me, but I stuck to my task as I knew the situation required it.”

Apart from four for 78 against Somerset and six for 108 against the Minor Counties (a match in which he bowled 65 overs for eight wickets), he had little to show for the amount of bowling he did. His only other notable returns were four for 84 against Leicestershire, four for 70 against Glamorgan and, in a non-first-class game, four for 31 against Staffordshire.

With no other slow bowler in the team, Achong also played in all three Tests but took only five wickets at 47.40. And yet it was the second of these games which ensured for Achong a fame which was far out of proportion to his meagre achievements at Test level. The story is well known, but bears repeating. Achong was bowling at Old Trafford while England were under considerable pressure; the West Indies had built a big score and their bowlers, Learie Constantine (playing his only Test of the series) and Martindale, had unleashed “bodyline” bowling. England, having lost early wickets to the pace barrage, were rescued by Douglas Jardine, their captain, who scored his only Test century. He shared a 140-run partnership with Walter Robins, who scored 55 before he was out stumped off Achong’s bowling.

Walter Robins in 1935 (Image: Wikipedia)

Supposedly, as Robins came off, he retorted to the umpire words to the effect of: “Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman!” To which Constantine, who was standing nearby, replied: “Do you mean the bowler or the ball?”

And according to a surprising number of respectable sources, this was where the term “chinaman” came from. But this is a fantasy as “chinaman” had been used to describe a variety of deliveries since as early as the mid-1920s; its origin seems connected to the Yorkshire team which used it to describe unusual deliveries. The connection with left-arm wrist spin arose when applied to the bowling of the slow-left-armer Roy Kilner (who sometimes bowled wrist-spin) and later to that of Maurice Leyland. There was even an earlier variant on the Achong tale during the 1932–33 MCC tour of Australia when Herbert Sutcliffe was dismissed by Hunter Poon in a game against Queensland Country; Poon, like Achong, had Chinese ancestry and at least one press report (the Nottingham Journal in February 1933) made the same unfunny joke about the delivery.

There are two other points about this story. The first is that it is almost impossible to pin down when and where it originated. According to his son, Robins (who died in 1968) was aware of the tale (although he personally attributed it to Patsy Hendren) but may have been simply referring to the “joke” rather than the incident. The second point is that, for all the supposed romance of this “origin” story, Achong did not bowl wrist-spin and no contemporary source ever suggested, or even hinted, otherwise. Had he done so, even as a one-off, someone would probably have noticed, not least Neville Cardus, who was fascinated by left-arm wrist-spin and reported on the 1933 series, including that Old Trafford match.

A little hint of what might have occurred was revealed by Tony Cozier in his obituary of Achong, printed in The Cricketer in 1986. Achong told Cozier that, during the stand between Jardine and Robins, Constantine suggested to him that he try “something different” and therefore he “chang[ed] his usual orthodox delivery to wrist spin, the off-break.” Cozier relates how, in a radio interview, Achong explained to him: “It pitched perfectly and turned back nicely and when Robins saw it coming back on him, he opened his legs, the ball went through and he was stumped.”

Achong’s version included Robins’ retort of “Fancy being out to a bloody Chinaman!” but did not mention Constantine’s reply. This interview therefore cannot be the sole source for the anecdote, although it might be evidence that something actually happened. Achong said: “They tell me that since then that particular ball has been called the ‘Chinaman’ but how true it is I don’t know.” Cozier considered it plausible, even though he pointed out that Achong rarely bowled wrist-spin deliveries. Incidentally, the obituary of Achong written by Reds Perreira for Wisden Cricket Monthly made no mention of the incident, and Achong’s Wisden obituary included an unquestioning retelling of the whole story (albeit saying that Achong was “essentially an orthodox slow left-armer” who bowled a wrist-spinner to Robins which “gave rise to the use in England of the word chinaman to describe such a delivery”).

Perhaps it is true that Achong bowled a one-off wrist-spin delivery in desperation; but it may also be true that he did not. Possibly he later played up to the legend and went along with the idea that he had briefly experimented. Despite many claims which can be found in various sources, we can state categorically that the name for that delivery did not originate from this incident, that Achong did not invent either the name or the delivery (which is suggested in some places), and that Achong was not a wrist-spin bowler.

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The West Indies team at Liverpool for their match against Lancashire: George Headley, Ellis Achong, Cyril Christiani, Manny Martindale, Herman Griffith, Benjamin Sealey, Vincent Valentine.

Unaware of how that one delivery would live on, Achong finished the tour with 71 first-class wickets at the average of 36.14 from 960 overs. He was the second-highest wicket-taker in the team after Martindale but some way down the averages. He bowled almost 300 overs more than the next hardest-worked bowler, Martindale. However, several English bowlers delivered more overs than Achong that season: A. P. Freeman bowled over 2,000 overs and there were many others — spinners and faster bowlers — who delivered over 1,000. Achong’s record also compared unfavourably to other left-arm spinners during that hot summer: Yorkshire’s Hedley Verity took 190 wickets at 13.43, Sussex’s James Langridge had 158 at 16.56, Warwickshire’s George Paine had 125 at 24.60 and Gloucestershire’s Charlie Parker took 119 at 27.47.

Achong had been interviewed during the tour by a correspondent from London’s Sunday Dispatch during a rain break in July. He lamented the lack of slow bowlers in the West Indies, which he attributed to the exciting attraction of emulating Constantine, Griffith or Martindale: bowling slowly was “not exciting enough”. He also defended the team from claims that it was unfamiliar with leg-spin, citing the record of Cyril Browne. At the end of the tour, as the players prepared to leave England (and when he falsely claimed never to have bowled on a turf pitch before his arrival in England), he again made a point about wanting to encourage young players at home to “forsake the fast stuff” and take up spin.

In another interview upon returning home, Achong praised Grant’s captaincy and said that there was a great team spirit. He also discussed the tour in general. The team were kept entertained; for example, Achong was one of a party which went down a coal mine in Sunderland, which he called a “great experience”.

By almost any measure, it was a forgettable summer for Achong, except for his own personal achievement in being chosen to take part. Had it not been for that dismissal, his role in it would have been forgotten. But an unexpected development at the end of the summer meant that he would become famous for something other than a story fabricated by others, and would spend almost twenty years living in England.

The Later Life of Snuffy Browne

A Pathé film of the 1928 West Indies team. The clip contains a close-up of Browne. After RK Nunes, there is an uncredited close-up of James Neblett and another shot of Browne, followed by uncredited close-ups of FR Martin and Vibart Wight.

Cyril “Snuffy” Browne was born in Barbados, for whom he played first-class cricket before the First World War. He attended Harrison College before studying law in England, where he was called to the bar in 1914. After returning to Barbados, he only stayed for a short time before moving to British Guiana, most likely to work with his older brother Philip, also a barrister, who preceded him there. Browne became the dominant figure in Guiana cricket; bowling mainly leg-breaks and googlies, he was easily the best bowler in a weak team and he even captained the side in their first match of the 1920s, although there seems to have been a protest that Guiana had a black captain, and he only held the role for one game. His influence was enormous on and off the field. A tour of England with the 1923 West Indies team enhanced his reputation, and when he returned home, his batting reached new heights. Against Barbados in 1925, he scored 102 and had match figures of thirteen for 135.

As a result, Browne was a certain pick for the 1928 tour of England by the West Indies, which included their first Test matches. For almost a year before the team was selected, there was vigorous debate over its composition and, more importantly, who would lead it. The eventual choice was Jamaica’s Karl Nunes. Although Browne was almost certainly the best-qualified candidate, he was overlooked because the captaincy was reserved for white players at a time when West Indian cricket was administered by Europeans and riven with racism. Nevertheless, Browne thought that Nunes would make a good captain, and there was some optimism that the 1928 team would perform well.

Neither of those things came to pass.

The first problem came over the vice-captaincy. The man chosen for the role was Vibart Wight from British Guiana whom Browne incidentally viewed favourably as a batsman. But Wight had no captaincy experience, nor was his place certain; he seems to have been chosen largely because of his family background and social status. The appointment was criticised by many in the West Indies, and it is likely that his preference over George Dewhurst contributed to the latter’s decision to withdraw from the tour at the last minute. When the selectors declined to choose a replacement wicket-keeper, the team was left without a specialist in the role and the fielding duly suffered.

The 1928 West Indies team that toured England

When the tour got underway, Browne was not as successful with the ball as he had been five years earlier, although he did score more runs. He took a few wickets in the warm-up games, then took eight wickets in the opening first-class match against Derbyshire (including four for 37 in the second innings, his best figures of the tour). But after that he had a quiet time apart from taking five for 27 in a non-first-class game against Norfolk. His only substantial innings in the early part of the tour came in minor matches, when he scored 62 against Northumberland and 49 against Durham. However, if Browne’s form was patchy, that of the team was worse, so he was a certain selection to play England at Lord’s, the West Indies’ first Test match.

Browne had little impact on the game with the ball, failing to take a wicket in 22 overs when England batted first. Batting at number nine, he scored just 10 runs as his team were overwhelmed by a strong England attack. Forced to follow-on, West Indies were 53 for six at the end of the second day. Joe Small added some respectability on the final morning, and when Browne joined him, the score had been raised to 100 for seven. Browne helped Small to add 47 for the eighth wicket, and carried on hitting after his partner was dismissed. When he was last out, and West Indies lost by an innings, Browne had scored 44 of the last 66 runs, hitting five fours and a six.

Browne’s form did not really improve. He took five for 67 against Staffordshire, but was ineffective in first-class games. He managed to score 50 not out against Warwickshire, his first first-class fifty in England, but achieved little else of note. With few alternatives as the West Indies form collapsed, Browne retained his place for the second Test. After scoring 23 in the first innings, he finally took a wicket, removing Jack Hobbs for 53 to end his opening partnership of 119 with Herbert Sutcliffe. He also took the wicket of Ernest Tyldesley soon after, and finished with figures of two for 72. England still established a big lead, and bowled the West Indies out cheaply to win by an innings; Browne scored just 7.

Browne continued to struggle: his three for 26 against Wales was the first time he took more than two wickets in a first-class innings since the opening game nearly three months before. But after two more matches, Browne disappeared from the team for over a fortnight, missing the third Test. The most likely explanation is injury. On 14 August, the last day of the third Test, Browne appeared in a club game for a well-known amateur team, the Stoics, against Enfield; he took four wickets and scored 120 in 45 minutes out of a total of 148, with three sixes and nineteen fours. A report in the Daily Mirror said that he was “noticed to be slightly lame”, so he was likely playing this game to get back into some form after being injured.

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Snuffy Browne bowling at Lord’s during the early practices for the 1928 tour

After the Test, Browne returned to the team with four for 81 against Somerset, and also had a heavy bowling workload in a high-scoring draw against Hampshire. After his, he played a leading role in the West Indies’ best result of the tour — a win over a strong Kent team. Batting, as usual, at number eight, he scored 103 in an hour, his maiden first-class century in England and the highest score of his career. He hit seventeen fours and two sixes to help the West Indies recover from a poor start to reach 282 on the first day. The fast bowlers Constantine and Herman Griffith twice bowled out Kent cheaply to give their team welcome relief from a series of terrible results the final weeks of the tour: four of the last six first-class games were lost. In fact, of their final eighteen first-class matches, the West Indies won just one and lost nine.

After the Kent game, Browne took just one more first-class wicket in three games, bowling little which suggests he may still have been injured. He scored another fifty when he hit 60 against Harlequins, in the match after his century, sharing a century partnership with Joe Small. When the tour ended a few weeks later, Browne’s figures were underwhelming. In the Tests, he averaged 21 with the bat and 62.50 with the ball; in all first-class matches he scored 553 runs at an average of 17.83 and took 32 wickets at 34.71.

Previews of the tour had described him as a medium-paced bowler, and Pelham Warner’s review of the tour in the Cricketer suggests that he did not always operate as a spinner: “Browne bowled medium-paced in-swingers so accurately that [George] Francis as short mid-on stood nearer to the batsman than any fielder in our experience.” He judged that Browne and Small gave “quite adequate support” to the faster bowlers. Perhaps Browne mainly bowled swing and seam on this tour; if he was struggling with injury, he may have found it hard to spin the ball. But if he was accurate, this style was not particularly successful. Wisden was blunt: “Browne (medium pace) proved slightly more expensive and much less effective than on the occasion of his earlier visit [in 1923].”

Aside from the poor results, the team was not a happy one. An anonymous article in Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle accused Nunes of poor captaincy and worse people management; it stated, apparently based on information from someone in the side, that Nunes had favourites, alienated some members of the team and ostracised others who disagreed with him; some men barely played, apparently because of disagreements with the captain. Nor did Wight prove effective as vice-captain. When combined with the team’s terrible fielding and the poor performance of most of the batsmen, it cannot have been an enjoyable experience.

When the team returned home, Browne spoke to Guiana’s Daily Chronicle and was quite critical. His explanation of the poor results was that English cricket was far stronger than it had been in 1923; he believed that individually the 1928 West Indies were far stronger than the team of five years before, but were not as effective as a team. He attributed this to the constant changes in the composition of the side, and asked by his interviewer if poor wicket-keeping was also to blame, he replied: “Possibly so”. He suggested that the captain was too reliant on his fast bowlers at the expense of spin, that the selection committee changed the team too readily and that several players such as James Neblett lacked opportunities. He discussed the poor batting, and attributed some problems to the increased tension of Test cricket; he noted that “nervous tension” afflicted many of the players in Tests.

Of his own performance, he observed that his primary role was to keep runs down. He considered his best role was as an opening bowler with the new ball, but he was overlooked in favour of the fast bowlers. He admitted that he did not find batting form until the later part of the tour, and could not account for his earlier failures except to suggest that batting so low in the order, with only the tail to come, meant that he had to attack from the start of his innings. While quiet on the effectiveness of Nunes, he praised the manager R. H. Mallett, who had performed the same role on the 1923 tour.

Browne returned to form when the Intercolonial Tournament resumed in September 1929, and in many ways reached the culmination of his career. That year’s competition was held in British Guiana, and the home team faced Barbados in the first game. Compared to when Browne first played for them, the team was far stronger — his team-mates included Maurice Fernandes and Vibart Wight (who was a good batsman despite his limitations as vice-captain), as well as Wight’s brother Oscar who toured Australia with the West Indies team in 1930–31. There were also another three future Test players in the team: Frank de Caires, Charles Jones and Berkeley Gaskin.

Browne contributed 55 to Guiana’s first innings of 610, largely built around a century from Fernandes, then took two wickets when Barbados replied with 331. He also caught his brother Allan, who still played for Barbados, for 28. In a timeless match (i.e. one played to a finish), Guiana’s captain William Green chose to bat again, only for his side to collapse to 54 for five; Browne came in and added 135 with Jeremy McKenzie and was eventually out for 95. Oscar Wight made a century to ensure Guiana reached 379, leaving Barbados needing 659 runs to win; they made just 267 as Browne took five for 53, including the wicket of his brother, bowled for 30.

Guiana played Trinidad in the final. On the first day, Browne took five for 56 as Trinidad made 152. Consistent batting from Guiana meant that they established a first-innings lead of 206; Fernandes with 88 was the top-scorer, but Browne scored 83. An innings of 253 by Lionel Birkett, supported by fifties from Clifford Roach and Edwin St Hill (with whom he added 143 for the eighth wicket), took Trinidad to a second-innings total of 474. The runs came quickly, but Browne took six for 134 in 38 overs to keep a measure of control, and leave Guiana needing 269 to win. A century from Frank de Caires took them close, then an unbeaten 24 from Browne settled any nerves after three wickets fell quickly; he was there at the end as Guiana won by four wickets to take the Intercolonial Tournament for only the second time, and the first since 1895. Browne, with eleven for 190 and innings of 83 and 24 not out to go alongside his performance in the qualifying match, had played a key role in the triumph.

Soon after, an MCC team toured the West Indies. It was a fairly strong one, although it contained several players who were some way past their best, including the 52-year-old Wilfred Rhodes and the 50-year-old George Gunn. The matches the team played against the West Indies were later recognised as Test matches, although their status was a little uncertain at the time.

However, the selection for the West Indies team was complicated by matters of finance and regional differences; a huge number of players appeared for the home side in the four Tests, many only being selected for the games taking place in their own colony. The reason for the inconsistency was that local selectors chose each Test team. In total, 27 players appeared for the West Indies in the series, and each Test had a different captain, selected from the home nation.

The MCC first played in Barbados, following the standard model of playing two games against the hosting team and then a match against the representative West Indies side. For the latter match, Browne was selected. The match was a high-scoring draw, made notable by the debut of George Headley and the first Test century for West Indies, scored by Clifford Roach. Browne took two for 83 with the ball in the first innings, although he was wicketless in the second; with the bat he was even less successful, failing to score in either innings. He was not selected for the Trinidad Test, a match which involved a few strange selections, but was certain to play when the tour moved onto British Guiana.

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The MCC team in the West Indies in 1930 in the fourth Test: Patsy Hendren, George Gunn, Wilfred Rhodes, Les Ames, Bill Voce, Bob Wyatt, Freddie Calthorpe, Nigel Haig, Ewart Astill, Andy Sandham, Jack O’Connor.

As usual, the MCC played Guiana twice; in the first they won by an innings after scoring over 600. Browne took just one wicket, but bowled 50 economical overs; he maintained his better batting form with innings of 61 and 49. British Guiana also lost the second game by an innings; this time, Browne bowled just 13 overs in a total of 555, indicating another injury, and failed twice with the bat. But on his home ground, he was included in the Test team for the third Test of the series.

The match was ultimately an important one as the West Indies recorded their first win in Test matches. Their heroes were Roach, with a double century, Headley, with centuries in each innings, and Constantine, with nine wickets in the match. But Browne chipped in; he took one wicket in the England first innings as the fast bowlers did most of the work, and took one for 32 from 33 overs in the second as England tried to hold out for a draw. He scored 22 in the first innings, but in the second he finally enjoyed some Test success. Batting at number nine, he scored an unbeaten 70 in 50 minutes out of the last 81 runs scored, hitting ten fours and a six; he reached fifty in 34 minutes. He was not chosen for the Jamaica Test — the team for that match included eight Jamaicans. The Cricketer review of the tour said little about Browne’s performance, but does perhaps give the biggest contemporary clue as to how Browne operated as a bowler; he was: “A very steady bowler who swings in with the new ball and turns them afterwards. A nice free bat when he gets going.”

This was Browne’s final Test, and his statistics are not particularly impressive. In his four matches, he scored 176 runs at 25.14 and took six wickets at 48.00. There were some calls for him to be included in the West Indies team to tour Australia in 1930–31, but there was strong opposition, particularly in Trinidad, because of his age and his recurring leg injury. He was not selected.

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Snuffy Browne batting at Lord’s during the early practices for the 1928 tour

However, Browne was not yet done at Intercolonial level. At the age of 41, he played when British Guiana defended their title in January 1932 in Barbados but had a quiet match with bat and ball as Trinidad won by 82 runs. The tournament was not played in 1933 owing to preparations for the 1933 West Indies tour of England, and when it was next contested in January 1934, Browne was absent. However, he was back in the team that September when the competition was held in Guiana. Against Barbados, British Guiana dominated to win by 396 runs; although quiet with the bat, Browne took six for 59 and four for 84. Guiana comfortably won the final against Trinidad by nine wickets; Browne again failed with the bat, but chipped in with six wickets in the game.

When the MCC toured again in 1935, he was still in the British Guiana team, at the age of 44, but had a quiet time in the two games. In February 1936, Guiana successfully defended their Intercolonial title by defeating Trinidad by nine wickets in Barbados. Browne took five for 26 as Trinidad were bowled out for 66 on the first day. And he was still in the team when Trinidad won the next tournament twelve months later. Even more remarkably, when the competition returned to Guiana in September 1937, Browne — at the age of 46 — took seven for 13 and scored 69 against Barbados in the qualifying match, which Guiana won by an innings and 229 runs. He also scored 54 in the final, as Guiana crept home by two wickets.

Browne’s final first-class game was played against RS Grant’s XI, a including several men who would make their name after the war, including Gerry Gomez and John Goddard; he appeared in the second of two games Grant’s side played against British Guiana. Then aged 47, Browne scored 17 and 34, and bowled nine wicketless overs as the visiting team won by an innings. By the time of the next Intercolonial Tournament, he was absent, his cricket career finally over.

In a first-class career lasting 29 years, Browne had scored 2,077 runs at 19.97 (although from the time of his maiden first-class century in 1925, he averaged 26.06 with the bat, scoring all of his ten fifties and three centuries) and taken 278 wickets at 22.39. In Intercolonial matches, he took 129 wickets (of which 80 came against Trinidad), the first man to take over one hundred wickets in the competition, at an average of 15.61. His best performances came against his birthplace: against Barbados, he took 38 wickets at 12.57.

After the 1930 Test series, Browne’s personal and professional life took most of his attention. Between 1930 and 1933, he was appointed as Acting Stipendiary Magistrate for various regions of Guiana before resuming his practice at the bar from 1933. In 1935, he attempted to follow his brother into politics, standing for East Demerara in a by-election that June; he lost by a single vote to Hubert Chester Humphries, who retained his seat at the General Election that September. It is not clear if Browne stood again, but he was certainly never elected.

The rest of his career can be traced from his 1948 entry in Who’s Who in British Guiana. In late 1937, Browne was used on several occasions as an Acting Crown Prosecutor — as Philip Browne had been before him — and was appointed Acting Stipendiary Magistrate on West and East Coast Demerara. Finally in 1938, he was appointed Magistrate for Georgetown, a role which was later extended to include the post of Rent Assessor in 1943.

His entry in Who’s Who reinforces the idea that he had become very much an Establishment man; it lists his hobbies as tennis and billiards, and includes his membership of the Freemasons as a former Master of Mount Olive Lodge and former District Grand Registrar of British Guiana. The entry also relates that he had been a referee in football and boxing, and wrote regularly for newspapers on football and athletics, as well as cricket. He was also a member of several cricket clubs: Surrey (for whom he had briefly played in minor games before the First World War), Honor Oak, Eastbourne, Hastings and Stoics.

By this time, Browne was married. All that we know of his wife is her name — Fanny Eugene Goulding Browne — and that she was sixteen years his junior, born in January 1907, information that can be traced from travel records. The date of their marriage is uncertain, but it was before 1938 when Mrs Browne travelled to visit her friend Mrs Batchelor in Manhattan, New York.

Browne had also made another piece of history by the time his Who’s Who entry was written. On 14 May 1941, Browne was elected to membership of the MCC. His name had been proposed back in 1920 by Arthur Somerset, his old friend who had captained the MCC team in the West Indies in 1911–12, and supported by Thomas Whittington, the captain of Glamorgan. Such a long wait for a vacancy to arise was a common, and notorious, feature of application for membership.

Browne was only the sixth West Indian cricketer to be elected to the MCC after Harold Austin, Pelham Warner (who was born in Trinidad), William Morrison, Karl Nunes and John Cameron; the latter two were the only other of these men to have played Test cricket for the West Indies (Cameron was overlooked in most press coverage of Browne’s election). George Challenor had also been specially elected to membership after his success on the 1923 tour. But most notably, Browne — alongside Cameron, who was mixed race — was one of the very few black MCC members at the time. The writer of Browne’s Wisden obituary was slightly confused, incorrectly conflating his election with the appointment of many former professionals as honorary members after the Second World War. But Browne was certainly elected, in the normal way, as a full member.

After the war, Browne continued his role as a magistrate, but appears to have had more leisure time. He travelled to England several times between 1948 and 1960, usually accompanied by his wife. Other than this, his final years escaped notice and we do not know when he retired. He died in Georgetown in 12 January 1964 at the age of 73; we do not know if he and his wife had any children, nor what became of her.

This seems strangely fitting, because there is so much we do not know about Browne. While it is possible to reconstruct much of his story, we cannot explain many aspects of his life. We can guess why he only captained British Guiana once, but we do not know. We can speculate what made him leave Barbados, but it is not certain. We do not even know why his nickname was “Snuffy”; did he like the tobacco known as snuff? Was it connected to his sense of smell? Or was it the archaic meaning (a bit like the modern “sniffy”) of someone who could be a bit touchy or contemptuous?

Learie Constantine, another dominant all-rounder in the team, has received far more attention than Browne (Image: Wikipedia)

Very little has been written about Browne over the years, and some of what has appeared — particularly about his family — is inaccurate. Contrast this with how much has been written about Learie Constantine. But the similarities are notable. Like Constantine, he studied law, lived and played cricket in England, had political ambitions and represents a success story against the odds. But Constantine lived most of his life in England, whereas the majority of Browne’s achievements were in British Guiana where they received less publicity.

Like Constantine, Browne was a great all-rounder whose best performances rarely came at Test level. Like Constantine, Browne was far, far more than just a cricketer. And I think there may still be more to uncover about the remarkable Snuffy Browne.

“Probably the best all-round man in the team”: The continuing adventures of Snuffy Browne

The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. Pascal, J. K. Holt, R. H. Mallett (Manager), R. L. Phillips, M. P. Fernandes, C. V. Hunter, G. John. Sitting: G. A. R. Dewhurst, C. R. Browne, G. Challenor, H. B. G. Austin (Captain), R. K. Nunes (Vice captain), P. H. Tarilton. On ground: G. Francis, L. N. Constantine, H. W. Ince.

Cyril Rutherford Browne, known generally by his nickname of Snuffy Browne, first played for the West Indies before the First World War. He came from a prosperous and influential Barbados family, and had been a cricketing prodigy when he was one of the few black pupils at Harrison College. But after making his breakthrough in the Barbados team, he moved to England to study law at the Middle Temple in London, where he was called to the bar in 1914. Two years later he moved to British Guiana, almost certainly to work with his brother — the politician, barrister and King’s Counsel Philip Nathaniel Browne, who had moved to Guiana around ten years previously.

Although he had already played for Barbados, Browne was a certain selection for the weak British Guiana team that competed in the Intercolonial Tournament when it resumed in September 1921. It is from around this time that we get a sense of how influential and unusual Browne was. In the West Indies region in this period, the most important government positions, the majority of the wealth and all the influence was held by white Europeans. For Browne’s family to have been among the small emerging black middle class was remarkable enough. But cricket in the region was particularly white-dominated. Captains, selectors and administrators were exclusively white, as were most specialist batsmen. Black cricketers, including those who played for the West Indies team, came from less-than-affluent backgrounds and lacked social or cricketing influence.

Of the black players in the 1923 West Indies team, George Francis was a groundsman, Joseph Small was a storekeeper and Learie Constantine was a clerk working for a solicitor. While we do not know the non-cricketing occupations of Victor Pascall or George John, their clubs in Trinidad were categorised by C. L. R. James in Beyond a Boundary as comprising the lower-middle classes and lower classes. Those more willing to stand up for themselves, such as Herman Griffith or Wilton St Hill, were not selected.

And then there was Browne: a barrister, educated at an elite school, who had trained in England and played in the rarified atmosphere of amateur club cricket in London. Even more remarkably, when British Guiana played in that first Intercolonial Tournament after the war, Browne was chosen to lead the team. He was the first black captain of a first-class team in the West Indies; as his appointment may have ruffled a few feathers, he was also the last for a long time. In Cricket and I (1933), Learie Constantine recalled rumours that “there had been some skilful in-fighting before [the captaincy] was given to him.” But the very fact that Browne held the role briefly when no other black cricketer came close to such a role demonstrates how influential and highly regarded he was. This was not confined to the field of play either; he also captained his local club in Guiana and acted as vice-president of the selection committee for the first-class team.

Perhaps the clearest indication of his importance came in 1922, when Arthur Somerset, who had captained the MCC team against whom Browne had played in 1911, began to make enquiries about a West Indies team visiting England for the first time since 1906. He initially made contact with Browne, rather than any official bodies; Browne passed the suggestion on to Archie Wiles of Trinidad.

Browne’s experience was hugely atypical for a black cricketer in this period, and it may be revealing that in later years his influence seems to have receded in the cricketing sphere. If we can believe the rumour that Constantine reported in Cricket Crackers (1950), Trinidad made an unofficial protest that British Guiana had a black captain, and Browne was replaced without any fanfare.

Cyril Browne in 1923 (from the West Indies team photograph)

When the Intercolonial Tournament was next held, this time in British Guiana in September 1922, the home team were captained by Clarence Hunter. In this match, five Guiana players made their first-class debut, although one of them was the future Test player Maurice Fernandes, and the batting was again poor. Only Hunter passed fifty in the match, but the game was closer than it had been twelve months previously. Browne took six for 40 on the first day to bowl Trinidad out for 107; in reply, Guiana only made 133. Browne took five for 67 in Trinidad’s second innings of 190, but needing 164 to win, Guiana lost by 29 runs. Both his first innings return and his eleven wickets in the game were the best of Browne’s career until then. However, his batting continued to disappoint at first-class level; he scored just 5 and 0 in the match, the latter when he was promoted to number five in the second innings. For Trinidad, Victor Pascall also took eleven wickets, but the outstanding batting came from Joe Small who scored 33 and 82.

It is slightly uncertain what Browne was bowling at this time. In earlier years, he was undoubtedly a wrist-spinner. But after the war, he was often categorised as “medium pace”. He opened the bowling for British Guiana, and continued to do so for many years. The most likely explanation is that he took the new ball and bowled inswing, then bowled brisk leg-spin and googlies later in the innings. His heavy workload indicates that he mainly bowled spin.

The big event dominating everyone’s mind at this time was the upcoming tour of England by a West Indies team during the 1923 season. Each colony was allocated a certain number of places, and in December 1922, British Guiana selected its four representatives. Browne was an obvious choice. Of the others picked, Maurice Fernandes proved to be a success, but Clarence Hunter only played two first-class matches on the tour (and five games in total). Even R. H. Mallett, who wrote an extensive account of the tour in the Cricketer could find nothing to say about Hunter except that he only batted “under conditions which did not enable him to appear to advantage”, and was more often to be found watching from the pavilion. The final choice, J. R. Phillips, was unable to tour at all.

Browne had an advantage over many of his team-mates: he knew English conditions from his time playing there between 1912 and 1914. And he was extremely successful with the ball. He bowled far more overs than anyone, and in all matches took 91 wickets at an average of 20.74; if he was only fifth in the averages, only the fast bowler George Francis took more wickets. In first-class games, he took 75 wickets — again, second only to Francis, and fourth in the averages — in 18 games at 22.29. This placed him respectably high in the list of first-class bowling averages for the published in Wisden; he was 49th, in the vicinity of several Test bowlers playing county cricket that season. His batting was less successful; he scored 24 not out, his highest innings in first-class cricket until then, in the last match of the tour, but averaged just 10.75 in first-class games.

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The West Indies team that toured England in 1923. Back row: George Francis, Victor Pascall, Learie Constantine, Harry Ince, Maurice Fernandes, Cyril Browne, J. K. Holt and R. H. Mallett (manager). Front tow: Joseph Small, George John, Karl Nunes, George Challenor and Tim Tarilton.

Browne made a slow start, but found his form with the ball in matches against the minor counties of Durham and Northumberland. Against Nottinghamshire, he took his best first-class figures of seven for 97, followed by eight wickets in each of the matches against Leicestershire and Warwickshire. His good form lasted until the end of the tour when he took five for 85 against Gloucestershire, four for 41 in an impressive win over Surrey and six for 66 against Somerset. In the penultimate match, Browne took four for 45 against Worcestershire. Fred Root, a professional for that county, claimed in his 1936 autobiography that he taught Browne to bowl inswing in half-an-hour during that game. But Root’s book is often unreliable and this should be treated with caution; it is clear that, despite Root’s claim, Browne had used this style earlier in the tour. It is strange — albeit fairly typical — that Root tried to claim some credit for teaching Browne the “most dangerous ball” he possessed that season.

The reporters for Wisden were not, however, overly impressed with Browne. The almanack had little to say about any specific performances of his, and summarised his tour: “Browne (right hand medium pace) … bowled well without rising to any special distinction when opposed to the best batting.” The team manager, the Englishman R. H. Mallett, went into more detail in The Cricketer. He observed:

“On nearly all occasions, [Browne] bowled better than his figures and was not favoured by much luck. He was not suited by the soft wickets in the early part of the Tour, but under such conditions he generally kept batsmen playing, and his length was so good that a batsman was never able to take liberties with him.”

He noted that several catches went down off Browne’s bowling in the opening games which, if taken, would have given him a hundred wickets for the tour. Mallett also stated: “He has an attractive action, and never appeared to get tired.” The manager observed that his batting failed to meet the expectations arising from his performances at home, but wondered if he was hampered by the amount of bowling he had to do; Mallett noted that his best innings came in the final match where he had not bowled much, and therefore came fresh to batting.

Browne going out to bat at Scarborough in 1923 (Image: Leeds Mercury, 4 September 1923)

Like several of the team, Browne’s success in England inspired him to even better performances afterwards. In February 1924 British Guiana again lost to Trinidad in the Intercolonial Tournament. Browne failed to score runs batting in the top order, but took six for 30 in the second innings and had match figures of ten for 111.

However, 1924 was perhaps more notable for Browne’s involvement in off-field events in British Guiana. In late March and early April, a workers’ strike and subsequent demonstration in Georgetown led to civil unrest which culminated in a combined group of police and military opening fire on the crowd, killing thirteen protesters and wounding twenty-four others. These events, known to historians as the Ruimveldt Workers’ Incident, tangentially involved Browne and his brother Philip, the latter at one point playing quite an important role. The strike had been called by the British Guiana Labour Union. In the early stages of the protest, Philip Browne approached the Chamber of Commerce to negotiate on behalf of the Union; the meeting to discuss this was held in the offices of Cyril. Later, Cyril accompanied one of the leaders of the strike to a tense conference with the Inspector General of Police.

Philip Browne continued to be involved in the aftermath of the events. After order had been restored following the shootings, Philip attempted to intervene by making a suggestion, rejected by the Governor, of a Board of Inquiry to look into the workers’ grievances. The Governor did agree to appoint a commission to investigate the conditions for workers, and Philip was to be one of the members. Philip was also appointed to a committee which recommended the creation of a Labour Exchange Bureau for workers. After this, we lose track of him, but he must have been dead by 1944 as he is absent from that edition of Who’s Who in British Guiana.

Afterwards, cricket may have come as something of a relief to Browne. The next Intercolonial Tournament was held in Barbados in October 1925. British Guiana played Barbados for the first time since Browne moved there (he had appeared against them once, in a non-first-class match the 1923 West Indies team played on their way home). It inspired an astonishing all-round performance.

When Barbados batted first, Browne took five for 77 as the home team reached 230. Then, batting at number six, he scored his maiden first-class century, hitting 102 runs (scored out of 144 runs while he was batting) in a total of 374; his previous best score at that level had been his 24 not out, and his average with the bat after 30 matches was 9.82. When Barbados batted again, although he was struggling with an injury (the Cricketer’s brief report said that was “lame during the second half of the game”), he produced the best bowling figures of his career, taking eight for 58 in 35 overs. His match figures were thirteen for 135. British Guiana were able to score the 62 runs they needed to win by eight wickets. As a result, they reached the final of the tournament for the first time since 1900.

On a more personal note, Browne also faced his brother Allan for the first time in a first-class match. Unlike Philip and Cyril, Allan had remained in Barbados and appears to have taken over the jewellery business that had been started by Philip before he relocated to Guiana. On this occasion the younger brother definitely came out on top; Allan was caught off Cyril’s bowling for 23 in the first innings, and if Cyril did not dismiss him in the second, he was the fielder who caught him after he had scored 62.

The final was, however, an anticlimax for Browne; he made a pair (run out in the second innings) and his bowling was unusually expensive. Possibly still struggling with his injury, he took four for 116 from 45 overs in the first innings as Trinidad established a first innings lead of 32 through centuries from Joe Small and Wilton St Hill. Small and Learie Constantine then bowled British Guiana out for 214 to leave Trinidad needing just 183 to win. In a tight finish, Trinidad won by just two wickets; they scored the runs in just 47.2 overs, and Browne conceded two for 60 from his 15.2 overs.

The West Indies team for the first “Test” of the 1926 MCC tour, played at Barbados. Back Row: George Francis, Cecil Nascimento, Victor Pascall, Teddy Hoad, Joe Small, James Parris. Front Row: Wilton St Hill, Tim Tarilton, George Challenor, Harold Austin (captain), Cyril Browne, George John (Image: The Cricketer, 1 May 1926).

His loss of bowling form continued in January 1926 when a strong MCC team visited the West Indies. He played in all three representative games in a West Indies team featuring many of those who toured England in 1923; but his eight wickets came at an average of 42.50, and he conceded 340 runs from 102.4 overs. However, he continued to show vastly improved batting form. After scoring a duck in the rain-affected first “Test” in Barbados, he made 74 in 55 minutes (hitting twelve fours and a six) in the second, played at Trinidad.

A correspondent for the Times later wrote an article about the game which was part travelogue and part match report. After extolling the virtues of Trinidad as a place to visit, he noted the excitement surrounding the rapidly improving standard of the West Indies team, and observed the large crowds that attended the game. He evidently enjoyed the experience, but noted that the West Indies team made tactical errors at the end of the game. The MCC team were chasing runs against the clock, but when the extra half-hour (a standard practice in English first-class cricket in which an extra thirty minutes could be played at the end of the match if a result was possible) was taken, the West Indies fell apart. The fast bowlers pitched bouncers too short to trouble the batsmen and Browne was put to bowl outside leg stump (“legside drivel” as the Times correspondent put it) with a legside field to frustrate the batsmen; but one of his overs cost thirteen runs so it was not a successful tactic. The MCC won comfortably by five wickets.

Browne’s best performance came in the final “Test”, played in British Guiana, when he scored 102 not out, including eleven fours. He briefly retired hurt on 83 when struck on the temple by a short ball from the occasional bowler Lionel Tennyson. He was actually unconscious for a time and had to be carried inside. He resumed his innings soon after, but once more had to retire hurt when he had scored just five more runs; he completed his century after a more successful third resumption. The West Indies made the MCC follow on, but could not force a win; had Browne been in better form with the ball, they would probably have won. But Browne topped the home batting averages in the “Tests” with 189 runs at an average of 63.00. However, he failed to shine for British Guiana against the MCC, scoring 39 and 15 and being wicketless in 74 overs across the two matches.

The form of the West Indies team in 1923 and 1926 led to growing calls for them to play Test cricket. Even English critics accepted that they deserved a chance; for example, “The Gentleman in Black”, writing in the Athletic News after the 1926 MCC tour, observed that the team was a strong one, and he considered that the biggest development since the 1923 tour was “the great development as a batsman of C. R. Browne … Today, he is probably the best all-round man among our opponents.”

Later in 1926, at a meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference, the West Indies were awarded Test status and a tour of England was arranged, to take place in 1928, in which the team would play its first Tests.

Karl Nunes

George Dewhurst

Frederick Grant

Three contenders for the captaincy of the 1928 West Indies team (Image of Nunes from The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

From the first discussions of the team composition in the press, Browne was regarded as a certainty. In fact, he was one of the few players selected for the team who did not play in any of the three trial matches — for which he was presumably unavailable. But there was a great deal of speculation over who would be included in the team, and not least who would captain it. The long-standing West Indies captain Harold Austin had retired after the 1926 MCC tour, and most commentators expected Karl Nunes, his vice-captain in 1923, to take over. Some Trinidad newspapers agitated for either Frederick Grant or George Dewhurst to be chosen instead. However, by far the best qualified candidate, both in terms of experience and achievement on the field, was Browne. Yet such was the attitude in West Indian cricket in this period that his name was not even mentioned in passing.

While speculation about the team raged, Browne himself contributed a long, thoughtful article which appeared across two issues of Guiana’s Sporting Times in July 1927. He discussed the likeliest members of the team — he got many, but not all, of his choices correct — and even wrote modestly of himself:

“BROWNE — And lastly the writer may expect inclusion. His friends and admirers think he has improved as a batsman and that he should get runs next year. All that he can say is that he hopes so too. His friends also say that his bowling has again reached its former standard during the last and present seasons and year: they wish him his usual success in that department. The writer will be thankful for the opportunity of playing once more on English grounds and will try to merit all good wishes and hopes.”

Browne did not hold back in his opinions, and wrote freely and confidently about all the players. He even weighed into the ongoing captaincy debate, arguing that Austin would still have been the best captain but that Nunes (alongside Tim Tarilton of Barbados as his vice-captain) should be appointed; he thought that when Nunes had led the team in Austin’s absences in 1923, he “was a splendid captain who perhaps allowed the responsibility of captaincy to affect his batting … nor do I think that there is anyone of the 1923 team who would not willingly and gladly play under his leadership. The writer would welcome it, and so would all the others he should think.” Whether Browne maintained that view through the duration of the 1928 tour is more questionable…

The remarkable life of Snuffy Browne

Snuffy Browne, probably in 1928 (Image: The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

Many years ago, a West Indies cricketer moved to England to study law and to play club cricket. He was a devastating bowler and attacking batsman; a star for the Test team; a man whose captaincy ambitions were severely limited owing to the racism in West Indian cricket; and a man who later in life became involved in politics. At first sight, this looks like the well-known story of Learie Constantine. But in this case, we are talking not about Constantine but an earlier star. Cyril Browne, known generally as “Snuffy” Browne, played for the West Indies between 1911 and 1930. Like Constantine, he dominated matches; like Constantine, he was far more than just a cricketer. Yet during his lifetime, he was never as famous as Constantine; nor has he attracted the same interest among cricket writers and historians. But in many ways, Browne’s story challenges assumptions about race, class and cricket in the West Indies during the early twentieth century.

Cyril Rutherford Browne was born on 8 October 1890 in Robert’s Tenantry, St Michael, Barbados, the fourth son of Philip Browne and his wife Josephine Pilgrim. His father was originally a mechanical engineer and a contractor, but later became a merchant. Two of Cyril’s brothers also became well-known. His eldest brother Philip Nathaniel was a barrister who studied at the Middle Temple in London between 1893 and 1896; he also established a successful jewellery business in Barbados. He was to prove hugely influential in Cyril’s life. His other brother, Chester Allan (known as Allan), was closer to Cyril in age, being only two years older than him, and shared his talent on the cricket field. A third brother became an Government Ophthalmologist, but details are scarce about him. Allan and Cyril were educated at Combermere School, before moving to Harrison College.

Modelled on Eton College in England, Harrison College catered for the Barbados elite; this perhaps indicates how prosperous the Browne family were. Other alumni included the future West Indies batsman George Challenor and the hugely influential future England captain Pelham Warner. Cyril Browne attended from around 1904 until 1910. At this time, most pupils at Harrison were white; there were few black families in Barbados sufficiently wealthy to afford the school’s fees. Cyril and Allan, therefore, would have been very much in a minority.

Harrison College, Barbados (Image: Old Harrisonian Society)

Sport was very important at Harrison College, and it had a strong cricket team in which both Cyril and Allan played. The school team took part in the local competition, comprehensively covered each season by the Barbados Cricket Annual. Browne was viewed as something of a cricketing prodigy. Although I was unable to access the annual for Browne’s first seasons there, by the time of the 1907–08 annual, when Allan had already left school, Browne was described as “a bowler of certainly high and remarkable merit” who “is the genuine stuff that baffles the best men when well set. We look forward to him as the island’s rising star.” He topped both the batting and bowling averages for the team; the author of the Harrison College section of the annual said that Browne was their best batsman and bowler and “undoubtedly a representative bowler at the present time.” Additionally, he was near the top of the batting and bowling averages for the whole island. Already then, Browne must have been close to selection for the Barbados team. Many former Harrison pupils went on to play for the island, including Allan, who made his first-class debut for Barbados in September 1907.

But Browne continued to develop his bowling. In the 1907–08 season, he began to bowl googlies. The delivery was still relatively new, having come to prominence when Bernard Bosanquet used it with some success in Test cricket in 1904 and 1905. When the South African team that toured England in 1907 included four googly bowlers, the delivery became part of the cricketing mainstream.

Therefore, Browne was very much at the forefront of those who adopted googly bowling early on, along with players such as Kent’s Douglas Carr, or the Australian Test bowler H. V. Horden. In an interview with London’s Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in September 1912, he revealed that he began to practice googlies at the age of seventeen and said that his bowling transformation was partly influenced by the Barbados first-class cricketer Percy Goodman, who had toured England with the West Indies teams of 1900 and 1906 (although he gave no details of what this influence might have involved).

Percy Goodman, pictured in 1900, helped Browne to develop his googly (Image: Wikipedia)

What makes this slightly remarkable is that no googly bowlers had come to the West Indies by that date, so Browne was working blind. Goodman may possibly have seen it bowled in England in 1906, and may have been able to advise. Another possibility is that Browne saw it himself while on tour with the Harrison cricket team; it appears that the College toured England sometime around 1905, although there appear to be no surviving concrete records. But however he came to learn of googlies, he was working with very little guidance.

It took Browne a year to master the delivery, and he dared not use it in a match for at least another twelve months, by which stage he was already a first-class cricketer. In January 1909, at the age of eighteen and while still a schoolboy, Browne made his debut for Barbados when they defeated British Guiana in the Intercolonial Tournament, held that year in Barbados. He played alongside his brother Allan; other team-mates included Goodman and Harold Austin, who had been captain of the 1906 West Indies team. Browne retained his place for the final, when George Challenor, another 1906 tourist, joined the team. Barbados defeated Trinidad to win the tournament, but Browne’s role was limited as he scored just 23 runs in two innings batting at number eight and took seven wickets in the two games. For his school that season, although his batting declined considerably, he still topped both sets of averages and was the team’s Secretary and Treasurer.

When the Intercolonial Tournament was next held — in Trinidad in January 1910 — Browne retained his place and had more success with the ball, taking seven wickets in his side’s only game (in the Intercolonial Tournament, the defending champions faced the winner of a play-off between the other two teams). The Barbados Cricket Annual judged him the best bowler on the team. Yet Trinidad won by a convincing margin. Meanwhile, in his last year at Harrison, Browne was second in the bating averages but comfortably topped the bowling averages; the writer of the school’s report judged him to be the best bowler in Barbados. Although we do not know precisely when he first used the googly in competitive games, but his improved record with the ball both for Harrison and Barbados might suggest that he did so during the 1909–10 season.

After leaving Harrison College, Browne joined Spartan Cricket Club for 1910–11. Spartan was the first non-white cricket club in Barbados, formed in the early 1890s for the emerging black middle and upper-middle classes based in towns and cities. An article on sport in Barbados written by Brian Stoddart in 2006 states that the Spartan membership: “consisted mostly of lawyers, medical practitioners, elite schoolmasters, higher level civil servants and the few non-whites to have penetrated the managerial levels of the business, commercial and plantation worlds.” Players for the club often gravitated towards politics.

When Browne joined, his brother Allan was the club’s captain and headed the batting averages for the season. Browne was third batting and second in bowling, albeit with almost double the number of wickets of the next man. The report in the Barbados Cricket Annual praised him as “a host in himself”. By this stage, he had perfected his googly, which drew attention that September, when British Guiana hosted the Intercolonial Tournament (The Barbados Cricket Annual noted that he had been dubbed the “googly merchant”). This was Browne’s breakthrough. He opened the bowling — later in his career, he usually bowled medium-paced swing with the new ball and then switched to spin, and this may have begun here. Against the home team, he took three for 11 and five for 26 to play a key role in Barbados’ eight-wicket win; then in the final, he had match figures of six for 52 as his team crushed Trinidad by an innings.

Browne maintained this form when a weak MCC team under the captaincy of Arthur Somerset visited the West Indies a few months later in February 1911. In the first of two games Barbados played against them, he took two for 16 and four for 43 as his team won by an innings. In the return game, he took six for 60 and ten wickets in the match as Barbados again won by an innings.

This was good enough for Browne to be selected for the combined West Indies team that played the MCC in Barbados; his eight wickets in the match could not prevent an MCC victory by five wickets. However, he retained his place when the MCC went to British Guiana and again faced a representative West Indies side. This time, Browne managed just three expensive wickets as West Indies lost by four wickets.

Georgetown Cricket Club Ground (also known as Bourda), where British Guiana played home games, in an undated photograph (Image: Stabroek News)

Originally, the MCC’s next match was scheduled to be a return match against British Guiana (whom they had played before the representative game), but the authorities decided it would be more interesting to arrange another match against a West Indies team. However, when the selectors left out the Barbados batsman Frederick Archer, Browne and his fellow Barbadian Will Gibbs withdrew at the last moment in protest. Browne’s actions drew adverse comment in the local press; an editorial in the Daily Argosy said:

“The action of the Barbados players, looked at in any light, is not sport. They came here to play alone in the Test match [sic], and they played. The match which was commenced yesterday … was not to be a Test match, and in giving the team the title of ‘A West Indian XI’, the Committee did so because they had included in the team selected some of the players from other colonies. It was not the duty on the part of the Committee to choose every one of the players who had come from the other colonies.”

The author stated that Archer’s poor performances meant that it was “inevitable” he would be left out, and “therefore the action of the other Barbados men, Browne and Gibbs, is a regrettable instance of undoubtedly bad form.”

Browne had nevertheless clearly improved enormously. In his six matches that season, he had taken 41 wickets at an average of 13.53 (the next highest number of first-class wickets by West Indian players in the 1910–11 season was just 25); while his batting was less effective at this higher level — his highest score in nine first-class matches to that point was 19, and he was averaging a touch over seven — he looked to have established himself as a top cricketer. Certainly the English cricketers regarded him as the best bowler they faced. Arthur Somerset, the captain of the MCC team, remained friends with Browne.

But this was Browne’s last first-class match for ten years, and he never played for Barbados again. Instead, he moved to England where he studied to become a barrister at the Middle Temple in London. He arrived in Southampton in August 1911 and was admitted to the Middle Temple that October; his admission record stated that he lived at 331 Croxted Road, Herne Hill, and was the fourth son of “Philip B[rowne] of Barbados, Gent”. Apart from a brief comment in the section on Spartan Cricket Club, the Barbados Cricket Annual made no comment about his departure for England.

If studying law was Browne’s reason for leaving Barbados, he also managed to increase his fame as a cricketer in front of a whole new audience. He began to play regularly in London club cricket, where he made an immediate impression. There was no league structure in the south of England; clubs played a series of friendly matches, but there was nothing at stake except pride. Against the amateur batsmen who played these games, Browne’s googly bowling was deadly, but he also proved highly effective with the bat.

In between his studies, he seems to have found plenty of time to play cricket, and appeared for various clubs. His profile in a 1944 edition of Who’s Who in British Guiana states that he was a member of Eastbourne and Hastings cricket clubs, which most likely dates from this time (Another C. R. Browne also played in that area during 1911; he was an unrelated 18-year-old who later played for Sussex and Cambridge University).

Snuffy Browne in a posed photograph taken in 1912, when he was playing regularly for Clapham Ramblers (Image: Cricket, 27 July 1912)

But Browne’s main club was the Clapham Ramblers, for whom his record was extraordinary. In 1912, he scored 618 runs at an average of 29.42; although he narrowly missed heading the club averages, the next highest number of runs for the team was just 451. He made several centuries. With the ball, he took 102 wickets at 8.92; again, he did not head the club averages, but was responsible for almost half of the 212 wickets they took. At the club’s annual dinner over the winter, he was presented with the ball with which he had taken his hundredth wicket; it had been specially mounted. Browne usually opened the bowling with another West Indian cricketer, J. A. Veerasawmy of British Guiana. The latter, a left-arm spin bowler, was also in England to study at the Middle Temple, and played club cricket for various teams between 1911 and 1913. Veerasawmy qualified as a barrister and on his return to British Guiana founded what is now called Everest Cricket Club, and was hugely influential in promoting cricket among people of Indian ancestry.

Browne made quite an impression among London cricketers. As well as the interview with the Illustrated London News which described how he had learned to bowl the googly, he featured in a longer profile in Cricket in July 1912 which called him “a batsman right above the average”, “the best match winner in club cricket” and “the only first-class exponent of the googly ball that I know playing regularly for a London club”. The author of the article in Cricket, noting that as a bowler “he has so many peculiar mannerisms that it is quite impossible to describe his methods in print”, nevertheless outlined his style. His bowling action was “curious” as he “delivers the ball with his arm well extended, and until it actually breaks no batsman can tell which way it is going to break, or whether it is coming straight through”. The author claimed that Browne himself did not always know what the ball was going to do, but believed that, as a natural googly bowler who could keep a good length and was extremely difficult to read from the hand, he would be just as effective in first-class cricket. The profile also described how, being “quick as lightning”, he was good in the field “like most West Indians”. As a batsman, he played correctly, was quick on his feet and played strokes all around the wicket. Such was his impact that there was speculation in later issues of Cricket that he would eventually play county cricket.

Browne continued to play for Clapham Ramblers in 1913 and 1914, although he attracted less attention. He also represented other clubs, most notably for Surrey Club and Ground, furthering suggestions he would play county cricket. But his time in England was drawing to a close. Having passed his exams, on 24 June 1914 he was called to the bar, and in September he sailed from London onboard the Salybia back to Barbados. Perhaps he always planned to leave, but maybe the outbreak of the First World War prompted his return home. Altogether, his costs at the Middle Temple, which he usually paid in cash, had been over £200 — worth over £20,000 today.

The next few years are slightly mysterious but it is possible to make some educated guesses. Browne’s Who’s Who entry states that he was called to the bar in Barbados in 1914; presumably as soon as he arrived home. But then in 1916, he moved to British Guiana, where he was also called to the bar. The most likely explanation is that he moved to work with his influential brother Philip.

At the time, Philip Nathaniel Browne was also a barrister in Guiana. In fact, Philip found himself increasingly at odds with the British Government. He was a prominent member of the People’s Political Organisation and had been elected in 1906 to the Court of Policy, Guiana’s partially-representative legislative body. In 1915, the British Government rejected a proposal that Philip should be appointed as a third King’s Counsel for Guiana because he was considered politically dangerous through his association with “popular politics”. Over the following two years, he allied himself more with the government, and therefore was appointed KC in 1917; he later acted as a Crown Prosecutor. This not only reflected Philip’s position as a leading barrister (and his support of the government), but also was prompted by the hope that appointing a black KC would generate popular approval.

It is hard to believe that Browne’s 1916 move was not connected with his brother in some fashion, and he clearly relocated to British Guiana for business reasons. But he was far from finished as a cricketer despite leaving Barbados; his feats for British Guiana would be extraordinary.

After the First World War, first-class cricket resumed in the West Indies with two matches between Barbados and Trinidad in 1920; it is likely that British Guiana were invited but were unable to take part. A similar attempt to resume the Intercolonial Tournament in early 1921 also came to nothing, but finally, in September of that year, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana assembled in Trinidad to contest the tournament for the first time in almost ten years. Browne’s record and experience made him a certain pick for British Guiana.

Browne’s former team, Barbados, were overwhelmingly strong in this period; as the winners of the last competition, they automatically qualified for the final. Trinidad also were highly effective, particularly at home on matting pitches. British Guiana, on the other hand, fielded a very inexperienced side; four of the team made their first-class debut in this game. Only one man, Jules Chabrol, had ever passed fifty in first-class cricket, but his only such score, an innings of 53, had been back in 1904.

Joseph Veerasawmy (Image: Everest Cricket Club)

In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that British Guiana were crushed by a vastly superior Trinidad team. In two innings, they could only score 89 and 124; in his only first-class match, Padwick Green top-scored twice with innings of 38 and 23. Browne scored 0 and 19, and was run out in both innings. Trinidad’s total of 293, underpinned by Wilton St Hill’s maiden first-class century, was enough for an innings victory. But the British Guiana bowling was more effective than its batting; Browne opened the bowling and took three for 45, but the most successful bowler was his old team-mate from Clapham Ramblers, Joseph Veerasawmy, who took five for 67.

In short, the match would have been totally unremarkable except for one detail. British Guiana were captained by Browne. For a team in the Caribbean to be led by a black player was unprecedented, and would not become common practice until long after the Second World War. From the limited evidence available, Browne’s captaincy attracted no public comment at the time, adverse or otherwise. The only controversy arose when the final was left drawn after Barbados had to travel home. However, many years later, Learie Constantine wrote a chapter in his Cricket Crackers (1950) which discussed captaincy at length, and particularly what he called the “colour bar” on black cricketers captaining West Indian teams. At the time he wrote, the only black Test captain of the West Indies had been George Headley — for a single match in 1948. Discussing the issue, Constantine touched upon Browne: “C. R. Browne, a black man, captained a British Guiana side in Trinidad in 1922 [sic]. Rumour said that certain influential people in Trinidad then objected. And certainly no coloured man has captained an intercolonial side since!”

Constantine was reporting what he admitted was a rumour, but it is undeniable that Browne never captained British Guiana again, although he continued to hold the role for “British Guiana Cricket Club” in the local competition. Additionally, according to his Who’s Who entry, he also held the position of Vice-President of the British Guiana Selection Committee. All of this suggests that the issues were not with Guiana, and any protests had indeed come from elsewhere.

Browne’s influence is also apparent in a report originating from Trinidad early in 1922 that Arthur Somerset had written to him proposing that a West Indies team should tour England in 1922; Browne passed the suggestion on to Archie Wiles of Trinidad, who promised to discuss it with the other colonies. The idea eventually evolved into a tour by the West Indies in 1923, and that was a whole new chapter not just for Browne, but for the history of West Indies cricket…

NOTE: CricketArchive and ESPNcricinfo record J. A. Veerasawmy as Joseph Alexander Veerasawmy. Guyanese records indicate that he was actually called John Aloysius Veerasawmy; either the former sources are mistaken (they also give a different birth date to Guyanese records) or the first-class cricketer and the founder of Everest are two different men.

“The most attractive and exhilarating batsman of the Team”: Joe Small, the forgotten West Indies all-rounder

Joe Small as part of the Trinidad team that played the MCC in 1926

One of the first names on any Trinidad or West Indies team sheet in the 1920s was the all-rounder Joe Small. For a brief period in the mid-1920s, he was probably the best batsman in the Caribbean, and bowled medium-paced spin or something slightly quicker. A great stylist, he made a big impression in England — to the point where some counties may have tried to persuade him to play for them — and in the first Test match ever played by the West Indies, was the only man to score an individual fifty. Yet Small is all but forgotten today; historians of West Indies cricket tend to focus on Learie Constantine, another Trinidadian all-rounder, and as a batsman he was overshadowed by the achievements of George Headley in the 1930s. Additionally, Small’s Test record is mediocre: he averaged 13 with the bat and 61 with the ball in his three Tests, all of which were played when he was past his best. But this does not reflect his considerable achievements.

Joseph Archer Small was born in Princes Town, Trinidad and Tobago, on 3 November 1892. He seems to have dragged himself up from a low level. In the Bonanza Cup, the local Trinidad cricket competition, he played for Stingo, which according to Beyond a Boundary (1963) by C. L. R. James, placed him among the lowest social class on the island; the author described the Stingo team: “the butcher, the tailor, the candlestick maker, the casual labourer, with a sprinkling of unemployed. Totally black and of no social status whatever.” For most of his life, Small worked in the Stores Department of Trinidad Leaseholds, an oil company which employed many on the island. Other than this, we know nothing of his background, nor his upbringing, nor his life; we simply know him as a cricketer.

After making his first-class debut in 1909, Small took several years to make an impact for Trinidad. By 1912, he had played six matches, scored 76 runs at an average of 9.50 (with a highest score of 17) and taken 9 wickets at an average of 24.44. The turning point was the visit of an MCC team in 1912–13. Playing for Trinidad in both their games against the touring side, Small made three scores in the 20s and took seven for 49 in the first match.

This was enough for him to be included in a West Indies team that defeated the MCC by an innings in Port-of-Spain. Among his team-mates were Richard Ollivierre, the brother of Charles Ollivierre who had made a career in England; Lebrun Constantine, the father of Learie; and Allan Browne, the brother of Cyril “Snuffy” Browne, Small’s future Test team-mate. Small’s role was minor: he batted at number ten, scored just six runs and did not take a wicket. Many of the team travelled to British Guiana, where the MCC next played, but Small was left out of the West Indies team for that representative match.

When the First World War began, Small joined the British West Indies Regiment. Stationed in Egypt, he may have reached the rank of Acting Sergeant: records survive of two men called Joseph Small from Trinidad in the British West Indies Regiment; one of them, an acting sergeant, was in the 1st Battalion, which served in Egypt. Whether this was him or not, Small played cricket there alongside the future West Indies captain Karl Nunes. A brief pen portrait by L. S. Smith, the editor of Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle said that he did “great things with the bat”; a similar profile in The Cricketer in early 1923 said that he “bowled particularly well”. He certainly made an impression, and his time in Egypt led to a vast improvement in his batting.

When first-class cricket in the West Indies resumed in 1920, Small immediately established himself as one of the best batsmen in the region. Trinidad played Barbados in two matches that were not part of the regular Inter-Colonial Tournament; although Trinidad lost both matches by an innings, Small improved his best first-class score three times in four innings: 33, 62, 3 and 102 not out. The last innings, his maiden first-class century, came out of a total of 461. His bowling was less successful as his three wickets cost 181 runs against a dominant Barbados batting line-up.

Joe Small in 1925

Small had a quiet time when the Intercolonial Tournament resumed in Trinidad during October 1921; that tournament was undecided when the final between Trinidad and Barbados was drawn. But in 1922, he had a superb game against British Guiana. In difficult batting conditions, he scored 33 and 83 when the next highest innings for Trinidad in the entire match was merely 19 and the only other half-century was 52 by Guiana’s captain Clarence Hunter. No one else in the match passed thirty. In addition, Small took three for 46 in British Guiana’s first innings. Although he was powerless to prevent another heavy Barbados win in the final, he had done more than enough both for Trinidad and in local cricket for Stingo to be a certain pick for any West Indies team.

And so when the West Indies were invited to tour England for the first time in 17 years for the 1923 season, Small was included as one of five Trinidadian members of the team. A preview in The Cricketer during May 1923 described Small as “a sound batsman and useful fast bowler”. He was also something of a rarity as most leading batsmen in the region at the time were white; generally, black cricketers were restricted to roles as bowlers. But as C. L. R. James put it: “Joe Small had made for himself a place as a batsman which could not be denied”. His easy-going nature may also have influenced the selectors; he was not one to rock the boat.

The 1923 tour of England was a success both for Small and for the West Indies. For some of the players — including Small — such luxuries as first-class travel to England, and the hospitality they received during the season must have been quite a contrast to their lives at home. Once the team became accustomed to the challenges of playing six days a week in alien conditions, they made big impact on English critics, culminating in a victory over a strong Surrey team. The biggest successes were the Barbados cricketers George Challenor — whose six first-class centuries and average of over fifty established him as one of the world’s leading batsmen — and George Francis — who took 82 wickets with old-fashioned fast bowling aimed at the stumps.

The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. Pascal, J. K. Holt, R. H. Mallett (Manager), R. L. Phillips, M. P. Fernandes, C. V. Hunter, G. John. Sitting: G. A. R. Dewhurst, C. R. Browne, G. Challenor, H. B. G. Austin (Captain), R. K. Nunes (Vice captain), P. H. Tarilton. On ground: G. Francis, L. N. Constantine, H. W. Ince.

Small was another who stood out. He made a slow start, not helped by a thigh strain in the opening match which limited his movement throughout the tour. He was unable to field in his accustomed position in the outfield and became a slip specialist. Although the tour manager R. H. Mallett claimed, in an article written for the Cricketer, that he was less effective as a slip fielder, he nevertheless impressed English watchers; his Wisden obituary, written more than 30 years later, described him as “a splendid slip fieldsman”. Writing in Cricket and I (1933), his team-mate from that tour Learie Constantine recalled a match against Oxford University in which the home side had made 390 for six and the West Indies had begun badly. A group of watching undergraduates had begun to “have a little fun at our expense” for the slowness and timidity of the batting when Small went into bat, immediately attracting their attention as he was the first black batsman in the innings. He impressed them with his hard hitting through the covers in a rapid 29, beginning the process of turning the innings round; the West Indies eventually won.

But Small’s tour came to life in Lancashire. At that time, Lancashire were among the strongest English counties, with an exceptional bowling attack — in the match in question, they used three current or future Test bowlers. During innings of 94 and 68 in a losing cause, Small drove and cut, used his feet and timed the ball perfectly. The crowd were enthralled and gave him a prolonged ovation; their appreciation may have partially come from the contrast with Lancashire’s notoriously dour batting. Writing in the Manchester Guardian, Neville Cardus praised Small’s technique and what he considered to be “old-fashioned” attacking approach. Over the next three weeks, he followed this success with 71 against Nottinghamshire, another strong team, 131 in a non-first-class match against Wiltshire and 85 against Warwickshire. Having recovered from his injury, he bowled more frequently than early in the tour and began to take wickets. Mallett’s account of the tour in The Cricketer suggests that Small bowled better than his figures suggested.

Constantine remembered that, even when runs were scarce during the tour, “he never lost his courage.” When the West Indies played against Essex, Small faced the former England captain Johnny Douglas, still a capable swing bowler. Constantine recalled: “Early in his innings Douglas bowled him an out-swinger. Small dashed him up against the cover-point boundary past cover’s left hand. Douglas was surprised, tried Small with another a little later, and Small obliged him in the same way. Douglas countered with an in-swinger, whereupon Joe laced him for four again, but by way of variation past cover’s right hand. ‘Is the man mad?’ said Douglas. Douglas indeed had the very poorest opinions of the mentality of the West Indian cricketers.”

By the end of the tour, Small had passed 1,000 runs in all matches. In first-class games, he scored 776 runs at an average of 31.04 and took 19 wickets at an average of 33.47. If his bowling was expensive, and lacking penetration, his batting record was a good one, although he did not get a mention in the tour summary in Wisden. Pelham Warner commented in The Cricketer that Small was the only reliable West Indies batsman other than Challenor. R. H. Mallett praised his driving, the quickness of his footwork, and his timing, but suggested that the slow pitches that the team experienced during the northern parts of the tour did not suit him.

L. S. Smith of the Sporting Chronicle said that Small was “a very brilliant batsman” and “proved the most attractive and exhilarating batsman of the Team. His batting was described as a model of perfection, splendour and fine art and his performances were at all times of a spectacular kind … Though in point of performance and consistence he is excelled by Challenor, his batting has been accorded greater merit for style, brilliance, art and execution.” Smith’s judgement was backed up by the “Gentleman in Black” in the Athletic News, who wrote that Small was Trinidad’s best batsman and “when he is at his best few batsmen are more attractive to watch, for he is a batsman of free and and delightful methods.”

Small’s stylish batting certainly impressed English critics. In Beyond a Boundary, James recalls that an English county — possibly Hampshire or Sussex — tried to induce him to remain in England after the tour to qualify to play for them. There is no other evidence to support this claim, but it is plausible: the West Indians Charles Olliviere and Sydney Smith had previously qualified for Derbyshire and Northamptonshire respectively, and several overseas players qualified for county cricket in the 1920s. Additionally, from the late 1920s, many West Indians such as Constantine and Edwin St Hill played in league cricket. But according to James, Small lacked the ambition to make such a move: “Through cricket, steadiness of character and a limited outlook Joe had made a place for himself that was quite satisfactory to him”. These rather damning words suggest a cricketer content with his lot, who did not fight the system like some of his team-mates. His reward was continued selection; more combative characters, such as Wilton St Hill and Herman Griffith, were not always so lucky.

The Trinidad team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925. Standing: V. Pascall, R. A. Boyack, F. G. Grant, A. V. Waddell. Seated: C. Fraser, C. A. Wiles, G. A. R. Dewhurst, J. A. Small, W. H. St Hill. On ground: L. N. Constantine, E. L. St Hill.

Returning to the West Indies after the tour, Small reached his peak as a cricketer. With success on a bigger stage under his belt, for the next few years he was dominant. In the 1925 Intercolonial Tournament played in Trinidad, he scored 72 and took six for 43 in the semi-final; in the final, he took five for 34 and four for 62 in a narrow 13-run victory that gave Trinidad their first success in the tournament since 1910. The next season, when Trinidad retained their title, he scored 133 and took three second-innings wickets in a narrow win over British Guiana (as the reigning champions, Trinidad played just once, against the winner of a play-off between the other two teams). An ever-present in the West Indies team against the MCC in 1926, Small was less effective, but returned to form in 1927. In the final of the Intercolonial Tournament, on a rain-affected pitch he took three for 42 as the home team Barbados were bowled out for 175 on the first day; on the second, in easier conditions, he scored 100 as Trinidad established a first-innings lead of 384. But in a remarkable turnaround, Barbados scored 726 for seven declared in the second innings; Small had figures of two for 149 in 60.2 overs. Rain again affected the pitch and Trinidad were bowled out for 217 on the eighth day; Small’s 42 was in vain.

The 1928 West Indies team: Small is at the centre of the back row, wearing a cravat in which he was photographed several times during 1928.

The obvious rapid improvements in West Indies cricket meant that, at a meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1926, they had been given Test match status. A tour of England was arranged for 1928, in which the team would play its first matches at Test level. Small was by then a certainty for the team, particularly after some solid performances in the trial games, and was one of five Trinidad players selected. But the tour was a disaster from start to finish. Problems with the selection process, and the late withdrawal of the wicketkeeper George Dewhurst, meant that the best players were not necessarily selected. The team underperformed badly and the captaincy of Karl Nunes came under heavy criticism. A divided and dispirited team were outclassed by a very strong England team and lost all three Test matches by an innings. In total, the West Indies lost twelve first-class games and won just five.

Expectations for Small were very high before the tour — a preview in The Cricketer described him as: “A very attractive bat and a good fast-medium bowler” — but his batting form fell away.  Age may have played a part as he was 37 by then. He hit one century, against Oxford University, but averaged just 18.59, and this in a season when several batting records were set: five English players passed 3,000 first-class runs. Small’s only other score over fifty came against a team of former Oxford University cricketers, the Harlequins, when he scored 98 not out and shared a last-wicket partnership of 107 in 50 minutes with George Francis to rescue the West Indies from a terrible start — when he came out to bat, the score was 64 for six. But even though his innings took West Indies to 311, they still lost by an innings after Harlequins scored 676.

Small’s lack of batting success was somewhat offset by his improved bowling, and he took 50 wickets at 28.90. Writing in The Cricketer, Pelham Warner said: “Small has a low delivery — his action, indeed, is almost round-arm — but he can make the ball swing away and occasionally come back, and he got out some very good batsmen”. Small’s team-mate Cyril Browne gave an interview after the tour in which he suggested that the former had concentrated mainly on bowling, hence his loss of batting form, but “occasionally he showed flashes of his old brilliance. He was always an attractive bat when getting runs.”

Realistically, though, his figures were not too impressive and by most standards, Small’s tour was a disappointment. But he made one piece of history.

Embed from Getty Images

Three of the 1928 West Indies side photographed while the team practised at Dulwich at the start of the tour. From left to right: Learie Constantine, Joe Small and E. L. Bartlett

The first Test match ever played by West Indies took place on 23, 25 and 26 June 1928. It was not a close match. England batted first — Small took two expensive wickets — and bowled West Indies out cheaply in the first innings, when Small made 0. West Indies followed on, and ended the second day’s play at 53 for six in their second innings. The next morning, Small restored some respectability to proceedings. Using his feet to the spinners and cutting powerfully, he played aggressively to reach West Indies’ first Test fifty. Cardus, in the Manchester Guardian, compared his batting to that against Lancashire five years before. He was out a little unluckily for 52, caught at mid-off attempting to hit a poor ball out of the ground. West Indies still lost by an innings. Rather strangely, he was left out for the second Test as Tommy Scott was preferred. Recalled for the third, he was wicketless; scores of 0 and 2 left him with an uneven record for the series. Other than his half-century, he managed just two runs in three innings.

There was one other curious reference to Small during the tour; a report in the Western Morning News in late July noted, ahead of the annual “High Court” meeting of the Foresters Friendly Society — a savings society which still exists — that Small, as well as his Trinidad team-mates Wilton St Hill and Clifford Roach, was a member of a “court” in Trinidad; it was hoped he would attend. Incidentally, the passenger lists when the team departed on the Ingoma at the end of September solve a longstanding mystery; his full name is given as Joseph Archer Small. His occupation is given as “storekeeper”.

That was more-or-less the end for Small, with age against him. Continuing to play for Trinidad, he had little notable success and seems to have bowled more than before. Against a touring team organised by Julien Cahn, Small played for a “West Indies XI”, which was effectively the Jamaican team reinforced by him and two others. His figures of seven for 77 were his last success in top-level cricket.

When the MCC returned to tour in 1930, Small was clearly past his best. A review in The Cricketer said: “Still a very useful cricketer. Seldom bowls a bad ball, and spins the ball on the matting [the type of pitch used in Trinidad] more than anyone. Was very difficult to score off at Trinidad. Has some good strokes on the off.” And he was indeed very economical when Trinidad played the MCC; but 59 runs in four innings (with a couple of twenties) and four wickets in the two games were hardly overwhelming returns.

However, the MCC tour was slightly chaotic. The selection for the “home” team was complicated by matters of finance and regional differences; a huge number of players appeared for the West Indies in the four Tests, many only being selected for the games taking place in their own colony. The reason for the inconsistency was that local selectors chose each Test team. In total, 27 players appeared for the West Indies in the series, and each Test had a different captain, selected from the home nation.

Joe Small in an undated photograph (Image: The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

Small was one of the Trinidad selectors for the series, choosing the Trinidad and West Indies teams that opposed the MCC. He was the only non-white selector on the panel; perhaps his genial reputation meant that he was a “safe” choice for an important position, supporting the other selectors. This nevertheless placed him in an odd position; his dual role did not escape notice in the Trinidad press. Despite his mediocre performances in the two Trinidad games, he was included in the Test side — effectively choosing himself over the in-form Edwin St Hill, another Trinidad player but one who was at the time part of a first-choice West Indies attack, and who played in two other Tests in the series. Small took just one wicket and scored 20 and 5 to end his Test career.

Later in the year, Small travelled abroad, and in doing so left a few more details about his life at this time. During June 1930, a “West Indies” team that was not a representative one visited New York to play some local clubs, mainly comprising ex-patriot West Indians in the Harlem area. Small was not among those chosen. However he accompanied the team on the S. S. Matura; the passenger list gives us some of the only biographical information we have. It tells us Joseph Archer Small lived in Fyzabad, southern Trinidad. Listed as single at the time, he was visiting Mr James Green, a friend living at 74 West 118th Street in Harlem. Small’s “nearest relative or friend” was Mrs Angelina Cole of Port-of-Spain, and his height half-an-inch short of six feet.

Small remained in the Trinidad team until 1932, scoring 66 in his final first-class match, but represented South Trinidad in the Beaumont Cup (an annual trophy contested by North Trinidad and South Trinidad) until 1935; he continued to play in the local St Patrick League in South Trinidad until the early 1940s. When his playing days were over, he also ran a food stall. In 1948, he appeared in a match organised to mark Learie Constantine’s retirement, playing for a team of former Trinidad cricketers against current players.

Small’s final years passed in obscurity. He died on 26 April 1958, at the age of 66, in hospital at Pointe-à-Pierre after a week’s illness (according to his obituary in the Jamaica Gleaner — other sources give different locations, such as Forest Reserve, Trinidad). He was survived by a wife, whom he must have married after 1930, but like so many aspects of Small’s life, other than her existence, we know nothing about her. Small was inducted into the Trinidad and Tobago Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, but is largely forgotten today. Cricket records such as ESPNCricinfo, CricketArchive, and various other statistical sources do not even give his middle name other than the initial A.

What manner of cricketer was he? He was a tall man, described in his Wisden obituary as a “tall, loose-limbed all-rounder”. His bowling style is slightly mysterious. Early in his career, he was described as a fast bowler, but subsequent profiles reduce his pace. Most likely, he operated in more than one style; on the matting pitches in Trinidad, he probably bowled medium-paced off-spin which would have been very difficult to play. An obituary in the Jamaica Gleaner describes “his cutting off-breaks, which he brought out of the sky, so to speak, due to his height.” Elsewhere, he perhaps bowled faster — and in England he may have swung the ball. In all first-class cricket, he averaged 27.81 with the ball, but at home in Trinidad, with its matting pitches that favoured bowlers, his average was 16.98. This averaged climbed to over forty in Barbados and British Guiana.

As a batsman, he was a stylist who favoured the drive. At his peak in the mid-1920s, he was one of the best batsmen in the West Indies and certainly impressed English observers in 1923. This made him one of the first black batsmen to be successful for the West Indies, paving the way for others when the team attained Test status; from the tour of 1928 onwards, batting was no longer a white preserve in the side. His record is also interesting; while his overall first-class average is a respectable 26.17, in Trinidad he scored 511 runs at an average of just 18.25 in 17 first-class games with two fifties and a highest score of 72. But in 13 matches on the friendlier surfaces of Barbados, he scored 785 runs, including two centuries, at 39.25; and in British Guiana, he scored 355 runs (including a century) in six matches at 35.55.

Despite Small’s obvious ability, the legendary England batsman Jack Hobbs wrote that he did not remember his cricket as much as he remembered “his great laugh” and “a smile that was all over his face at once”. He also recalled his extreme ticklishness, which the mischievous Hobbs never failed to take advantage of whenever they met. Hobbs was obviously very fond of Small, but wrote about him — and the West Indies team in general — with clear condescension, referring to them as being like “big boys” who wanted to bowl fast and could not play spin. While this attitude was perhaps borne of ignorance as much as racism, it makes for uncomfortable reading.

The only other indication we have of Small’s character comes from C. L. R. James; and almost everything that James wrote about him was in comparison to Wilton St Hill. On the latter’s omission from the 1923 tour of England, James wrote:

“This was the traditional order, a line of white batsmen and a line of black bowlers. Joe Small had made for himself a place as a batsman which could not be denied. Joe was enough. They didn’t want any more. Further, Joe was an inoffensive person. St Hill was not in any way offensive. Far from it. But he was not friendly.”

And in discussing how St Hill attracted a fanatical following, he again compared him to Small: “On performance Small rivalled St Hill. But Joe never aroused the excitement that Wilton did.” It is clear that Small did not interest James too much. But there are a couple of other snippets. James tells a story of Small batting against the ferocious fast bowler (and his team-mate at Stingo) George John in an unimportant match between scratch sides and deliberately aiming shots at the bowler to infuriate him. He also described Small at practice: “International cricketers are not as ordinary men. There might be only two boys fielding, but if you bowled Joe a half-volley outside the off stump, he hit with all his force, though he would have to wait until the ball came back from 150 yards. Then he would bowl at me for ten minutes.”

Small was a hugely important figure in Trinidad and West Indies cricket in the 1920s. He was one of the best batsmen, and has the honour of being the first man to hit a fifty for the West Indies at international level. But like so many of the early West Indian cricketers, he has been neglected by historians, perhaps because of his modest ambition and lack of social status. And like his team-mates, he deserves rather more than that.

Edwin St Hill: The forgotten star of Trinidad, the West Indies and Lowerhouse

Edwin St Hill photographed during the voyage to Australia with the West Indies team in 1930-31
(Image: National Library of Australia)

Once upon a time, there were three brothers from Trinidad and Tobago. Their names were Wilton, Edwin and Cecil St Hill. All three played together for Shannon Cricket Club in Trinidad, the most competitive and determined team playing in the local competition. When Trinidad defeated Barbados by an innings in February 1929, the three played together for the only time in first-class cricket. The most famous – revered throughout Trinidad – was Wilton, who scored a century against the MCC team in 1926 and as one of the best batsmen in the region, played in the West Indies first ever Test match at Lord’s in 1928. But Wilton was a failure in that match, and on that tour. After a brief return to form in 1930, he disappeared from first-class cricket – and the pages of the history books. What about his brothers? Cecil is even more mysterious than the enigmatic Wilton, but Edwin went on to much greater and much more prolonged success than the others as he carved out a professional career in England. His story is a curious echo of that of Learie Constantine, with whom he was close. Yet Edwin is all-but forgotten today, both in the West Indies and in his adopted home of northern England. And if in some ways we know far more about Edwin than we do about Wilton, no-one ever wrote about the former like CLR James wrote about the latter.

The St Hill brothers were from the Woodbrook area of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, part of what CLR James called a lower-middle-class family. Wilton was born in 1893 and Edwin was born in 1904, but we do not even have a date of birth for Cecil. It may be a reasonable assumption that he was the youngest of the three as he made his first-class debut later than his brothers. But we do not know. Before telling the story of Edwin, it is worth spending a short time looking at what we know of this third brother. Although his actual name was Cecil, as revealed by Edwin in an interview in an English newspaper, thanks to CLR James the cricket world knows him as Cyl, and he is recorded as such at ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive. He was primarily a bowler, but the cricket records know little else. In Beyond a Boundary, James tells us all that we know about him in two short passages: “Well over six feet, fast left-hand, his arm as straight as a post. When he dropped the ball on the off-stump it might straighten, to take the outside edge of the bat, or continue to the inside of your ribs.” Later he details how the fast bowler George John “for some reason or other” hated Cyl; on one occasion, Cyl, a number eleven batsman with no pretensions, thrashed his bowling all around the ground after John had taken the first nine wickets cheaply. But “Cyl too was the type to say exactly what he thought of John, preferably in John’s hearing.”

Other than this intriguing glimpse that Cyl may have possessed some of the same inner fire as Wilton, we know nothing else about him. He played just one first-class match, the game in February 1929 when he joined Wilton and Edwin playing for Trinidad. The Jamaica Gleaner records that he played in some trial matches in January, where he was successful. But his first-class appearance was underwhelming: he scored 2 runs batting at number eleven, but then did not bowl as Barbados were dismissed twice in one day. The Gleaner records that he left the field with a twisted knee shortly after lunch on the second day, early in Barbados’ first innings. The only other information we have is that CricketArchive records him playing three times in the Beaumont Cup for South Trinidad against North Trinidad between 1925 and 1932; he presumably remained a regular for Shannon.

With Edwin, we are on much firmer ground. And although he is largely unknown today, his story is a remarkable one in many ways. Born on 9 March 1904, he played with his brothers for the ultra-competitive Shannon team in the Bonanza Cup. But he never had the fanatical following that Wilton enjoyed. Other than a few passing references, CLR James barely mentions him in Beyond a Boundary, even though at one point they must have spent a great deal of time together. Instead, the most informative early biography of St Hill was written in the unlikely medium of the Burnley News in 1930. It appears to have been sourced from various Trinidad newspapers to which the authors had access. From this, we can piece together far more about Edwin’s early cricket than we can for his brothers.

St Hill first played in the Bonanza Cup, Trinidad and Tobago’s main cricket competition, for a club called Durban Cricket Club in 1922; critics judged him to be promising, but he had little success. The following year, he moved to play for Shannon, for whom he eventually opened the bowling. He quickly proved successful, topping the bowling averages for the entire Bonanza Cup in 1924 and 1929. Between 1922 and 1930, he took 224 wickets at an average of 9.42. The article in the Burnley News also gave his most recent performances: 34 wickets at 11.03 in 1928; 39 at 8.41 in 1929 and 28 at 12.57 up until August 1930.

The Trinidad team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925; St Hill is seated at the front on the right. Wilton is in the middle row on the far right.

Before long, St Hill was selected to play for Trinidad in the Intercolonial Tournament and made his first-class debut in February 1924, when he opened the bowling. However, his performances were more notable for their steadiness than for any standout success. His figures were generally economical, but apart from when he took four for 99 in 47 overs against British Guiana in 1925, he did not take more than three wickets in an innings until 1929. When Barbados made their score of 726 for seven in 1927, St Hill had figures of 61-20-132-1. As a batsman, he achieved nothing of note, batting down the order.

Although performing well enough to be a regular for Trinidad, including against the MCC team that toured in 1926, St Hill was well down the pecking order when it came to West Indies teams. He was not selected for the representative team that played the MCC in 1926, nor was he invited to the trial matches before the team to tour England in 1928 was chosen.

Instead, St Hill, between June and August 1928, took part in a tour of the United States by a “West Indian XI”, mainly playing teams of expatriate West Indians. He was very successful, taking over 100 wickets at a low cost. The record of his arrival in New York gave his occupation as a clerk (possibly a shipping clerk) in Port of Spain. His next games for Trinidad were in January 1929 when the team won the Intercolonial Tournament at home; having played in the qualifying match, he and Wilton were joined by Cyl for the final which Trinidad won by an innings. Edwin’s contributions were again solid without standing out, in a tournament dominated by Constantine.

Edwin St Hill in 1926

However, when the tournament was next held – in British Guiana in October 1929 – Constantine was ineligible as he was now a professional cricketer at Nelson in England: professionals were not allowed to take part in the Intercolonial Tournament. It was St Hill who stepped up: in the final (for which Trinidad qualified as holders), his bowling figures were 47.4-12-117-6 and 36-12-87-4; with the bat, he scored 10 and 67. Despite his efforts, Trinidad lost by four wickets, having never recovered, despite a strong fightback, from being bowled out for 152 on the first day. Although he was on the losing side, this performance pushed St Hill into contention for a place in the West Indies side that faced the touring MCC team in 1930.

The peculiar circumstances of that tour suggest that St Hill was, in fact, regarded very highly. Four Test matches (albeit ones only retrospectively given that status) were played, one in each of Barbados, Trinidad, British Guiana and Jamaica. For a variety of reasons (mainly financial, as the West Indies Board was not rich, but also owing to strong regional rivalry) the West Indies team varied hugely depending on where it played – far more so than during the 1926 series. The hosting team tended to dominate the composition of each West Indies side; for example, eight Trinidadians played in the Trinidad Test and in the final match, eight of the West Indian team were from Jamaica. Despite this preference for local players, St Hill was selected for the first Test, played in Barbados. His selection away from home suggests that he was very much a first-choice bowler, part of a theoretical strongest eleven. The match was a high-scoring draw, but St Hill’s bowling in the first innings (35-7-110-2) impressed the newspapers.

But then something odd occurred. The MCC moved to Trinidad, and as was standard, played the island team twice before facing the full West Indies team. St Hill played in the first Trinidad match and bowled steadily enough, taking three wickets in the MCC second innings as the home team won comfortably. He then missed the second match. Reports indicated that he was being rested, but this match had a political backdrop in that George Dewhurst returned to captain the team for the first time in several years. Dewhurst was a candidate to lead the West Indies in the second Test (each of the four Test matches had a local captain), but Trinidad lost. A writer in the Trinidad Sporting Chronicle claimed that the Trinidad selectors had deliberately selected a weakened team in order that Dewhurst would lose, while his rival for the captaincy Nelson Betancourt, who went on to captain the West Indies in the Test, would have the better result.

Whatever was going on behind the scenes, Edwin St Hill was omitted from the West Indies team for the second Test. His brother Wilton was chosen, making his final first-class appearance, as was Joe Small, who had been one of the Trinidad selectors for the two matches played against the MCC. Whichever way this is analysed, it is very odd that St Hill could play in Barbados but not be one of eight Trinidadians appearing at home. On form, he should have played ahead of Small; but it is likely (albeit not completely clear) that Small was one of the Test selectors and was partially responsible for picking himself.

Having been left out at home, St Hill was then chosen to play in British Guiana, where the West Indies won, their first victory in a Test match. He took just one wicket in the game but bowled economically, and appears to have acted as a nightwatchman in the second innings (unsuccessfully, as he was out before the close of play). He was then omitted from the team for the fourth Test (along with Constantine), but had obviously made a good impression. The Barbados Advocate suggested that he bowled steadily during both his Test appearances, although it suggested his economical figures in British Guiana flattered him a little as England were batting just to save the game. The Advocate judged that St Hill was more effective on matting surfaces and needed to improve his fielding. The Cricketer stated that he was: “A very useful stock bowler anywhere. Steady, and spins the ball.” One critic in British Guiana described him as a “bowling machine”.

Edwin St Hill practising in Australia in 1930-31 (Image: National Library of Australia)

Around this time, he appears to have gained a reputation as being a similar bowler to England’s Maurice Tate, who was the leading medium-paced bowler of the 1920s. But St Hill’s style is a little difficult to pin down; he was often an opening bowler but does not seem to have been especially fast. Some sources suggest that he was a spin bowler, but it appears more likely that he was generally medium-paced but perhaps spun the ball off his home matting pitches (or what might be called an off-cutter today). But the huge numbers of overs he delivered in matches suggest that he was far from being a pace bowler.

Around this time, something happened that would change St Hill’s life. After the 1928 tour of England by the West Indies team, Learie Constantine had signed a contract to play cricket for Nelson in the Lancashire League. He was an enormous success there, and his story is relatively well-known. Far less celebrated was his team-mate, the fast bowler George Francis. He too signed as a professional for an English club during that 1928 tour. He joined the much lower-profile Durham League where he played for Seaham Harbour in 1929, and remained there until moving to Radcliffe, in the Bolton League, in 1933. The man who organised the signing of Francis during the 1928 tour was RH Mallett, the manager of the West Indies team, who had once been the captain of Seaham Harbour. So much did Francis like Seaham Harbour there that he refused an offer from a club in the Lancashire League for 1930.

Because both Constantine and Francis had toured England in 1923 and 1928, they were known to the English public; as a result, their presence at games in their respective leagues was a considerable boost to the attendance. But St Hill never toured England with the West Indies. Nevertheless, in August 1930, Lowerhouse, a club playing in the Lancashire League, announced that he was to be their professional having agreed a one-year contract. The recommendation appears to have come from Constantine, who knew St Hill well from their time playing together for Shannon, Trinidad and the West Indies. Lowerhouse made contact with people in Trinidad, and several cuttings from Trinidad newspapers appeared in the Burnley press, presumably via the committee at Lowerhouses who were researching their prospective professional.

While there would in future be many West Indian Test players who signed for the English leagues as a professional – George Headley and Manny Martindale followed in the 1930s – his contemporaries were signed after touring England with the West Indies. St Hill was signed without having been seen by anyone connected with Lowerhouse. It can only be assumed that Constantine was a very influential voice. It is worth emphasising how extraordinary it was for St Hill – and Lowerhouse – to pursue this course. Previous successful overseas professionals, such as Australia’s Ted McDonald or South Africa’s Jimmy Blanckenberg, signed after successful tours of England. At the time St Hill joined Lowerhouse, Constantine and a handful of Australian Test players were the only overseas players in the Lancashire League. In 1932, Bill Merritt of New Zealand joined Rishton, but he too had played Tests in England, as had India’s Amar Singh when he signed for Colne to play in 1935. In contrast, St Hill was a stranger to English crowds. Even more remarkable was that St Hill was happy to make such a big move having never set foot in England. It was a big gamble for everyone.

There is one other aspect to consider: CLR James believed that Wilton St Hill had hoped to play professionally in England (although he writes as if he wanted to play for a county, it would have been more likely he planned to join a league) but his non-selection for the 1923 West Indies tour, and his outright failure in 1928 meant that this never happened. Part of the reason he wanted to go to England, suggests James, is that St Hill – like Constantine – was unhappy at his lack of status and prospects of advancement in a Trinidad society that was very racist at the time. Did Wilton encourage his younger brother to make the move that he had been unable to? Perhaps. But it seems strange that James, having written this about Wilton, makes no mention that his brother played professional cricket in England for nearly 20 years.

Signing for Lowerhouse ended St Hill’s career with Trinidad, but he had one last outing with the West Indies when his relative success against England led to his selection for the West Indies team that toured Australia in 1930-31. At least one person was critical of his selection owing to his lack of penetration: his Trinidad team-mate Andre Cipriani told the Trinidad Sports Weekly that unless St Hill altered his methods, he would not be successful on hard Australian pitches as his approach of keeping runs down merely served to play batsmen into form. Events suggest that Cipriani was probably correct.

Shortly before the team departed (he later said nine days beforehand, which would have been 9 October 1930), St Hill married the 24-year-old Iris Agatha Orvington in Trinidad. The newly-married couple did not spend much time together – he travelled to Australia a few days later and did not return for around 12 months. It would not be the last hardship that his wife endured.

The Trinidad and West Indies team-mates Clifford Roach (left) and Edwin St Hill (right) in Australia in 1930-31 (Image: National Library of Australia)

The players assembled in October 1930 and took the long boat trip. A preview of the tour in the Adelaide Advertiser by Thomas D Lord from Trinidad described St Hill as a “fast medium” bowler whose best attributes were good length bowling and great stamina. It stated that “he has been looked upon as a sort of bowling machine. Dubbed by his countrymen as the Tate of the West Indies, St Hill is a great trier, and never seems to tire or to relax his efforts, however long may be his spell of bowling.” Of his batting, the preview stated: “With a wonderful eye, many fine shots, and endowed with a stout heart, he is rather inclined to ‘have a go’ the instant he gets in the middle, and this recklessness brings about his early downfall.”

The tour was moderately successful in that a West Indies team completely unfamiliar with Australian conditions managed to win one Test match, and were competitive for portions of the series despite losing by four matches to one. But with a strategy based on their fast bowlers, there was no place in the team for St Hill. He played just four first-class games on the tour, taking 16 wickets at a respectable average. The Sporting Chronicle of Trinidad suggested that St Hill had bowled well but had been given little opportunity. A later article in the Daily Gleaner of Jamaica suggested that “sources” had told the newspaper “the reason for the infrequent playing of Edwin St Hill”, but did not elaborate. Another mystery over selection…

However, the tour does provide one piece of information about St Hill’s life away from the cricket field. It appears that he was a boxer. In December 1930, the West Indies team attended a boxing match in Launceston, Tasmania. A newspaper preview stated that St Hill was to referee one of the bouts; the author of the Launceston Examiner article said that St Hill, the “popular bowler of the West Indian cricket team” had “quite a lot of ability with the gloves himself”.

At the end of the tour, Constantine, Francis and St Hill, the three men signed with English clubs, sailed directly to England from Australia without returning home. St Hill was not yet 30 years old, but his first-class and Test career were over, although it is unlikely he knew it at the time. But while his brothers vanished from the radar once their first-class careers ended, this is the point at which Edwin St Hill comes to life and we get an understanding of the person he might have been…

“A horrible, a disastrous, an incredible failure”: The “untameable” Wilton St Hill

Wilton St Hill in 1926

Wilton St Hill was the subject of a famous chapter in CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary (1963) which described at length the high esteem in which St Hill was held in Trinidad and Tobago. His many followers wanted him to prove his greatness as a batsman on the biggest stage available at the time – a tour of England by a West Indies team. But St Hill’s omission from the 1923 West Indies side was a crushing blow from which James suggests he never recovered. Nevertheless, by the mid-1920s St Hill had established an unarguable position as the best batsman in the West Indies – a view supported by none other than Lord Harris, the hugely influential administrator and icon of the English cricketing establishment. St Hill’s success against a strong MCC team in 1926 meant that he was almost certain to be picked when the West Indies toured England once more in 1928 – a tour that was to include the West Indies’ first ever Test matches.

As early as 10 July 1927, St Hill, along with eight other Trinidad players (only four of whom actually made the tour), was asked if he was available to tour in 1928. No Intercolonial Tournament was held in 1927-28; instead, three trial matches were played in December 1927 and January 1928 to assist in selecting the West Indies team. In contrast to his form before the 1923 tour, St Hill was very successful, scoring 144 in the first match for “British Guiana and Trinidad” (he hit 25 fours but was dropped twice before he reached double figures), 45 in the second for “CA Wiles’ XII” and 44 and 71 for “The Rest” against “Barbados Born” in the third. At the conclusion of the trial games, the team was named and St Hill was included.

Although James is silent on the point in Beyond a Boundary, presumably St Hill and his followers were delighted that here was his chance to prove himself. Expectations were undoubtedly high; previews of the tour – in the West Indies and in England – highlighted St Hill’s promise. For example, the Cricketer said of him: “A forcing and attractive batsman with good strokes on the off”. How did St Hill feel, as the team members from Jamaica and British Guiana assembled in Port of Spain? What were his thoughts as the players departed on the Camito on 2 April to collect the remainder of the team from Barbados? Was he excited or nervous as the ship docked in England at Avonmouth on 16 April? Did he feel confident? Or overwhelmed?

However he felt beforehand, there is no doubt that St Hill’s tour was catastrophically awful. James put it quite simply: “The rest should be silence. He was a horrible, a disastrous, an incredible failure, the greatest failure who ever came out of the West Indies.” Wisden said: “The big disappointment was St Hill. Of this batsman, who had some delightful strokes on the off-side, much was expected before the tour began but, too eager to hit before he had played himself in and, in these circumstances, timing the ball badly, he did little or nothing.”

The 1928 West Indies team that toured England. St Hill is standing at the back on the far left

The early signs had been good as the West Indies team warmed up at the end of April in a series of net practices and gentle one-day games. The Times correspondent’s sightings of St Hill led him to have high expectations. That same newspaper, in a preview of the 1928 season, singled out St Hill and Clifford Roach as “promising”. And a report on an early practice game in April, in which St Hill scored 37 not out, said:

“Of the other two batsmen seen, by far the more interesting was WH St Hill, who can be relied upon to provide the entertainment of the side. He is very supple, has a beautifully erect and free stance and, having lifted his bat, performs amazing apparently double-jointed tricks with his wrists and arms. Some of these contortions are graceful and remunerative, such as his gliding to leg, but some are unsound and dangerous, such as an exaggerated turn of the wrist in cutting. He will certainly play some big and attractive innings, but others may be early curtailed by his exotic fancy in dealing with balls on the off-side.”

Three further warm-ups – two more one-day matches and a two-day match – did not produce many runs, and St Hill’s early promise did not translate into success against much stronger county attacks. He played in three of the opening four first-class matches; he reached double figures in the first two, then against Oxford University he reached a fifty (and “made some fine strokes on the offside” according to Wisden). But six innings yielded only 105 runs. He did not bat in a rain-ruined match against the MCC and made starts against Norfolk (not a first-class game) and Cambridge University. Finally, he seemed to find some form against two minor counties: he hit 40 against Northumberland and 101 against Durham (“St Hill, very strong on the leg side, played attractive cricket,” according to Wisden).

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The West Indies team, pictured in Dublin where they were beaten by Ireland. St Hill is seated on the ground at the far right

But he missed out against Ireland, scoring just 4 and 9 as the West Indies were embarrassingly defeated and scored 5 in each innings against Middlesex – a match made famous by the astonishing all-round performance of Learie Constantine that almost single-handedly won the match. After this, St Hill’s appearances became increasingly sporadic. Having missed the next three matches, St Hill was selected to play England in the West Indies’ first official Test match. He managed scores of 4 and 9, after which he again vanished from the team, not playing in the next two games. He returned against Yorkshire, scoring 0 and 1, and then missed the next game. Part of the reason for his irregular selection may have been his utter lack of success. Since his century against Durham, his scores had been 4, 9, 5, 5, 4, 9, 0 and 1. Recalled in a non-first-class match against Staffordshire, he finally reached double figures, scoring 17 and 5 not out, but again did not play the next game, and then scored just 16 out of a total of 410 against Worcestershire.

Whatever lay behind his odd pattern of appearances, St Hill was still selected for the second Test. After a first innings score of 3, he top-scored with 38 in West Indies’ second innings, as the team went down to a second successive innings defeat. He played the next two games, scoring 20 and 7 against Wales and a king pair against Leicestershire. Remarkably, this was almost the end of his tour: he missed the next four games, including the third Test (which West Indies also lost by an innings), returned after missing three weeks to score 7 and 0 against Sussex, then missed the final six matches. Nor did he play in two one-day games at the end of the tour. He played just one of the last ten first-class matches, and one of the last thirteen games of all types.

And it was not as if dropping St Hill so decisively improved the form of the team: before the Second Test, when St Hill was playing fairly regularly, the West Indies won four and lost four first-class games; afterwards, they lost eight and won just once.

When the tour ended, St Hill finished seventh in the Test batting averages, but second to last in the first-class averages for the tour, ahead of just Ernest Rae who only played in seven games. St Hill had scored 262 runs in 25 innings, an average of 10.91, almost always batting at number three or four. In all games, he was slightly higher, edging above George Francis to finish third from bottom with 446 runs at an average of 15.92. He played just 14 out of 30 first-class games, and 22 out of the 44 played in total. Only James Neblett of British Guiana and Ernest Rae of Jamaica played fewer times.

Where did St Hill go? Perhaps he was simply dropped, but with just 17 players to choose from, and with many desperately underperforming, this seems unlikely. He would surely have played more matches even if just to rest the first-choice players – particularly at the end of the tour, when the team primarily played more light-hearted festival games. The clearest indication that something had happened came in a 12-a-side match against AH Stockley’s XI at New Maldon, the penultimate game of the tour. Four of the touring side played for the opposition. There were only two of the team absent from the match. One was Herman Griffith, who played in the previous and next fixtures; the other was St Hill.

Perhaps ill-health was part of the reason: on the 1923 tour, Harold Austin missed a large part of the tour with illness, and Ernest Rae, according to his obituary many years later in the Jamaica Gleaner, suffered from bronchitis throughout the 1928 tour. It is not impossible that some kind of illness or injury accounted for St Hill’s many absences; however, there are no contemporary indications that this was the case and it would not account for the pattern of playing one game then missing the next in the middle part of the tour, although it would explain his omission from the final games.

However, there were hints in Trinidad that other factors were at play. In mid-August, an article appeared in Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle, written by an anonymous author who called himself “Mid-Off”. It claimed that the team were being poorly led by their captain, Karl Nunes. “Mid-Off” suggested: “It is an open secret that [Nunes] has no control over the men under his command, is neither loved, feared, nor respected by any of them and is now powerless to exercise any influence for good over any individual member of the side.” Most interesting is what “Mid-Off” had to say about St Hill:

“For one thing St Hill’s retiring disposition is against him. He shrank from introducing himself to the pressmen seeking interviews and securing snapshots and soon found that he was not among the ‘written-up’. The regular tour opened up with Derbyshire and he found himself accused in whispers of having deliberately dropped a catch and kicking the ball thereafter. No enquiry ensued but he was dropped for the next match and from that day has been openly and pointedly slighted by Nunes. St Hill is greatly to blame for taking this matter to heart in the way that he did and it is small wonder that he has seldom or never been himself at the crease.”

According to “Mid-off”, it was suggested to St Hill whenever he was selected that he would be dropped again if he did not score runs; St Hill’s anxiety to succeed meant that he was often out cheaply: “Do what he would to appease Nunes (and in his place few would have been at the pains) he still remains one of the black sheep.” Nunes rarely acknowledged him even when St Hill spoke directly to his captain.

Although this article presents a very one-sided picture, it was evidently well informed; for example, the writer could say that Nunes had been demoralisingly negative in the Middlesex match, and had a row with Constantine when he asked his bowler to merely keep Duleepsinhji quiet rather than get him out in a match against Sussex. On the other hand, the Trinidad press had been against Nunes even before his appointment as captain; this article may simply be a continuation of that campaign.

Learie Constantine and Edwin St Hill, team-mates for Shannon and Trinidad, on the 1928 tour of England (Image: Complete History of Cricket Tours at Home and Abroad (1989) by Peter Wynne-Thomas)

What can we make of “Mid-Off’s” article? Many of his claims are unconvincing. His picture of a shy and retiring St Hill, who shrank from the attention and took the criticism of Nunes too much to heart, does not really tally with the portrait painted by CLR James in Beyond a Boundary of a man in whom “fires burned”. Nor is it true that he was not among the “written-up”; we have seen that he was singled out as potentially a key batsman early in the tour. In terms of being photographed, there only seem to have been a few photographs taken of individuals in the team; for example, Ernest Rae, James Neblett, Cyril Browne, George Challenor and Learie Constantine were photographed on the practice ground at Lord’s early in the tour, and most of the same people featured in a film taken of the team at practice. There is also a photograph of Constantine, Joe Small and Edward Bartlett taken at Dulwich during the team’s first practice game. But if St Hill is absent from these pictures, there is a photo featuring just him and Learie Constantine – in contrast, many of his colleagues were not photographed at all except in team pictures. As for the dropped catch at Derby, this was not reported at the time; and even if it happened (and assuming that St Hill reacted in the way “whispered”), missed chances were commonplace throughout the tour. While he did not play against Essex, in the team’s second first-class game, he returned against Surrey in the next. And it was in the game missed by St Hill that dropped catches began to feature in press coverage of the tour.

On the other hand…

We know that Nunes clashed with Constantine throughout the tour. But Nunes could hardly drop Constantine, the star attraction of the team who drew in the crowds which meant that the tour could make a profit. St Hill was less essential to the tour’s success. If some of that fire described by James – the “unchanging gravity of his eyes”, which “used to blaze when he was discussing a point with you” – came across to team-mates who did not know him well, or was viewed unfavourably by Nunes or his ineffective vice-captain Vibart Wight, it may have caused problems. If “Mid-Off’s” description of how Nunes handled dissension in the team is accurate, it may explain why St Hill was so frequently dropped. Perhaps there was some truth in the article, and perhaps this tension explains why St Hill remained in such poor form throughout the tour. However, it is hard to escape the feeling that the anonymous “Mid-Off” is simply making excuses for St Hill’s failure: when he was given a chance, he could not take it.

It is almost certain that CLR James would have read the article in Trinidad (he admits to following the 1923 tour closely in the press and knew of reports written in the Times about St Hill in 1928), but he makes no mention of it (or of Nunes’ captaincy) in any part of Beyond a Boundary. It is not at all clear why he did not refer to it – perhaps it did not match the tale he wished to tell – but it is simply another of those mysteries which accumulate around St Hill.

The “Mid-Off” article was very widely publicised; it was reprinted in the Daily Gleaner in Jamaica which later published a sarcastic rebuttal written by the journalist Gordon Scotter. Scotter was English (born in London in 1890, the son of a clergyman), and in later years became a vocal defender of what the English had done for Jamaica, and for Africans in general; he was a strident critic of the labour movement in Jamaica; he later advocated birth control in Jamaica to limit the violence of labour rebellions, but was interned by the Jamaican Governor in 1940 for criticising the course of the Second World War and expressing doubts that the Allies would win – the Governor believed that he could affect the recruitment of troops to join the war effort. Of St Hill, Scotter remarked:

“In view of the remainder of his article it borders on the ludicrous to read that the second reason attributed to the non-success of the team is the failure of the ‘big bats,’ for of all the most probably failures in this direction that of St Hill stands out, in a class by itself. St Hill’s record in all the circumstances is the most lamentable and remarkable of this or any other tour. No one not familiar with the circumstances can fully appreciate the tremendous reputation which that player enjoyed at the beginning of this year, and those unfortunates who ventured to suggest that his batting was marred by an unfortunate tendency to ‘nibble’ at the off-balls were regarded more in sorrow than in anger.”

In a more direct reply to “Mid-Off”, Scotter says:

“Poor St Hill! Poor modest violet! Because the pressmen sought him not and the captain was rude to him ‘he just continued to fail!’ This must be the ‘Test match temperament’. I can only wonder how St Hill himself will feel when he sees himself thus pictured as a sulky child of about the age of ten.”

It is possible that St Hill had already seen it, as the article was certainly in circulation in England. Writing for the Cricketer Annual at the end of the season, Pelham Warner referred to it: “Whatever a certain critic in the West Indies may think – and he was 4,000 miles away – opinion was general in this country that Nunes, the captain, managed his bowling and placed his field admirably.”

Warner also addressed the failure of St Hill (and seems to have thought him to be a lot younger than he was):

“But when all is said and done the greatest disappointment was St Hill. He had done very well against [the MCC team in 1926] … and came over with the reputation of being almost as good a bat as Challenor at his best, but except for an innings of 58 v Oxford University, he failed completely. He had lovely wrists, and some rare strokes on the off side, but he could not get going … We believe him, however, to be a good natural player who has had a hard experience which may do him no harm in the long run if it teachers him adaptability. He was too prone to play the same stroke at every ball outside the off-stump.”

There was one other curious reference to St Hill during the tour; a report in the Western Morning News in late July noted, ahead of the annual “High Court” meeting of the Foresters Friendly Society – a savings society which still exists – that St Hill, as well as his Trinidad team-mates Joe Small and Clifford Roach, was a member of a “court” in Trinidad; it was hoped he would attend.

The team departed from England on 28 September from West India Docks in London on the Ingoma; the four Trinidadians – Constantine, St Hill, Small and Roach – disembarked at Port of Spain on 16 October. For St Hill, it must have been a subdued homecoming. Possibly making matters worse – if CLR James was correct in his suspicion that St Hill had hoped to play professional cricket in England – two of his team-mates returned home having signed contracts to play league cricket: Learie Constantine for Nelson in the Lancashire League and, less famously, George Francis for Seaham Harbour in the Durham League; the latter was assisted by the West Indies’ team manager RH Mallett who had once been the captain of Seaham Harbour.

What went wrong for St Hill? Maybe his numerous supporters in Trinidad simply overestimated his ability, and he was just not good enough. Perhaps “Mid-Off” was correct and his treatment by Nunes put him under too much pressure. Additionally, St Hill batted at number three or four throughout the tour, in unfamiliar conditions; a more sympathetic captain may have permitted him to drop down the order to regain some form and reduce the pressure on him. It is also notable that he generally played against the best teams – he missed, for example, facing the relatively gentle bowling attacks of the “Civil Service” and Northamptonshire, but was recalled for matches against England and Yorkshire. Or maybe he was just overwhelmed by the pressure or the expectation.

CLR James gave a simpler explanation for his failure:

“I have heard authoritatively that he would not change his style and has been blamed for it. I don’t think he could even if he had wanted to. He was not the type, and after [his omission from the West Indies team in] 1923 something had hardened in him.”

St Hill’s team-mate Cyril Browne certainly took this view. In a candid interview with British Guiana’s Daily Chronicle immediately after the tour, he told the press that St Hill continually and “indiscriminately” tried to hook and pull the ball to the legside: “The principles of St Hill’s cricket were wrong for English conditions and it was a pity that he was never able to fight down the desire to make a four or a six when a single would have served.”

Could it be the case that he refused to adapt? That he wanted to play his way and would not make any concessions to form or conditions? It would certainly tally with some judgements expressed before the tour that he looked susceptible to playing too loosely. Rather than being shy and retiring, as “Mid-Off” suggested, was he too confident? These many unanswerable questions merely add to the enigmatic nature of St Hill.

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The West Indies team for the Trinidad Test match in 1930; St Hill is on the top right

After the tour, life went on. St Hill played for Trinidad in the 1928-29 and 1929-30 Intercolonial Tournament, but achieved little as his poor form continued – these were his last appearances in the competition. He had one last success. An MCC team toured the West Indies again in 1930, playing what were later recognised as the first official Tests in the region. The selection for the “home” team was complicated by matters of finance and regional differences; a huge number of players appeared in the four Tests, many only being selected for the games taking place in their own colony. In total, 27 players appeared for the West Indies in the series, and each Test had a different captain, selected from the home nation.

St Hill did not play in the first Test, held in Barbados, but played for Trinidad in the first of two matches against the MCC. A review of the tour in The Cricketer filled in a little background:

“Had made few runs for over a year, and his inclusion in a colony match was much criticised. Contrary, however, to his old form, he took no risks, and being an experienced player with plenty of defence, was very hard to dislodge.”

He scored 102 in the second innings, batting for four hours and showing a patience he had rarely demonstrated before; CLR James commented in Beyond a Boundary “that the eagle had clipped his own wings at last”. St Hill did not play in the second Trinidad match against the MCC (a game that perhaps suffered from selection politics) but was chosen for the second Test, the only such game played in Trinidad. Batting at number three, St Hill scored 33 in the first innings, then he opened the batting to score 30 in the second. Wisden said that he batted steadily. He did not play in either of the remaining Tests, and this was his final first-class appearance. In one of several bizarre selection decisions that plagued the West Indies in the series – and especially the selection for games in Trinidad – one of the players left out of the second Test, even though it was his home Test match, was Edwin St Hill, Wilton’s brother.

St Hill continued to play in local cricket in Trinidad, but he was less consistently successful than he had been before, and he was never a realistic candidate to play for the West Indies – nor perhaps for Trinidad – again. CricketArchive records that he played a match for North Trinidad against South Trinidad in 1931. He also attended a practice match organised by the Trinidad selectors in 1933 but was discarded before the trial games played to assist with selection of the 1933 West Indies team to tour England. The only subsequent reference to him that I can find is when he acted as a pallbearer at the funeral of Lebrun Constantine, Learie’s father, in 1942.

James states that St Hill died in 1957; when Learie Constantine wrote about him in the 1957 Wisden, he said that he was dead (his brother Edwin died later that year). But there is no definite date. This particular mystery (along with the question of what “H” stood for in Wilton H St Hill) could potentially be easily cleared up in Trinidad itself assuming that records exist for his death which are unavailable online; but no-one has ever done so.

In fact, apart from in Beyond a Boundary, St Hill was largely forgotten. His obituary did not appear in Wisden until 1994; it said that “his later years remain mysterious”. In 1984, he was admitted to the Trinidad and Tobago Sports Hall of Fame; the accompanying citation stated: “The old-timers say, however, that St Hill was born too soon, or that Test matches came too late for the West Indies, otherwise the greatness of Wilton St Hill would have been written in the pages of cricket history like that of Headley, Worrell, Weekes, Sobers and Richards.”

We began this story with CLR James, who will be forever associated with St Hill. Perhaps it is best to let him conclude it too. His chapter on St Hill ended: “He saw the ball as early as anyone. He played it as late as anyone. His spirit was untameable, perhaps too much so. There we must leave it.”

“Fires burned within him and you could always see the glow”: Who was Wilton St Hill?

Edwin St Hill on the 1928 tour of England (Image: Complete History of Cricket Tours at Home and Abroad (1989) by Peter Wynne-Thomas)

Wilton St Hill of Trinidad and Tobago was one of those to represent the West Indies in their first ever Test match, played at Lord’s in 1928. For many of the players in that team, with the exception of Learie Constantine, it is fair to describe them as “long-forgotten”. But St Hill is known to a wider audience, although not because of his cricket achievements. In fact, his performance on that 1928 tour was described as “a horrible, a disastrous, an incredible failure” by the man who in many ways made St Hill immortal. The author of those words was CLR James, whose Beyond a Boundary (1963) is regularly judged to be one of the greatest books ever written on cricket. St Hill was the subject of a whole chapter, “The Most Unkindest Cut”. Writing in Wisden in 1964, John Arlott described James’ work: “The essay on Wilton St Hill must be the finest portrait of a cricketer ever created in prose – or, for that matter in verse or paint either.”

As a cricketer, James judged St Hill to be the equal of some of the greatest names in the history of cricket, comparing him to leading players of the 1940s and 1950s: Garry Sobers, George Headley, the “three Ws” (Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott), Len Hutton, Dennis Compton and Peter May. It is clear, as James willingly concedes, that St Hill’s record does not even remotely match up to these giants of the game. But to quibble with James’ judgement is to miss the point of the chapter. Because he writes about what St Hill represented, which is far more important than what he achieved. To discuss St Hill in terms of statistics is to misunderstand what he meant to James and to the people of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1920s.

Having said that, James thoroughly analyses St Hill’s technique; from his ability to play the ferocious fast bowling of George John with time to spare, to his “mastery” of the leg-side; from his leg glance that James compares to that of Ranjitsinhji, to his ability to keep the ball down “always”. According to James, one of St Hill’s defining features as a batsman was his desire to dominate, to keep scoring and prevent the bowler imposing restraint on him. James makes a convincing case on paper that St Hill was a batsman of ability. However, where St Hill comes alive is not in the description of his batting, but from what James knew of him as a person.

James draws on his own acquaintanceship with St Hill to paint a picture of a restrained, reserved individual:

“He was an unusual man. I got to know him about 1916 and ever afterwards we used to talk. Even in my youthful days I could not miss his reserve (with sudden bursts of excitement, rapidly repressed as if he had made a mistake), his ironical outlook on life, his tight mouth and, when an issue was over and done with, the slight smile at the corners of his lips that belied the unchanging gravity of his eyes. In all the talk about who should have been selected and who was left out and why, I do not ever remember him saying a word. He may have done so to his more intimate friends – we were never intimate, though if I had been a member of his club I am pretty certain we would have been.”

Wilton St Hill in 1925

James describes St Hill’s presence on a cricket field: how he drew the attention of the spectators and opposition, simply by his approach to the wicket when batting; how he smoked a cigarette at the crease while waiting for John to set his field. James wrote: “Fires burned within St Hill and you could always see the glow.” James also wrote: “[George] John I understood. St Hill I could never quite make out. His eyes used to blaze when he was discussing a point with you, but even within his clipped sentences there were intervals when he seemed to be thinking of things far removed.”

In a remarkable rarity for a cricketer, thanks to James we know far more about St Hill’s character than we do about his life. Even James conceded that he knew little about St Hill away from the cricket field. Is it possible to go beyond what James writes? Or at the very least to find some corroboration for what he has to say? Can we construct the story of St Hill outside the pages of Beyond a Boundary?

This is trickier than it appears, because much of what we know about St Hill’s life outside of cricket comes from James, who records that he worked in a department store in Port-of-Spain, selling cloth. He also states that St Hill died in 1957, although there is some doubt about this. There is not much in any other source about him. Wisden recorded that St Hill was born on 6 July 1893. But although he was listed on cricket scorecards as WH St Hill, there is no indication anywhere of what the “H” stood for. There are few online genealogy records available which cover Trinidad in this period, which makes searching for records of his birth or his family almost impossible.

There are a few possible clues. First is a newspaper report in Trinidad’s The Mirror in May 1913 that the promising young cricketer Wilton St Hill (who had represented Trinidad against a touring MCC team that February) had moved to Colón in Panama “with a view of bettering his position”. Then there is a record of a 21-year-old called Wilton St Hill who crossed into the USA from Canada in November 1913. He was passing through to visit his father James St Hill, who lived at 60 Robert Street in Trinidad. This Wilton St Hill (or Sainthill as he is recorded on some forms) was a resident in Montreal in Canada, and worked as a bookbinder. This is almost certainly our St Hill, but begs the question of how he came to live in Canada rather than Panama? The form is a little difficult to read online but it looks as if he arrived in Canada in May 1913, which might indicate that the Mirror was misinformed about his destination when he left Trinidad. The other clue is the record of St Hill arriving in England with the West Indies team in April 1928. This states that he was 35 years old and was a salesman, which matches James’ description of him working in a department store.

A little more background may also help to understand what was going on. At the time, Trinidad and Tobago was a British Colony, ruled by a white European elite. The majority black population faced racial prejudice from those who governed the island. They had few rights and had little opportunity to advance themselves; many found themselves in poverty. There were no elections of any kind before 1925, and until 1946, the first election in Trinidad with universal adult suffrage, only around 5% of the population – a fraction almost entirely made up of white people – had the vote. Key appointments were made by the Governor and the best jobs were held by white or very light-skinned men. Darker skinned people were treated as inferior, and had little opportunity for professional or social advancement. This background is crucial in understand the story of St Hill, or any of the other Trinidadian cricketers who succeeded against the odds. It was this background that drove Learie Constantine to a career in England as a professional cricketer, seeking opportunities that he was denied at home.

We know that St Hill quickly made a name for himself in the top level of local Trinidadian cricket. Learie Constantine, writing about the history of West Indies cricket in the 1957 edition of Wisden recalled “during my boyhood” (Constantine was born in 1901), when St Hill was still a newcomer, he faced the formidable, international-class fast bowler George John. He remembered the two opening batsmen coming out for his father’s team:

“One was the secret weapon, a slim and immature-looking boy called Wilton St. Hill – alas! now no more. He was smoking as he walked out; he took his stance, still smoking, glanced idly round the field, then threw away his cigarette. George John – also now gone to the great divide – one of the most formidable fast bowlers who ever handled a ball, thundered up at the other end and sent down a red lightning flash – atomic if you wish – but the slender boy flicked his wrists and the ball flew to the boundary faster than sound. The next went the same way. The boy batted from his wrists; he never seemed to use any force. I don’t believe he had the strength even if he so desired. His was just perfect timing. Wilton St Hill became famous later, but I never saw him or anyone else play a more heart-lifting innings than he did that day.”

Part of the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, where most clubs played their matches in the Bonanza Cup (Image: Wikipedia)

Constantine wrote this before James published Beyond a Boundary and it is perhaps the only independent source to confirm how highly-regarded St Hill was in Trinidad. Constantine later played on the same team as St Hill. Initially called Victoria, the club was later renamed as Shannon Cricket Club and took part in Trinidad’s local competition, known as the Bonanza Cup, named after – and presumably sponsored by – a large department store in Port-of-Spain known as The Bonanza. It is not impossible that this was where St Hill worked.

In Beyond a Boundary, James recorded how the leading clubs of Trinidad in the 1910s and 1920s were divided along class and racial lines: the almost exclusively white and wealthy Queen’s Park Club; Shamrock for white Catholics; Constabulary, composed of mainly black policemen captained by a white inspector; Maple, for “the brown-skinned middle class” where anyone with a darker skin-tone was unwelcome; Shannon, “the club of the black lower-middle class: the teacher, the law clerk, the worker in the printing office and here and there a clerk in a department store”; and the almost completely black Stingo, the “plebeians: the butcher, the tailor, the candlestick maker, the casual labourer, with a sprinkling of the unemployed.”

James wrote extensively about the Shannon club, which played with a pride, passion and determination that made a deep impression on him:

“They played as if they knew that their club represented the great mass of black people in the island … Stingo did not show that pride and impersonal ambition which distinguished Shannon. As clearly as if it was written across the sky, their play said: Here, on the cricket field if nowhere else, all men in the island are equal, and we are the best men in the island.”

The team was very strong, and the majority of Trinidad’s first-class bowling attack in the Intercolonial Tournament was composed of Shannon bowlers. St Hill became a key member of the team, demanding the highest standards from his team-mates. In the 1920s, the team was captained by Lebrun Constantine, Learie’s father, but according to James whenever they were in trouble on the field, St Hill took over, shouting “Pull your socks up!” Once, playing against Maple, Learie Constantine bowled badly to James and conceded 11 runs in one over; St Hill took charge, removing him from the attack. “Old Cons [Lebrun Constantine] merely stood silent and watched, and Learie strolled off to cover.” In later years, St Hill captained the team himself.

James also records how someone from the Maple club once told St Hill:

“‘Maple would be glad to have a man like you.’ The reply was instantaneous. ‘Yes, but they wouldn’t have my brothers.’ His brothers were darker than he and had neither his reputation nor his poise.”

We shall return to those brothers, Edwin and Cecil, who in many ways are just as interesting as Wilton.

What about first-class cricket? Each season in the West Indies, the Intercolonial Tournament was played between Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana (Jamaica was considered to be too far away to be able to take part, although touring teams travelled there and Jamaican players were included in representative West Indies teams). St Hill made his first-class debut for Trinidad in 1912. According to CricketArchive, he batted in the lower order in his first matches, although he was not used as a bowler, but scorecards from this period can be unreliable. In four matches, he passed fifty just once; the number of runs scored in early West Indies cricket are not necessarily an indicator of their quality, but apart from his half-century, his innings represent neither top scores, nor a substantial proportion of the team total. It was after the First World War that St Hill came into his own; he scored 96 in 1920 against the powerful Barbados team.

There was one issue which may have held St Hill back though. Most leading West Indian batsmen at the time were white. Particularly in Barbados, this was cultivated and encouraged – batting was a white pastime (because, as it had been in England, it was seen as the socially superior discipline) and black cricketers were restricted to bowling. Representative West Indies teams were composed of white batsmen and black bowlers. To break this monopoly was almost impossible. Only Trinidad at the time routinely included black batsmen in their team. While St Hill had made his place secure in the Trinidad team, he faced a challenge to overcome this prejudice and reach the full West Indies side.

Wilton St Hill in 1926

Perhaps illustrative of the problems that St Hill faced is the match against Barbados in which he scored 96. At the time, Barbados were overwhelmingly strong; they had won the last two Intercolonial Tournaments before the First World War – held in 1910-11 and 1911-12 – and although the competition was not held in 1919-20, presumably owing to the after-effects of the war, they defeated Trinidad by an innings in this game and the other “friendly” first-class match played in February 1920. They went on to win the 1922-23 and 1923-24 tournaments. Only in 1921-22, when rain prevented a conclusion to a match in which Trinidad were comfortably placed, were Barbados not crowned as champions.

In 1920, St Hill scored 96 after Trinidad had followed on after replying to a score of 623 for five by Barbados. Out of that total, Tim Tarilton scored 304 not out, the first triple century by a West Indian batsman, in just under seven hours. His opening partner George Challenor scored 104 out of their stand of 180 for Barbados’ first wicket. Tarilton also shared a partnership of 183 with Harry Ince, who scored 80. Clement Browne helped Tarilton add 176 for the fourth wicket, scoring 79 himself. Among the helpless Trinidad bowlers were George John, who toured England in 1923 and was a leading fast bowler, and Joe Small, a future Test all-rounder. It is perhaps unsurprising that Trinidad collapsed to 131 all out in the face of such a pounding, despite a palpably weak Barbados attack. The team improved in the follow-on; apart from St Hill’s 96, Joe Small scored 102 to take the score to a more respectable 461 – still not enough to avert an innings defeat.

Of the Barbados batsmen who succeeded in that game, Tarilton, Challenor and Ince were white. Barbados built their reputation around their batsmen. CLR James later remembered Tarilton as the best, most reliable batsman in the West Indies; Challenor would shortly establish his name as one of the most attractive batsmen in the world; Ince was a highly attractive left-handed stylist, often compared to England’s Frank Woolley. All three toured England in 1923, although only Challenor was successful. It was this backdrop of white Barbadian batting domination that St Hill had to overcome.

But St Hill in 1920 and 1921 made a strong case for his inclusion in any West Indian team of the period. After his success against Barbados in 1920, he scored 104 against British Guiana in 1921. He must have been equally impressive for Shannon as well. The Cricketer, previewing the 1928 tour of England, recorded that in 1922, he scored 210 not out against “The Police”. When a West Indian team was invited to tour England in 1923, the first such tour since 1906, St Hill must have seemed a certainty for selection.

For what happened next, we must inevitably turn to Beyond a Boundary. First, a little background. St Hill had many fervent supporters in Trinidad. These supporters are, in themselves, remarkable. James writes how, after the 1921 Intercolonial Tournament, he wrote some comic verses about the success of the left-arm-spinner Victor Pascall which were well-received. But:

“One night that week I was paid a visit by a St Hill follower. I knew him as one of those who almost every afternoon religiously watched Shannon practise, and came to the match on Saturdays to see Wilton bat, as nationalist crowds go to hear their political leaders. There were quite a few such.”

This follower requested that James write about St Hill, who had just scored his century against British Guiana. With some misgivings, he wrote a sonnet which was politely overlooked by James’ “clique of literary friends”. But he added: “It was the earnestness of my visitor which remained with me. Why should it matter so much to him?” James later concluded – although he admits that this was based on guesswork only as St Hill never discussed the matter with him – it was because St Hill had decided that, after touring England with the West Indies in 1923, he would stay there and pursue a career as a professional cricketer. James cites the precedents of Charles Ollivierre and Sydney Smith, although both were nominally amateurs. More relevant may be that, at the time, the Lancashire League featured a growing number of overseas professionals, mainly Australians. Ted McDonald, probably the best fast bowler in the world, was then playing for Nelson. If he was the first overseas star in English league cricket, he would be followed at the same club by Constantine in 1929. Although there is no evidence to support James’ suggestion, it is not an outlandish one and there would have been a good chance of St Hill finding someone to employ him had he enjoyed a successful tour of England. According to James, St Hill “was a dissatisfied man” and wished to escape from his job selling cloth, which had few prospects. This would also fit with his possible relocation to Canada before the war.

But it is equally possible that his visitor was simply enthralled by St Hill, as were others. James recounted an occasion where a group of men in the country saw him walking while carrying a cricket bat, and they asked him if he was St Hill. “None of them had ever seen St Hill, but they worshipped him.” The group fell into a discussion about St Hill’s latest feats, after which one said: “You know what I waitin’ for? When he go to Lord’s and the Oval and make his century there! That’s what I want to see.” James concluded that, to black Trinidadians:

“The unquestioned glory of St Hill’s batting conveyed the sensation that here was one of us, performing in excelsis in a sphere where competition was open. It was a demonstration that atoned for a pervading humiliation, and nourished pride and hope … Wilton St Hill was our boy.”

To all these cricket followers, the forthcoming tour of England was a huge occasion – the opportunity for St Hill to show the world what he – and they – could do. Unfortunately, St Hill’s form collapsed in 1922, dashing any hopes he might have had of touring England or forging a cricketing career there. He scored just 49 runs in four innings of the 1922-23 Intercolonial Tournament. James’ recollection was slightly different – “There were two or three trial matches. He failed in them” – but there is no record of any trial matches before the 1923 tour.

The Trinidad cricket team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925; St Hill scored 66 and 64 in the final. Standing: V. Pascall, RA Boyack, FG Grant, AV Waddell. Seated: C Fraser, CA Wiles, GAR Dewhurst, JA Small, WH St Hill. On ground: LN Constantine, EL St Hill.

St Hill was left out of the team. His supporters were devastated, and James wrote that “it was as if a destined Prime Minister had lost his seat in the elections.” James believed that St Hill himself never recovered from the blow. He outlined what he and the cricketing public believed had happened. The leading West Indian batsmen – Challenor, Tarilton and Ince of Barbados, and Maurice Fernandes of British Guiana – were white.

“This was the traditional order, a line of white batsmen and a line of black bowlers. Joe Small had made for himself a place as a batsman which could not be denied. Joe was enough. They didn’t want any more. Further, Joe was an inoffensive person. St Hill was not in any way offensive. Far from it. But he was not friendly.”

James also recalled what happened afterwards, as St Hill’s followers discussed events:

“We became convinced in our own minds that St Hill was the greatest of all West Indian batsmen and on English wickets this coloured man would infallibly put all white rivals in the shade. And they were too afraid of precisely the same thing, and therefore were glad to keep him out. We were not helped by the fact that in our heart of hearts we didn’t know exactly how good he was [because the West Indian team had not played in England since 1906 or faced an English team since 1912] … We terribly wanted to say not only to West Indians but to all England, ‘That’s our boy.’ And now we couldn’t. On performance Small rivalled St Hill. But Joe never aroused the excitement that Wilton did.”

Part of the issue, which James discussed elsewhere, was that each of the regions were allotted a certain number of places in the West Indies team. Among the Trinidad representatives were George John, Victor Pascall and Joe Small, three proven performers, and Learie Constantine, chosen largely on the potential seen in him by the captain HBG Austin. These four were black, and Trinidad’s only white representative – and the only player from the prestigious, all-white Queen’s Park Club – was the wicket-keeper George Dewhurst (who according to James was preferred to a superior black wicketkeeper named Pigott). James admitted that he was not sure who could have been left out in favour of St Hill, and said that no-one proposed to leave out batsmen of the calibre of Challenor. But it certainly suggests that there was more at play than mere batting form. James wrote that opinions were very strong on all sides.

Did St Hill deserve a place on that 1923 tour of England? It is unlikely he would have done worse than Karl Nunes, Harry Ince or JK Holt; if selection had been purely on merit, St Hill should have played instead of one of these. But this was not possible as each colony was given their number of places; St Hill would not have been given one of the places allocated to, for example, Barbados. If he were to have been selected, it would have been at the expense of one of the other Trinidad players, and perhaps he had not done enough to displace any of them (particularly given that two were bowlers and a third the wicket-keeper). Given the self-imposed restrictions the selectors worked with, perhaps his omission is understandable. But this was not the only time that the restriction held the team back, and the system was widely opposed in the press even then.

The West Indies team for the first “Test” of the 1926 MCC tour, played at Barbados. Back Row: George Francis, Cecil Nascimento, Victor Pascall, Teddy Hoad, Joe Small, James Parris. Front Row: Wilton St Hill, Tim Tarilton, George Challenor, Harold Austin (captain), Cyril Browne, George John (Image: The Cricketer, 1 May 1926).

After the West Indies’ generally successful tour of England in 1923, St Hill continued to play for Trinidad. And, gradually, he began to prove himself the best batsman in the West Indies and make himself a first-choice batsman in any representative team. In 1923-24, Barbados once more won the Intercolonial Tournament, held in Barbados that year. In two low-scoring matches, St Hill did little, but was joined in the team by his brother Edwin. At that stage, St Hill had played six matches against Barbados and lost five of them (with the other being the rain-affected draw). But the following year, when the tournament returned to Trinidad, St Hill top-scored in both Trinidad innings with 66 and 64 as the home team recorded a tense 13-run victory. There was a great deal of celebration that Trinidad had finally broken Barbados’ stranglehold.

St Hill scored a century when Trinidad retained their title in British Guiana in October 1925. Then, in January and February 1926, a reasonably strong MCC team – certainly the strongest to that point to tour the region, containing nine current or future Test players – visited the West Indies and played three unofficial Test matches. St Hill played all three games, scoring 72 in the final match, but his greatest success came when he scored 105 for Trinidad against the visitors. After the tour, Lord Harris, then aged 75, was interviewed by the Sporting Chronicle of Trinidad, a piece reproduced in the Cricketer Spring Annual for 1926. While cautioning that the Trinidadian cricket public “rather over-rated the capabilities of [their] teams”, he singled out St Hill as “an extremely fine batsman, certainly the best he had seen in the West Indies. He was likely to prove a splendid batsman and run-getter on English wickets.”

A combined photograph of the MCC and Trinidad teams from the 1926 tour. Back row: LS Constantine, CT Bennett, F Watson, Major TH Carlton Levick, WR Hammond, G John, LG Crawley, Capt TO Jameson. Third row: A Cipriani, P Holmes, R Kilner, GC Collins, WE Astill, AV Waddell. Second row: EJ Smith, VS Pascall, CA Wiles, Hon FSG Calthorpe, GAR Dewhurst, Hon LH Tennyson, HL Dales. Seated: WH St Hill, JA Small, FG Grant, EL St Hill, C Fraser.

St Hill did little in the Intercolonial Tournament in 1926-27, when Barbados won a match that lasted eight days after conceding a first-innings lead of 384 – they scored 726 for seven in their second innings and won by 125 runs. St Hill scored just 0 and 18, although certainly in the second innings and possibly in the first he batted on a pitch affected by rain. But his record since the 1923 tour meant that he was almost guaranteed to be in any representative West Indies team, with another tour of England looming in 1928 – with the added prestige of including the West Indies’ first Test matches.

But unfortunately for St Hill, that tour was to prove a complete disaster both for the team and for him…

George Dewhurst: The man who should have been captain?

The Trinidad team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925. Standing: V. Pascall, RA Boyack, FG Grant, AV Waddell. Seated: C Fraser, CA Wiles, GAR Dewhurst, JA Small, WH St Hill. On ground: LN Constantine, EL St Hill.

From unpromising beginnings, when black cricketers were excluded from the sport and all-white teams played low-quality cricket against minor teams from America, the West Indian cricket team progressed enough to tour England in 1900. The relative success of the team (winning five games, losing eight and drawing the rest) showed the West Indies could be competitive. The tour also set a precedent that black players should be included in the team; Charles Ollivierre, Lebrun Constantine, “Float” Woods and Tommie Burton – all of whom were black – headed the tour averages. But a combination of factors prevented the West Indies from attaining the same level of acceptance as Australia and South Africa through being given Test status. The main issues lay in the attitude of the English authorities to the West Indies team. But perhaps just as importantly, West Indian cricket was held back by its own administrators. This may be best illustrated by looking at the career of one man, George Dewhurst, who should probably have captained the West Indies in their first Test series, but who instead disappeared from cricket.

For a few years after the 1900 tour, English cricket showed an increased interest in the West Indies. HDG Leveson-Gower assembled a team to tour the region in 1902, led by the former Eton and Hampshire wicketkeeper Richard Bennett. Following the precedent set on previous tours by English teams, three first-class matches were played between Bennett’s team and a “West Indies” team. The latter included Woods and Burton from the 1900 tour, and H. B. G. Austin who had represented the West Indies in the 1890s; but the composition of the team varied depending on where the matches were played, and leading cricketers were absent.

In 1905, another English team toured, this time led by Lord Brackley, another former Eton schoolboy and a future president of the MCC. Once more, matches were played against teams representing the West Indies. Although Lord Brackley’s team won both games, he was sufficiently impressed by the cricket of the region to arrange for a second West Indies tour of England to take place in 1906; he also ensured that this one would have first-class status, which had not been forthcoming for the 1900 tour. A committee comprised of representatives from Trinidad, Demerera and Barbados chose the strongest possible team. Of the 14 players picked, seven were black, although the captain was white (Apart from when George Headley led for one match in 1948, West Indies captains were exclusively white until Frank Worrell was appointed in 1960). Four of the players had toured in 1900, including Lebrun Constantine and Tommie Burton. New players included Austin, who captained the team; CP Cumberbatch, who had impressed against visiting English teams for several years; Charles Ollivierre’s younger brother Richard; and Sidney Smith, who remained in England after the tour to qualify for Northamptonshire.

The 1906 West Indies team

The 1906 team was unsuccessful on the field and attracted little interest from spectators. Of 19 games, the West Indies won seven, lost ten and drew two. The press concluded that the team was not strong enough; there was also criticism of the black players specifically (for example, criticising their fielding) and of the idea of having a side composed of both black and white players. By the end of the tour, several writers had blamed the weakness of the team on the inclusion of black players. For example, Trevor Phillip wrote in The Sportsman (14 June 1906): “Speaking roughly the native members of the side have not so far done as much as those whose training, origin, and associations are more or less similar to our own.” Racial stereotyping that had been largely absent six years before also made regular appearances in the press.

Geoffrey Levett, in his article “The ‘White Man’s Game’? West Indian Cricket Tours of the 1900s”, states:

“In tracing the path of the cricket tours in 1900 and 1906 it is possible to discern a cooling of the notion of the West Indies as being able to fit into the idea of being ‘settler’ colonies, despite their status as being the oldest such British colonies. The 1900 tour occurred in the context of a bitter colonial war in South Africa of which the outcome was still in doubt. At that point in time support from any of the colonies was welcome as a reminder of the loyalty of British subjects overseas.”

It is notable that English cricket after 1906 made a concerted attempt to raise the status of South African cricket, beginning with a successful tour of England by a team in 1907. This push culminated in the “Triangular Tournament”, in which England, Australia and South Africa played a series of Tests in 1912 to determine the world champions. England won easily in a summer blighted by poor weather and against two teams riven by internal disputes and missing key players; the concept was quietly shelved. However, South Africa were regular opponents for England from 1907 (although they played Australia only rarely) despite being generally uncompetitive until the mid-1930s.

Part of this push to cultivate South African cricket was prompted by leading English administrators, such as Lord Harris and HDG Leveson Gower, who had considerable financial interests in South Africa. South African figures such as Abe Bailey, who devised the Triangular Tournament, wished to keep cricket in the hands of white English speakers. Bailey also had strong ideas on race: as Gideon Haigh wrote, he was “the basest of racists”. Perhaps it was a coincidence that after 1906, West Indian cricket was relegated in this grand imperial project. But perhaps not. After 1906, no West Indian team toured England until 1923.

An MCC team toured the West Indies for the first time in 1911 (by this time, the MCC organised most overseas tours by leading English cricketers; earlier ones were privately organised) but only three of the eleven-strong party were regular first-class players. Even so, this weak team, led by AWF Somerset, was able to defeat West Indies teams easily in two representative games. There is also some irony that Sydney Smith was a member of the MCC side, finishing second in the batting averages and heading the bowling averages for the tour. A slightly stronger MCC team toured the region in 1913, once more led by Somerset and including Smith. This time, the West Indies defeated the MCC in one match but lost the other two. The First World War then intervened; the MCC did not tour again until 1926.

Somewhat neglected by the outside world, cricket continued to develop in the West Indies. The Intercolonial Tournament between Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana was played most years. Jamaica did not take part owing to its distance from the other colonies; although Jamaican cricketers were included in the West Indies teams to England in 1900 and 1906, they were often omitted from sides chosen to oppose touring English elevens.

Although black cricketers were now allowed to take part in the Intercolonial Tournament (although professionals were not), cricket still reflected society in that it was dominated by white men. This racism was perhaps most prevalent in Barbados where black cricketers were restricted to the role of bowling and fielding in net practice, hindering the emergence of black Barbadian batsmen. In British Guiana, the leading club, Georgetown, was dominated by white men of English and Portuguese descent, and the vast majority of the cricket team came from these groups. Black cricketers from Jamaica seem to have had more opportunity.

George Dewhurst

However, the clearest picture comes from Trinidad and Tobago, thanks to the hugely influential Beyond a Boundary, written by C. L. R. James in 1963. He describes how, from the viewpoint of an ordinary Trinidadian cricket follower, selection for the Trinidad first-class team and for the West Indian teams that toured England in the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by considerations of race, class and precedent. James writes about black cricketers unfairly omitted from the Trinidad team in favour of white players of lesser ability. Among these is a man known only as Piggott, named in Beyond a Boundary as an incredible wicketkeeper. The man who took his spot was George Dewhurst, a white player. Piggott had played for Trinidad before the war, but Dewhurst took the place from 1920.

George Alric Rosenorn Dewhurst (Alric comes from the family’s Danish roots and Rosenorn, another Danish name, was his maternal grandmother’s maiden name) worked for Trinidad and Tobago’s Customs and Excise Department. Like several of his cricketing colleagues, he also represented Trinidad at football; a newspaper article written in the 1950s classed him among Trinidad and Tobago’s best ever footballers. There is little other information generally available about him. He played for the Queen’s Park Club, the pre-eminent club in Trinidad, and made his debut for the island’s first-class team in the Inter-Colonial Tournament in 1920 at the age of 26; he opened the batting in his first match and came in at number eleven in the second.

When the West Indians were finally invited to tour England again in 1923, ending ten years of cricketing isolation, several matters came to a head. Barbados, Trinidad, British Guiana and Jamaica were each allowed to choose a certain number of players for the team; Barbados and Trinidad each had five cricketers in the touring party while British Guiana and Jamaica both included three. Unlike in 1900 and 1906, no-one was chosen from any smaller islands. Furthermore, this system of having a fixed proportion of players from each colony meant that several cricketers missed out who would have been worthy of a place if chosen purely on merit. Keith Sandiford, in his essay “The Rocky Road to Test Status” suggests that Johnnie Brown, Herman Griffith and Wilton St Hill should have toured.

The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. Pascall, J. K. Holt, R. H. Mallett (Manager), R. L. Phillips, M. P. Fernandes, C. V. Hunter, G. John. Sitting: G. A. R. Dewhurst, C. R. Browne, G. Challenor, H. B. G. Austin (Captain), R. K. Nunes (Vice captain), P. H. Tarilton. On ground: G. Francis, L. N. Constantine, H. W. Ince.

But that was not the end of “political” considerations. C. L. R. James writes at length about the Trinidad representatives in that 1923 team. He argues that Piggott, the best wicketkeeper was left out in favour of Dewhurst. His omission was almost certainly because four of Trinidad’s five representatives were black; had Piggott been preferred, all five players would have been black. According to James, it was inconceivable that no white cricketer would have been chosen (By way of contrast, four of the five Barbados players were white). Furthermore, the Queen’s Park Club ran Trinidad cricket and the Trinidad team used their ground to play first-class cricket; Dewhurst was their only representative. It would have been impossible to include no players from the Queen’s Park Club. These two factors secured Dewhurst’s selection in preference to Piggott.

The 1923 tour was generally successful. Although several players were complete failures with the bat, George Challenor, the white Barbadian batsman, scored six first-class centuries and finished third in the English batting averages. Trinidad’s Joe Small was also a success, and the fast bowlers George Francis (Barbados) and George John (Trinidad) averaged under 20 with the ball in first-class cricket. In total, the team played 26 games, winning 12 losing 7 and drawing the remainder. After a slow start, the visitors recorded several prestigious victories, including a particularly big win over a strong Surrey team.

The team also impressed in a loss to Lancashire, but perhaps the game that made the cricket authorities really take notice was their final match. Invited to play in the end-of-season Scarborough Festival, the West Indies faced H. D. G. Leveson-Gower’s XI, a team composed entirely of cricketers who had played or who would later play for England. The West Indies’ batting failed twice, leaving the home side needing just 28 to win; but Francis and John bowled extraordinarily well to reduce Leveson-Gower’s XI to 19 for six and cause an almighty panic before JWHT Douglas and PGH Fender scrambled the winning runs. In many ways, this was the game which secured Test status for the West Indies five years later.

Dewhurst was a great success on the tour. James concedes that English critics praised his wicketkeeping (although he believes that Piggott would have been even better), a view supported in The Cricketer’s review of the tour at the end of the season. One of his team-mates, “Snuffy” Browne, later wrote that Dewhurst’s “heart is as big as his body” and that his “expansive smile captures many victims”. From surviving photographs, Dewhurst was clearly not a small man; his nickname was “Fatty Dewhurst” (which the team manager in 1923 ascribed to his popularity in the team: he was the only man with a nickname), and it is hard to imagine him being agile behind the stumps. However, contemporary accounts describe him as frequently standing up to the stumps, and C. L. R. James wrote in Beyond a Boundary that he always did his job “excellently”.

But Dewhurst did little with the bat in 1923: in 15 first-class matches, he averaged slightly over ten. His lack of runs may have arisen because the captain and vice-captain, unconvinced by his batting ability, insisted that he bat down the order. Given the opportunity against Nottinghamshire, one of the strongest counties, to open the batting as nightwatchman, Dewhurst wanted – according to an account by Harry Mallett, the team manager, in The Cricketer – to “seize the opportunity” to show that he could bat; he scored 52, his only half-century of the tour.

Later accounts of the tour in the West Indian press (albeit from sources favourable to him) suggested that Dewhurst was very influential in the side, acting as an unofficial vice-captain. With his place now cemented in both the West Indies and Trinidad teams, Dewhurst was regarded as the best wicketkeeper in the West Indies. He became the Trinidad captain and led them to success against Barbados at home in February 1925, ending a sequence of four successive Barbados wins stretching back to 1910. His team won again when the competition was held that October in British Guiana.

When the MCC toured West Indies in 1926, their first tour since 1913, Dewhurst was first-choice wicketkeeper and vice-captain of the West Indies XI when he was available. Unspecified business interests kept him out of one of the games; he worked for Customs and Excise and most likely was refused leave to play. In the four games he played against the MCC, for both Trinidad and the West Indies, he passed fifty three times, opening the batting in every match; he finished fourth in the West Indies averages for the representative matches. Commenting on the form of the Trinidad team, Lord Harris described Dewhurst, in the English Sporting Chronicle, as “promising”. From being a tail-ender, he was now one of the best batsmen in the region as well as the first-choice wicketkeeper. Incidentally, the CricketArchive scorecard names Frederick Grant, who had played under Dewhurst in 1925, as captain of Trinidad in 1926, but this seems very unlikely. The contemporary press in 1926 called Dewhurst the Trinidad captain, and continued to do so as late as 1928; a photograph taken at the time also pictures Dewhurst next to the MCC captain when the English team played Trinidad.

A combined photograph of the MCC and Trinidad teams in 1926. Dewhurst in pictured seated in the second row from the front, third from the left, next to the MCC captain Freddie Calthorpe, which suggests that he was the Trinidad captain. FG Grant is seated on the floor in the centre of the row, just in front of Dewhurst.

Although no-one probably suspected it at the time, least of all Dewhurst, these were his last games for the West Indies and he played just once more for Trinidad. He missed the 1927 Inter-Colonial Tournament: his work for the customs department prevented him travelling to Barbados, and his superiors were criticised for refusing to release him to play; it also seems that Dewhurst had relocated for work reasons, reducing his availability. In his absence, Trinidad were led by Frederick Grant.

Meanwhile, on 31 May 1926, a crucial meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference took place at Lord’s. Alongside the usual representatives from England, Australia, and South Africa were men from the West Indies, New Zealand and India. At this meeting, the definition of Test matches was expanded to include matches played between representative teams selected by the governing bodies of countries within the British Empire. The West Indies delegates, W Morrison and HBG Austin, set in motion plans which culminated in the West Indies being invited to tour England in 1928 and play their first three Test matches.

Late in 1927 and early in 1928, trial games were held in Barbados to help the selectors choose the team. For Dewhurst, this was where the trouble began. At first, he said that work would prevent him being able to tour. Possibly for this reason, he missed the trial games . But there were other issues in the background.

The incumbent captain HBG Austin, had recently retired. Through much of 1927, the press in the West Indies touted the claims of various people to lead the 1928 tour. Given that Austin’s replacement had to be white, Dewhurst was a realistic candidate; failing that, he was a likely vice-captain. But when the team was chosen at the end of the three trial matches held in Barbados, Karl Nunes, an occasional wicketkeeper from Jamaica, was chosen to lead (although, like Dewhurst, he had missed the trial games). Even before the tour began, some commentators wondered if Nunes could carry the load of leading batsman, occasional wicketkeeper and captain. His vice-captain was Vibart Wight, a cricketer from British Guiana with little experience of captaincy – his debut as captain in first-class cricket was the third trial match in January 1928 when he had already been named in the role. But it is undeniable that Wight could point to better social connections and a more influential family than Dewhurst, who merely worked in Trinidad’s Customs and Excise Department.

The Trinidad press were furious that Dewhurst had been overlooked as captain and vice-captain. He was nevertheless included in the team as wicketkeeper – which itself was a surprise to some as it was half-expected that he would be unavailable – and appeared in several previews in the English and West Indian press which profiled the players. In England, The Cricketer magazine, in its spring issue, described him as “a first-rate wicketkeeper and a batsman who can adapt himself well to circumstances”. Others were less happy; an article in the Gleaner in Jamaica was critical of the inclusion of Dewhurst, “the man who it is said could not stand the fast bowling in the 1923 tour when one of our representatives, a bat, had to shoulder his work of wicketkeeping”. This view does not appear to have been expressed elsewhere. Furthermore, the selectors still thought highly of Dewhurst: they planned for him to be part of the selection committee during the tour, picking the team for each match, alongside Nunes and Wight.

By February 1928, Dewhurst had withdrawn from the team. The reasons are unclear; some press reports blamed illness, others “business” interests. It was also suggested in the press that Dewhurst missed the tour in a fit of pique at being overlooked as vice-captain; he was accused of poor sportsmanship in some quarters. Any of these are possible reasons, especially as his availability had been doubtful beforehand, but later events suggest that a dispute of some kind lay behind his withdrawal.

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The West Indies team that toured England in 1928

In Dewhurst’s absence, the team was unbalanced, as the selectors did not chose a direct replacement as wicketkeeper. There were several candidates mentioned in the press; even Piggott was suggested, although this drew the odd comment in the press that it may have been thought “undesirable to select Piggott”, presumably on the grounds of his colour or social status. Instead, the leg spinner Tommy Scott of Jamaica was chosen, having been controversially omitted at first. Nunes, at best an occasional wicketkeeper, took the role behind the stumps for most of the tour but came nowhere near Dewhurst’s standard. The team and bowlers suffered; almost every review of the tour criticised the fielding and wicketkeeping standards of the team. Results on the field were poor: the team won just five and lost twelve of its thirty first-class games; all three Tests were lost by an innings. The only real bright spot was the form of Learie Constantine, who completed the “double” of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in first-class games.

Recriminations started almost at once. Some newspapers carried reports of dissension among the players and suggested that Nunes was mismanaging the team. When he was approached during the tour, Dewhurst convinced a press interviewer that the withdrawal was not his fault but would not give details.

Dewhurst did not play for Trinidad in the 1929 Inter-Colonial Tournament; whether this for business reasons, or owing to a fall-out from the events of the previous year is not clear. Nelson Betancourt had taken over from Grant as captain, winning the competition.

In 1930, the MCC toured the West Indies once more and played four representative matches – the players did not consider them to be full Test matches and the games were only retrospectively classed as such. For each Test, the hosts were heavily favoured in selection, and many players appeared only at home, quite possibly, as a cost-saving exercise: in total, 27 players appeared for West Indies in the series.

Although the initial plan seems to have been for the West Indies to have one captain across the series – as had happened in 1926 – the lack of availability of many leading candidates meant that each match had a different captain, selected from the host colony. Early on, Dewhurst’s name was mentioned as a potential captain for at least the Trinidad Test. A newspaper in Barbados went as far as to say that he was the only suitable Trinidadian candidate for the captaincy. The same report suggested that “all the misunderstandings appear to have been amicably settled”, whatever that meant. However, while Dewhurst intended to play in the series, his superior at Customs and Excise was on leave during the crucial period and so, according to the Barbados press report, Dewhurst’s availability was very limited. But an odd little episode took place before the Trinidad Test.

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The West Indies team that played England in Trinidad during the 1930 series

In each colony, the MCC played the home side twice before playing a Test match against the West Indies. When the MCC reached Trinidad for the second Test, three men chose the home teams: Frederick Grant, the former captain; Joe Small, the only black selector, a member of the West Indies team in 1923 and 1928, and a man widely known for not rocking the boat; and Joseph Kelshall, a former Trinidad cricketer then aged 42. They chose different captains for Trinidad’s two matches against the MCC. Betancourt led the team to victory over the MCC in the first match. For the second, Dewhurst, playing his first game for the island since 1926, took charge but the MCC won (CricketArchive gets this wrong; although Dewhurst was in the team, the scorecard names a different captain and wicketkeeper. Contemporary press reports state that Dewhurst performed both roles). It was thus the 43-year-old Betancourt who led the West Indies in the Test match (He scored 39 and 13 in his only Test match). There was considerable fall-out from these decisions.

The storm in the Trinidad press reached the Jamaican Gleaner, which reprinted a story from The Sporting Chronicle of Trinidad. There may well have been other stories in the Trinidad press but unfortunately I cannot access them at the moment. The furious writer suspected a conspiracy against Dewhurst: “The selection of Betancourt in preference to Dewhurst was a pre-arranged affair, the latter being only given the leadership of the second Trinidad team in order to keep quiet a suspicious and already much chagrined public.” The author suggests that Dewhurst was deliberately given a sub-standard team which did not compare to that led by Betancourt. He notes that the bowler Edwin St Hill, who had played in the first Test in Barbados, was quite successful in the first Trinidad match but was omitted from the second. The given explanation – that St Hill was being rested in preparation for the Test match – was somewhat undermined when he was left out of the Test side; even more oddly, he went on to play in the next Test. The author believed St Hill was left out simply to weaken Dewhurst’s team and suggested that weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiation resulted in Dewhurst being “outmanoeuvred” (although he does not say by whom). He concluded that Dewhurst had outperformed Betancourt tactically but became victim to the “insularity and prejudice” of the Trinidad selectors. The author was a big supporter of Dewhurst, and if he is to be believed, so were the public. But I am reluctant to read too much into one article; cricket reporting in the Caribbean at this time seems to have been very parochial.

Dewhurst was not selected again for Trinidad or the West Indies, although his name continued to be mentioned as a candidate for a place in the team, even as captain; critics judged him to be still the best wicketkeeper in the West Indies, but suggested that outside factors made his appearance unlikely; one report, later in 1930, stated that minds had been “poisoned”. If the story behind these events was widely known at the time, the press did not put it into print and so from this distance it all seems very mysterious.

Why was Dewhurst not made captain or vice-captain in 1928 or 1930? No matter how much the Trinidad press may have exaggerated his claims or his popularity, he seems to have been widely respected and was a realistic candidate for both roles. We cannot know whether his reduced availability from 1927 onwards was connected to any dispute which caused him to pull out of the 1928 tour, such as the selectors favouring Nunes, or simply caused by pressures of work. Nor can we know for certain why he really missed the 1928 tour and was overlooked in 1930.

It is possible that a personality clash lay behind at least some of these events. His successors as Trinidad captain were both powerful figures. Nelson Betancourt was a fairly high ranking civil servant; as “Assistant Inspector of Mines”, he sat occasionally on the Legislative Council of Trinidad, but his main interest seems to have been sport, in which he was deeply involved. Frederick Geddes Grant, an undistinguished cricketer, was the son of the founder of T. Geddes Grant, a large distribution company which still operates; he became the company’s Managing Director in 1917. He also was involved in Trinidadian politics. As one of the driving forces behind the formation of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, he was extremely influential and was himself a strong contender to captain the 1928 West Indies team. Furthermore, he was one of Trinidad’s selectors in 1930. His younger brothers Jackie and Rolph both captained the West Indies in the 1930s, despite possessing few cricketing credentials. Additionally, Dewhurst’s family recall rumours of bad blood between him and the Grants; this may explain some of the events between 1928 and 1930.

After this, Dewhurst fades from the cricket record, and I have little information on the rest of his life. His grand-daughter, who was only four when he died, recalls a kind, gentle man who patiently played cards with her. Dewhurst’s son Rex went on to become a respected cricket coach who was an early influence on Brian Lara. Dewhurst himself died in 1954. It is unlikely that the disputes between 1928 and 1930 seriously inconvenienced him. He would never have faced the hardships or prejudice of his black team-mates such as Piggott, whom he replaced in the team.

However, given that the captaincy of the West Indies in the 1920s and 1930s was only ever going to be held by white men, owing to the ethnicity and self-interest of those who ran cricket in the region, perhaps Dewhurst was unlucky in seemingly falling foul of politics. His tale is illustrative of how West Indies cricket was being run in this period. If the best players had been chosen, the team would have performed better. And there is a suggestion – albeit lukewarm – from an important voice that Dewhurst would have been a better captain than those chosen.

Learie Constantine, who toured England four times under four different West Indies captains, was a vocal opponent of the policy of white-only captains. During the ill-tempered 1928 tour, when factions and discord were rife within the team, Constantine and Nunes did not get along. Nor was Constantine a fan of the captaincy of Jackie and Rolph Grant on the 1933 and 1939 tours. In Cricket Crackers (1950), he wrote that the only West Indies captain from his time that he rated was H. B. G. Austin. The only other white captain whom Constantine believed was worthy of holding the position on merit (although he qualifies his recommendation by calling him “the one doubtful exception” to the lack of “a really capable or strong skipper for Tests”) was George Dewhurst.

This is perhaps the clinching argument that he was unfairly overlooked. While it is unlikely Dewhurst could have turned around the 1928 tour, which turned into a complete disaster for the West Indies, maybe he would have been more deserving than most of the other early captains. Maybe he should have been West Indies first Test captain. Instead, he never played a Test and, but for the writing of C. L. R. James, would have perhaps been completely forgotten.