Brunel's ss Great Britain plays a key role in cricketing history – she took the first ‘All England’ cricket team to tour Australia 150 years ago.
The cricketers left English shores on October 20, 1861, on a two-month voyage – then the fastest way to travel by sea. They arrived in Melbourne to a rapturous welcome on December 23, and played their first game on January 1, 1862. A quarter of the population of Melbourne watched the match.
The tour’s success changed history by igniting a passion for cricket in the former colony. It also made history as the first tour to receive commercial sponsorship, from the caterers, wine merchants and businessmen Spiers and Pond Ltd.
In his book ‘The Trailblazers’, cricket historian David Frith descried the ship as “the proudest thing afloat”. According to Frith, the 1861 to 1862 tour was “the birth of England-Australia cricket competition” and “its significance can scarcely be exaggerated”. A major phenomenon at the time, the cricketers’ success is widely recognised as sparking the Australian passion for the game.
Named ‘The Eleven of All England’, they played against teams of between 18 and 22, and received £150 (worth about £7,000 today), First Class passage (costing 70 guineas), plus all expenses.
Practice on board ship during the voyage was challenging, and the cricketers paced the decks, played quoits and a fairground game called ‘Aunt Sally’.
The team played in Melbourne, Beechworth, Corio, Geelong, Sydney, Bathurst, Hobart, Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine.
They won six games, drew four and lost two, when poor play was blamed on bumpy or bare grounds (recently cleared of trees and with little grass), gruelling journeys and champagne breakfasts. The last game was played on March 24, 1862.
Images: David Frith’s ‘The Trailblazers’, published by Boundary Books