 I welcome to the Society of Antiquities. My name is Stephen Johnson. I'm the treasurer of the Society. It's my pleasure to welcome you here on this public lecture occasion. You're in a room which has been used by the Society of Antiquities. It is one of the six societies around the fortnight. Since about the 1850s or 1860s, these apartments built for us. They are filled with all sorts of goodies from the past, which have been left to us by antiquarians, fellows like me of the past, including the portraits you see on the wall here, and some of the pictures you see on the wall there. Our absolute star portrait is Mary Tudor, who is actually on loan to someone else. That's a facsimile at the moment, but she's off on loan in an exhibition somewhere. She was painted by a painter called Hans Ewan in about 1554-55. That is a contemporary portrait of Mary Tudor, of course, Henry the Edd's daughter. We have a number of other portraits around the room, which I'm sure will attract your attention in due course. Outside, if you're interested in Richard III, there is the Cross, which was found at the site of the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, where Richard lost his life and Henry VII became king. Anyway, enough of the history lesson, but we're here, and I'm very pleased to be able to welcome so many members of the public and of course members of the MCC who are here today, including your president's wife and David Morgan. We're very pleased to see you all here. I'm very grateful that you've all come to this public lecture. Now, we always try to improve our public lecture series, so on your seats you'll have either sat on or picked up a little piece of paper which actually says, how are we doing? What can we do better? And if you're doing the course of today's lecture, not Howard, of course, but if you're doing the course of today's lecture, you can think of ways in which we can actually make this better for the public, the better for the people who come and visit, then please let us know. There will be a tray somewhere, that blue tray by the door, if you'd like to dump your comments in that, that's great. We launched this public lecture programme a couple of years ago to promote the work of the society and we've had a whole eclectic series of lectures of all sorts of subjects. This is the first time we've dealt with cricket. I presume we're dealing with cricket because Simon was from the Pavilion and so many members of the MCC here and I hope there might be something to do with cricket. This is the first time we've dealt with cricket and the heritage of cricket. Now, Howard Hanley is not only a fellow of the society here, but he's actually a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry as well. He's got a wide range of interests in publications which span things like social history, English literature and English art, as well as cricket. So I've looked forward very much to his lecture today and his lecture is called Silent Voices from the Lord's Pavilion. I call out the pressure. You can hear me okay for your back please. No, this is enormous pleasure and honestly a great compliment to me to be allowed to give this lecture. Someone said it's a lot better here than somewhere like Layton Town Hall or something like that. Frankly, the address of giving a cricket lecture to a Burlington house especially coming from Australia does me some plus points very much. But I would like to thank not only the society, but you individually, Rene LaDou and Rola Zullig outside who did, I know how much work it costs in time to put on a lecture like this, especially dealing with crusty or egomaniacs and so on. I thank you very much. First of all, the two people who have to be thanked seriously is Neil Robinson, I'm glad to see you here from the MCC and David Studham from Melbourne Credit Club, who unfortunately is not well and couldn't come today. Without the resources of their libraries, this would be absolutely totally impossible. And not only did they allow me to look at the resources, but they actually volunteered information. So thank you very much, Neil, and thank David, please, Robbie. I'd also like to thank my niece, Lynne, who couldn't come today because she's got work to do and your family always, it was a bit like me down, I imagine. But she did quite a lot of work with the photography and stuff and it's a great shame she's not here. Right, let me make a start please. Simon Vices of this work, Simon Mackman. The Pavilion, of course, is the Lord's Pavilion, which must be known to all of you, but not necessary as well to some of the others. That's the famous Pavilion of Lords and just for the background. If you're not familiar with this, the Lord's Laws is not related to the Purige. Quite the contrary, Thomas Lord was an ordinary bloke. He was a very enterprising man. He was pallied with the first members of what we now call the MCC, literally friends and they trusted him. They asked him to build the grounds of which to play. The Lords, we now know, in St John's Wood, was open for play in 1814 and I should say that they're celebrating the bicentenary of this event. The interest of the society here is a great two heritage building, it's brick and terracotta, and it was opened in 1890. That total cost of £21,000 is possible minus a bit, but that's kind of absurd to build this. The architect was a firm run by Thomas Berryty, and the firm still exists. He was a very famous man at the time. He designed not only Lords, but he designed the Commonwealth of West End Theodos and had to do a lot of the structures that you take totally for granted now. Something to do, I think, with the Victorian Albert Museum and the Albert Hall and other stuff. So this is non-trivial of this building. It's not just a brick and terracotta building, it's a serious building. Now I'm going to make the statement, I hope no one here argues with me. This is the most famous single structure in all sports. I would never say all sports, I mean all sports with the qualification maybe of team sports. I read somewhere that if someone who played in 1890 was played today at Lords, they'd recognised where they were, and you can't say they're at any other ground. I think it's also symbolic, not just of the cricket connection. This is the beginning of what we might call the modern age of sport, 1890 or plus or minus a bit. This is when sport became popular, big crowds, media coverage, all to the personality, bribes, good things, bad things, tabloids, and if they had television they'd be right there. This is the beginning and Lords' Pavilion is the symbol of the beginning of this era. I also think there's a big social history context to this. If you do nothing about the social history of, let's say England and the Empire in time, and you look to the records of the MCC, I think you'd get a pretty good idea of what was going on in the social life of England because the members of the MCC had a considerable influence in the country. They still do, especially in those days. So how the MCC reacted to games and what they did with the professionals, how they handled people, et cetera, et cetera, to make a nicer essay on the history of English cricket. So I'm saying that. If I didn't start this way, I'd start talking about cricket signatures and I bore you all to death. I notice there's no portraits of Donald Brown and more and more. Which is an oversight. So now I start a lecture. This is one of the tiles of the pavilion. This is what I'm talking about. This is a balcony. It's a bar behind the balcony. You see here the people doing what you have to do. They may have a drink and watch the cricket. That's just the beginning of my story. I have the privilege of being a member of going to that bar fairly often. Surprisingly, I looked down about four years ago. I was out on the balcony there with my beer in one hand and I looked down and I saw this written, scrolled on the balustrade of the balcony. Now I know my cricket. That's immediately W Armstrong, Warwick Armstrong. The signature thereof. Underneath that's a little one, Lightning, 1899. Lightning's another signature, a chap named Charlie McLeod. He was called Lightning because he was always late for me. That raises an eyebrow. You see this right in front of you. You knew, or I knew, that he played for Australia in between 1902 and 1921. Clearly he was at Lord's otherwise. Now I've got me thinking. The cut along is a huge long story short. This is a photograph of the 1902 Australian team in England. Every one of those members, can I move this? Here's Warwick Armstrong. With exceptions, captain. I think he might be there. Every one of this team has a signature or initial scroll on that balcony. Even more, the voices are these people. Not only is it 1902, which I'll just show you in the picture. The Australians toured England in those years, 1902. Every, there are about 50 odd players who toured during that time. That was about 40 would have been different because they would have become more than once. Of that 40 odd, I can easily recognise 20 of the signatures. Not necessarily from 1902. I'll show you a few from 1890. Clearly, this was a fashion, a thing to do. That's the voices and the pavilion, of course, is the Lord's pavilion. Now, this is where belonging to society really helps. It's frankly not very difficult to record the signatures and write a brief article with lots of pickies because they're right there in front of you. But when you delve into this kind of thing, you get obsessed, frankly, I'm afraid, and you begin to live these times, what they're doing. And you mentioned, or Stephen mentioned briefly, Richard III, there was a lecture here on the discovery of his remains. Well, I hope that the people who discovered that, not only were, unbelievably proud of the enormous significance historically, but they must have felt they were living in that time. So they didn't just look at the bones, they looked at how he died. I mean, they must have been there. Now, I don't think that Richard III is quite as important as the signatures at Lord's, but the context is the same. So that's what really is going on from here on now. So let's go back to the days when these signatures were written. 1890 to 1992. I should say before anyone asks, in 1992, the dressing rooms were changed to what you know now. They were not dressing rooms then. So after 1992, there are none of these signatures. Right, we go back. This is actually 1896. Here's a pavilion. Here's the balcony. A couple of blokes there, watching. Now, this is just a parathentical remark, but I'm not going to flash that image I showed before. This is a pavilion today. If you compare the two, I mean, the MCC should take enormous pride in restoring or keeping this building in such a historically faithful manner. Though I was reading one or two of the old tour books written by the Australians who toured in the 1980s, 90s, 1900s. One of the comments they made was they went enough lavatories or shouts, and I think that's been improved now. It is still a bit of a problem. Anyway, so there's a pavilion, but I would say the same. Then, now, isn't it then? Right. Now, this is behind the pavilion. If this works across fingers, this is behind the pavilion in 1898. Now, if you don't recognise one of these gentlemen who shouldn't be here, here comes W.G. Grace. You can see his character in a second. See? This is the bullshit, even in those days. Right? Now, that was taken in 1898. I'm pretty certain it's one of the oldest. This is actually gentlemen players. We won't talk about them because they're not Australian. Grace, of course, you can't do that. This, I think, must be the oldest critic photo. Is it not any one critic photo? Did anyone see anything older than that? I am. Never mind. Move on. Okay, now this to me was a gem. I can read it if you can't see it at the back. Darling acknowledges the cheers of the crowd. Joe Darling is one of the players of the 1902. He was a captain, I'm sorry, in 1899 and 1902 and other teams. He was one of the... I couldn't find his signature, but I'm sure it's there. Anyway, England lost to Australia in 1899 and had lost at Lord's. He's acknowledging the cheers of the crowd and good heavens. I'm sorry, this was by a chap named Frank Gillett in the daily newspaper called The Daily Graphic. There's totally contemporary. No cheating. There is the balustrade absolutely. That's where the signatures are. I was very nice. Thank you. Okay, now here's another thing. What did he look at? What did he see, Mr Darling and the rest of them? That's where... That's the Lord's Ground. I'll read the bottom. This is from the Australian newspaper, 1899. Obviously written just after the test started in 1899. It says, Warol Batting, darling with him. That's the guy in the balcony here. Lily, when you keep a random stitch in the slips, the test is in England versus Australia's second test match at Lord's. That was taken without any shadow of doubt by Frank Lever, who was a member of the team and a keen photographer. So now you get some idea of standing in their footsteps. I mean, you stand there and you're looking out at that view. Admittedly, it's slightly different than it is today. This was taken from the roof a little bit higher than the roof. Now, there's a dominant thing here you might see, namely the media centre. But come on, use your imagination, get rid of that. It's not so much different from that. It's not the same. But the layout of the ground and so on and so forth is very much the same. So now you understand, I hope, where all this is coming from, but we came here to see something in the signatures. And I can't show the ball because there are about 20 or so, and we're not a rather obvious sum of numbers. Let's have one or two. The first one. JJL is Joe Lyons. 1890, clear as anything. Now he was a flash opening batsman. Very fast scorer, personality. He's here because he was probably the first man to put his signature on the Pavilion. The Pavilion was opened in late May 1890. I should say it's not particularly difficult to make a pretty good guess exactly when they did these signatures. Because first of all, if you're going to score a signature, you've got to have time to do it. So if you're in the field, you don't have time. If you're batting extremely well, you don't have time. If it rains, you have lots of time. My best is, this was June the 2nd in the afternoon. And if anyone cares to bet, I will take it. You've got to remember, we're all sobs now, but we're talking about, guys, a 2021. Nowadays they would have the iPhone and tool in the way when they had nothing to do. Here, why not do a signature? Anyway, he has cried a place. I changed the colour here because I hope you see it. That reads, I just changed the colour. E. Jones, 1899 June. That would be about June 12. Ernie Jones was the first true Australian fast bowler. And he is in legend of cricket history. Cos he bowled, he was bowling to the great W.G. Grace, the chap I showed with the big beard. A boulder ball which went through his beard. No doubt there was a frank stage of views, but Jones said, according to legend, sorry doctor, she slipped. Now whether Mitchell Johnson would do the same nowadays, or Brawl or someone, I'm not sure. But there you go, you see. This is a group, this is typical of a group of three. This was done in the Lord's test in 1992. This was done after lunch on the first day because it rained and the rain thing was rained out. There are three names. They may not mean much to modern people. That's S.E. Gregory R.A. Duff and A.J. Hopkins. We are doubted that many people have heard. He played for Australia without real distinction. But in this game, he had a bowl. England lost two wickets, both to him and there were two most prolific batsman of the day. Maybe Ranjit Simsie and Fry. He got it out from Dutch. Then it rained. Right. The early, rather aggressive looking bloke is Mr Warwick Armstrong later life. Later for him, I would say 1929. At the chap who did the signature when I first showed it to you. Now I may be reading a bit too much into this, but you can do this if you've got nothing else to do. You notice this guy obviously took some time and care to write his full name. But he completely overwrote some poor chap we did in 1890. Now this was done in 1982. Now, it's a mild indication of a fair amount of, I would say, selfishness, maybe? I don't know. But Armstrong is famous for one of the most absolutely unbelievable incidents in Tess Cricket. He bowled to it as a succession. Now, if you don't know the cricket laws, it may not mean much, but that is so staggering. It's like playing the British opening golf and taking missing two or three times until you get the ball on the green. I mean, it's just not done. He got away with stuff. Unfortunately, of course, he's long dead now. He turned out to be a rather aggressive sportswriter. Here's another one. MA Noble, 1899. MA Noble was a very nice man, a very good captain of Australia, much respected. But again, he's rather famous for a reason he probably would like to forget. He bowled in the, this was the MCC versus Australian game, August 1st, 1899. He bowled a ball that was hit over the Pavilion of Lords. I've got an image here, not of him being hit over the Pavilion of Lords. I think this is staggering. The pitch is not very good, but I hope you can hear that. Here's a good old Pavilion, of course. He's bowling from this end. Sorry, the bowler is bowling from this end. Yeah, sorry. Noble is bowling from this end. The batsman, who's a trot, was at this end. And whoa! Now, come on, guys. Nowadays we have 20-20 games and everyone gets hysterical and lands there for six rounds. Now, bear in mind in those days, let's face it, men were not as strong. The bats were thinner, the ball was larger. That was an incredible feat. Never been done again. There you go. Now I come to these, might say the key piece. I think I'll ask the audience, what's the key stand for? Thank you. Victor Trumper, 1899. Clear as a bug. Right? Victor Trumper was one of the very few iconic sports players, little picketers, who was clearly, I have to use the word adored, by the public. He played, this is his first series, cricket series in England. He played seriously for 1898 and he died unfortunately, I'll come to this later, in 1915. During this time, he established a reputation of being not only a wonderful batsman, but fluidity, grace, charm, et cetera, et cetera. And even after a hundred years, there's still debates in Australia how good he was compared with Don Bradman, which of course the combination is nonsense. Don Bradman to those who don't know is unbelievably the most prolific batsman ever. Anyway, this is his photo. Now this is worthy of a lecture in itself. This was taken in 1902, actually at the Oval, not at Laws, by a man, George Belden, who was a good bowler for Middlesex. Now just have a little think on this. This was done obviously at right angles to the action. It was staged in the sense that he was definitely going to hit the ball, but he was not part of the match, it was before the match. Because there were no telephoto lens and shutter speeds were less in those days. But I can't help thinking about this picture a lot. First of all, look at this. Look at the movement in this picture. That foot's coming down to the shadow. Look at the symmetry of the X here. It's a prolific picture. But what is so good about it? You see a combination. This young man he's a handsome fellow. You see a fluidity to him. But look, I would like to get in front of him when he's driving the ball at me. I mean he's a serious man. So this is probably I know I'm like damn it, I'm not going to say it probably. It is the most famous picture in cricket. You'll see it. Even every day, any Australian cricket book I'm guaranteed to have it somewhere. If I die, I would like this testament. I don't think I'll die. Let's die then get this testament. This is a cartoon by Frank Reynolds. 1909. Trump had toured England in 1909. I've written out that on the top is what's written on the bottom. Tell you what, you be England and I'll be Victor trumpet. Now notice it's not Victor Trumpa. It's Victor trumpet. So isn't that a compliment? Now he died at the age of 37 in 1915. And I now have a movie of his funeral in Sydney. This to me is staggering. 1915 this was August was the ending of the disastrous Darbyn El's politically campaign which is huge in Australia. It's called Anzac Day. And a lot of people say it defines Australia. It's a mature nation. Australia loss of life. Of course English was elsewhere was too. But people were unbelievably sad at this time in 1915. 20,000 people turned up for his entourage and his funeral. That's his entourage. In the middle of the war for a guy who's just a sportsman. Pretty good. Now I'm going to change mood a little bit. What I've been talking about is called the golden age of cricket which indeed was in many respects. But there was a downside to all this. This was the time of the late beginning of the industrial revolution where England was becoming unbelievably prosperous. Everyone knows books of countless books will be written on this about the social problems in England and elsewhere due to this. And frankly, until fairly recently most books about the golden age glossed over it. Recently that has changed. Not all the people on that who scrolled their signature were heroes, young men, wonderful guys. Here's another one and this is how a tabloid described him in Sydney. OK. Now I think even in this day and age the newspaper might hesitate to write that. This was Arthur Cunningham. That's a conny I. Definitely there I had to change the colour a little bit. Now he only played once for Australia but he had enormous distinction. This is 1893 when he played this. I'm sorry, he scrolled this. But he played for Australia in 1994 in Australia, for Australia. He has a distinction. His first ball in test cricket got a wicket and that was not only his first ball he was the first ball of the test match. Not bad start point. He was dropped out. He also was a hero because when he was touring in 93 he rescued a boy from drowning in the Thames. That's the good side. I'll read this. At the end of the tour in 93 he was in Blackpool and he was fed up and he started a little far on the outfields. He was fed up on the grass and stuff. He was tired on the grass and fed up. The next line he's soon a Catholic priest. You can read that at the back. This is totally non-proving. Absolutely. This is 1900 of rocks. In 1900 the Catholic Protestant issue was very much a sticking point in Australia. He was Protestant, the Catholic priest obviously was Catholic. Now the Catholic said that he didn't want to sue him. He didn't want to go over the balls trial. The blackmail of the Catholic priest was hoping to get money. His wife agreed that she hadn't behaved and in fact Cynon himself said that at the time of conception of the alleged child he was not capable of suffering due to her cricket injury. I'll let you all shudder about what industry might it be. Anyway, he had one trial which was a missed trial and the second one he went into was the revolver and he lost. Anyway, that was really serious. He was sent to jail for fraud later on. He was divorced by his wife for committing adultery. I liked the little phrase in the beach house so that's a bit of colour to it. And poor chap he did die in a mental hospital. Now we're making a little bit of a joke of this I'm going to show you something where all this stuff is not a joke. I'm going back to a remark I made about the downside of the late Victorian era and the Edwardian era. There was a great deal of discontent in the cricket world which was glossed over. Particularly the English professionals had a very rough life. Even if you played for England it didn't guarantee you anything much. There was a strike in 1896 against the professional strike against the selection committee it was available. They actually backed down. They wanted more than £10 a game for playing for England. Sham amateurism you know that phrase was very popular. W.G. Grace made a fortune he made a total fortune out of the game which I guess he deserves. I'm laughing at him. Anyway there's a great deal of discontent. Don't look me down and spoil everything. This is the Melbourne Cricket Club sorry the Melbourne Cricket Ground Scoreboard 1895 right in the middle of the era I'm talking about and many of the players of course not the English but the Canadian players who played in this test match did put their signatures on the Lord's Pavilion balcony when they came to England. I'm just going to make this comment of the people you see here two committed suicide Trot and Stollard two ending their life in a Rooney Bin Trot and Brockwell and of the 22 players who played in that game four committed suicide and eight guided a little tick assignment. Now eight out of 22 is of Admiral percentage I'm bringing that up because frankly I find it fascinating and I don't think Mr Fruth is in the audience but he wrote a book David Fruth on the I won't say Admiral but certainly way above average suicide range and there's a lovely article by Peter Robach who himself committed suicide Peter Robach was a journalist and a big argument is what does cricket do to you or have you got the temperament that makes you like cricket but also has these bad things now that's awfully gloomy let's end on a more cheerful note Quiz Name those two people please and chat with the Moustach Schluisey Correct Arthur Conan Durham Name the chap, the younger man on the other side I know someone who knows the answer Correct PG Woodhouse Okay Both these guys played on the same team several times around this time they played for teams like authors vs artists or someone vs publishers and that sort of thing they played at Lord's this is documented they played at Lord's and I know that they were in that dressing room where the so-called famous players were I've looked hard to see if at least I could see a PGW but I haven't but I'd like to end on rather a nice note I think through if I'm right Woodhouse well first of all before we get to that people should know if you don't know already that Conan Doyle was a complete cricket nut cricket tragic he's called in Australia Sherlock Holmes is named after Shylock a knotting lotting fair player and Woodhouse the famous jeems is named after Cricketer Percy Jeems that's definitely Woodhouse Conan Doyle got one wicked first class cricket it was W.G. Grace but they were playing together and Woodhouse made his name as an author sort of a semi autobiographical around 1900 plus or minus a little later he had stories about a chap named Mike Mike's story started out with him as being a senior schoolboy but then he went into the city because his parents couldn't afford him to take time off to play cricket and he hated it and he ducked out to play cricket now Woodhouse did that himself but the stories are about Mike doing exactly the same thing and one of the short stories called Mike at Lord's Mike gets a phone call from his brother who played for Sussex who's playing middle sex at Lord's the brother says please come right now to Lord's we need you to play I mean he was good enough to play Mike so Mike dashes over to Lord's and he's worried about losing his job because he's missing the bank but in the book I now quote this is what Mike does after getting there he changed and went out and the little pavilion looked about me the top of the pavilion I think that means that Woodhouse was there without any shadow there so one day maybe I'll find his signatures and I think at that point