mouth and trots towards the bowler, his tail wagging furiously. Turning towards the batsman, one of the older men says quietly, ‘And well hit, Gilbert.’ The older woman, who has been watching the episode closely, nods approvingly.
Lost in a world of his own, the dark-haired boy does not appear to have noticed the dog’s antics, nor heard the word of praise from his father. William Gilbert Grace rehearses the off-drive again, then resumes his guard, waiting for the next delivery.
As we near the end of the twentieth century there is much discussion and soul-searching in many British sports about how to spot, train and develop children with sporting talent. In tennis and cricket particularly, games invented in Britain and which used to spawn a steady stream of great players, there seems a dreadful dearth of potential world-beaters. If by chance a good cricketer is unearthed, there is reluctance to blood him in the demanding arena of Test cricket. Yet in other countries bright youngsters are pitched into international matches while still in their teens. In Australia the country’s most promising young players are invited to attend the National Cricket Academy of excellence in Adelaide and submitted to a demanding year-long training programme to prepare them for greater things, with notable success. After England had lost several successive Ashes series in the 1980s and 1990s by embarrassing margins, the cry went up: Why can’t we do the same?
Perhaps these things don’t have to be done by governments or governing bodies. A century and a half ago, William Gilbert Grace was born into a home-grown sporting academy, whose record would stand comparison with any official institution charged with turning out good sportsmen. His father and favourite uncle were keen cricketers, his four brothers all fine players. Of the five Grace boys, three became among the best cricketers in England, and Gilbert the greatest the game had ever seen. Even their mother was, untypically for the Victorian age, an enthusiast who was highly knowledgeable about the game and followed her sons’ progress keenly.
Their father, Henry Mills Grace, was born on 21 February 1808, in the Somerset village of Long Ashton. His own father, also called Henry, was said to have been an Irish footman at Long Ashton Court who married the daughter of the chief steward. It is attractive to think of the Grace boys having Irish blood. Certainly, they displayed all the classic Irish traits of athleticism, physical courage, wit and good-natured cheek. Henry Mills Grace’s was a typical rural childhood of the age: he grew up well versed in the traditional country pursuits, particularly riding, but he also acquired an early interest in cricket and, as a boy, played the game as much as he could. His distinguished son later described with sympathy the problems young Henry had in practising the game as much as he clearly would have liked. ‘If he had had the opportunities afforded to his children he would have attained a good position as an all-round player,’ wrote W.G. in 1891. ‘Clubs were few in number in his boyhood and grounds were fewer still.’
Sport was not yet the integral part of the school curriculum that it was to become in the mid-Victorian era so Henry’s cricketing development was restricted. Like many a father before and since, he was determined his own sons should not suffer the same lack of facilities, which helps to explain the intense devotion he was later to lavish on their sporting education, with such remarkable results. A sturdy 5 ft 10 in tall, weighing 13 stone, Henry Grace was not a man to be put off by anything.
Settling on a career in medicine, he was articled to a surgeon in Bristol, after the custom of the times, but did not allow his studies to interfere with his cricket. Two or three times a week he and some friends would rise early in the morning to head for Durdham Down, a large expanse of open common ground to the north-west of the city, where Gloucestershire were to play their first county match against Surrey many years later in 1870 with Henry Grace’s sons among the participants. On Durdham Down, Henry and company would practise their cricket between five and eight o’clock, Henry batting right-handed but bowling and throwing in left-handed.
He undertook further studies at the combined medical school of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals in London and on qualifying embarked on the life of a country doctor which he was to be for the rest of his life. Henry was twenty-three when he married Martha Pocock in 1831. Born on 18 July 1812, she was barely nineteen on her wedding day but was a perfect match for the energetic, hard-working young doctor.
She was a spirited girl from a decidedly eccentric background. Her father, George Pocock, was proprietor of a private boarding school at St Michael’s Hill, Bristol, and as fervent about religion as Henry Grace was about cricket. So keen was he to spread the word that he toured the West Country in a horse-drawn trap, erecting a tent which he called his ‘itinerant temple’ in places where there was no church but a likely supply of worshippers.
He was also obsessed with box-kites. Family legend had it that he and his daughters once drove from Bristol to London in a carriage drawn by a kite, overtaking the Duke of York’s more conventionally-powered coach on the way. That may have been the same journey as one he reportedly made in 1828 to the Ascot races where his kite-carriage was said to have greatly impressed George IV. Pocock was also said to have designed a kite-borne chair, which sounds like an early prototype of a hang-glider, in which young Martha was once strapped and transported across the Avon Gorge.
Martha grew to be a most remarkable woman, and more than a century after her death remains possibly the most influential in the history of cricket. Even today cricket is overwhelmingly a male-dominated sport, and women who are both passionate and knowledgeable about the game are regarded as something of an oddity by many men. However, the informed cricket woman is to be seen, instantly recognisable, at Lord’s or any county ground, as much a part of the scenery as the players, umpires or scorers. Martha Grace was the archetype, and has yet to be improved upon. The great cricketer Richard Daft said of her, ‘She knew ten times more about cricket than any lady I ever met.’
She was an imposing figure, ‘of magnificent physique and indomitable will’, and W.G. strongly resembled her physically. Quite where her love of cricket sprang from is uncertain; perhaps from her brother Alfred (‘Uncle Pocock’) who was also a key figure in the Grace boys’ cricket education. At any rate Martha took as much a part in the coaching of her sons as her husband and closely followed her talented sons’ progress. She watched them play whenever she could and was forthright in her criticisms. In her old age she regularly attended Gloucestershire’s matches and was noted for her pithy comments on the play and the players. Indeed it appears to have been part of a Gloucestershire’s batsman’s duties, once dismissed, to pay his respects to Mrs Grace as she sat in the stand and to listen attentively as he was told just where he had gone wrong. For some reason she disliked left-handed batsmen and fielders who returned the ball underarm (which would presumably have doubly disqualified David Gower from her pantheon).
Throughout her life she demanded to be kept informed of her sons’ performances: when they were playing away from home, they would post to her the day’s scoresheets or send her a telegram informing her of their achievements that day, which would arrive the same evening. She cut out all newspaper reports of their doings and pasted them in large scrapbooks. She was their greatest supporter, and author of the most famous letter in English cricket. This was to George Parr, captain of the All England XI in which she recommended her third son, Edward Mills Grace, for selection in the England team, and added that she had a younger son who would eventually be even better because his back-play was sounder and he always played with a straight bat.
There is a touching vignette of the old lady watching the Lansdown Club in 1884 playing the American tourists, Gentlemen of Philadelphia, and being offered a chair by a player who did not recognise her. As they talked of the game, she said, ‘I taught my sons to play. I used to bowl to them.’
Henry Grace and his bride settled in the Gloucestershire village of Downend, four miles outside the bustling city of Bristol, and never moved from it thereafter. Grace was a highly conscientious doctor and a good surgeon, whose practice extended for a twelve-mile radius around Downend. He covered it on horseback and was often not back home until midnight. He was surgeon to the Royal Gloucestershire Reserves and did much work for the underprivileged as medical officer to the Poor Law. A jovial and popular man, he ranged easily over the classes. He was a friend of the Duke of Beaufort and a frequent visitor to Badminton to hunt during the winter.
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