Published in Windlesora 13 (1994)
© WLHG
In December 1991 issue of The Cricketer, a letter from the writer sought help in identifying the partner© WLHG of Dr W.G. Grace in a photograph taken at a cricket match thought to have been held at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor, in the early years of the century. The identity of Grace’s partner was quickly established as A.G. Steel, who captained England in the 1880s. The match, in which they were opening batsmen, was between Prince Albert’s Veteran XI and Charterhouse and was held on June 10th 1911.
Prince Albert, who had put together the side, was the younger son of Prince and Princess Christian who had lived at Cumberland Lodge in the Great Park since 1872. His father, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein had married Princess Helena and come to live in England in 1866 at the age of 35. Not surprisingly he was not a cricketer himself, although apparently an enthusiastic spectator. He was made a Vice-President of the Royal Ascot Cricket Club shortly after it was founded in 1883.
The Prince and Princess had two sons and it was not Albert but their eldest son, Christian Victor, who distinguished himself as a cricketer. As a youngster, the Prince recorded, he and his brother were taught to play cricket at the Lodge by a footman named Rayworth. At Wellington College and later at Sandhurst he was captain of cricket, excelling as a wicket keeper. However, he failed to get his blue on going up to Oxford, as the university already had a wicket keeper ‘much above average’. Sadly, Prince Christian Victor died in 1900 at the age of 33 having contracted enteric fever whilst serving with the British forces in the Boer War.
In a memorial volume published after Christian Victor’s death, W.G. Grace recalled that they were ‘great friends’ and that he had played with him on ‘very many occasions’. It seems that the Prince had organised ‘Cricket Weeks’ at Cumberland Lodge and we have an account of a match played at the Lodge in the cricket week of August 1886, before he went up to Oxford, when the Prince’s team played an Indian Parsee XI. In 1888, at the age of 21 Prince Christian Victor entered the 60th Kings Royal Rifles. In 1891 whilst on leave from India he was at the Lodge during the silver wedding of his parents and the wedding of his sister, Princess Marie Louise. Part of the celebrations was a cricket match between a Lodge team and the Household Brigade, attended by Queen Victoria and her grandson the German Emperor (Wilhelm II) and Empress (a niece of Prince Christian). The match was called off due to rain, but it is interesting that several of the cricketers who were later to play at the Lodge with Grace in 1911 were in the side (Webbe, Clarke, and Paravicini as well as Prince Albert). In his contribution to the memorial volume W.G. Grace comments that the Prince ‘was a fine bat and good safe field and wicket keeper’.
Prince Christian Victor’s skill and enthusiasm on the cricket field is of particular interest given the predominantly equestrian sporting interests of the royal family today. His death was obviously a great blow to his family in Windsor and royal interest in cricket at the Lodge seems not to have revived for a decade. Writing of the match which sparked off this enquiry, the correspondent of the Windsor Express commented that ‘in the days prior to the death during the South African War of Prince Christian Victor there had been frequent games at Cumberland Lodge in which well-known cricketers had figured, but of late the fixtures decided there have been only of a local character’. His father, writing in Grace’s memorial biography, refers to Prince Christian Victor having ‘brought to our ground men bearing names famous in the history of the game’.
W.G. Grace did not put up a memorable performance, A.C.M. Croome recalling (in the doctor’s memorial biography) that:
“to everyone’s extreme annoyance he failed to score. He went in first with ‘Nab’ Steel, and in the Carthusian fast bowler’s first over received one to cut. He made the stroke beautifully with all the old snap of the wrists and a good deal of shoulder punch behind it, but a boy, standing where no fielder normally stands, got one hand down to the ball just before it hit the ground to race to the boundary and held it.”
However, Prince Albert’s team took the match, Steel being the top scorer with 74, whilst Jack Mason made 73. Paravicini was not out 35, the Prince making 5. The detailed score was:
CHARTERHOUSE
- G.A. Wright c Paravicini b Smith 10
- C.G. Stevens c Smith b Mason 95
- G.E. Bond b Smith 0
- J.S.F. Morrison (capt) c Webbe b Smith 18
- R. Boosey c Webbe b Smith 6
- H.G. Sanderson not out 26
- R.G. Morrison c Smith b Croome 0
- H. Wesley-Smith not out 48
- K. King c Clarke b Mason 23
- L. Gjers c Smith b Mason 3
- F.S. Letten c Smith b Mason 0
- Extras 10
Total 239
PRINCE ALBERT’S VETERAN’S XI
- Dr W.G. Grace c Sanderson b King 0
- A.G. Steel c J.S.F. Morrison b King 74
- E. Smith c Wright b Stevens 30
- J.R. Mason c R.G. Morrison b Stevens 73
- A.J. Webbe c J.S.F. Morrison b King 0
- A.C.M. Croome c Wright b Stevens 18
- W.H. Brain c Sanderson b King 28
- HH Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein (capt) b Stevens5
- P.J. de Paravicini not out 35
- F. Dames-Longworth c Sanderson b Wright 13
- C.C. Clarke c Stevens b Wright 3
- Extras 4
Total 281
It was, suggested A.C.M. Croome, the last match of more than local interest in which W.G. Grace took part. In 1889 Grace had played in his last test and in his last game for Gloucestershire, although as late as 1908 he had played for the Gentlemen against Surrey. He was 63 when he opened for Prince Albert’s Veteran XI and just four years from the end of his life: he died in 1915.
Cumberland Lodge has an earlier cricketing association as the Duke of Cumberland is suggested to have been the founder of army cricket. The Duke occupied the Lodge, as Ranger of the Great Park, 1746-1765.
Back row (left to right): F. Dames-Longworth, HW.R. Bencraft, P.J. de
Paravicini, E.G. Wynyard, A.C.M. Croome, C.C. Clarke.
Middle row: A.J. Webbe, W.G. Grace, HH Prince Albert, A.G. Steel
Front row: W.H. Brain, E. Smith, J.R. Mason.
[Photograph.: The Roger Mann Collection]
The ground on which the 1911 match was played lay just beyond the present fence of Cumberland Lodge in the direction of the neighbouring Royal Lodge. It had been used as a cricket ground probably since 1861 when Windsor Great Park Cricket Club was formed, and it continued to be used in this way until 1924 when the Lodge became the grace-and-favour residence of Lord FitzAlan of Derwent, the last Viceroy of Ireland. The centenary history of the Great Park Club suggests that at about that time the club moved to a new pitch on Smith’s Lawn.
Geoffrey J. Williams
Dr. Williams is Director of Studies at the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St Catharine’s. The foundation has occupied Cumberland Lodge since the death of Lord FitzAlan in 1947.
References
ANDERSON, Bert, Royal Ascot Cricket Club, 1883-1983 Centenary
ANON, Windsor Great Park Cricket Club. 100 years of Cricket 1861-1961
BETTESWORTH, W.A., ‘Chats on the Cricket Field: Prince Christian Victor’. Cricket, Vol. 15, 6 August 1896 pp 329-330
DARWIN, Bernard, W.G. Grace, London 1978
GREEN, Benny, The Wisden Papers 1888-1946
Lord HAWKE, Lord HARRIS, and GORDON, Sir Home, (Eds) Memorial Biography of Dr W.G. Grace, London 1919
HUDSON, Helen, Cumberland Lodge. A House Through History, Chichester 1989
MIDWINTER, Eric, W.G. Grace, His Life and Times, London 1981
TOYNE, S.M., ‘The early history of cricket’, History Today, Vol. 5, No. 6., June 1955, pp. 357-365.
WARREN, T. Herbert, Christian Victor, The Story of a Young Soldier, London 1903
Windsor Express 15th June 1911
ZIEGLER, Philip, King Edward VIII, London 1990
Windsor Local History Group 