WITH Australia entering the most eagerly anticipated battle with England for The Ashes in decades from Wednesday, the Bendigo Advertiser starts a series by avid historian PETER MacIVER looking at Bendigo’s links to the origins of perhaps the most famous trophy in world sport...
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WILLIAM Lloyd Murdoch is probably not a name familiar to many Bendigonians, yet this man should be honoured as one of Bendigo’s most famous sporting sons, as he captained the Australian XI that created the legend of The Ashes.
WL Murdoch was born in Bendigo in 1854.
His birth was recorded in The Australian Town and Country Journal of Tuesday, November 7, which reported, “At her residence, Bloomfield Cottage, Bendigo, October 18th, Mrs. Gilbert Murdoch, of a son.” Bloomfield Cottage was at the corner of Short and Rowan streets.
Mrs Gilbert Murdoch was Edith Susannah Fleigge, who was born circa 1833 in New South Wales.
Gilbert Murdoch, WL’s father, was a Scottish immigrant and the couple had come to Bendigo in the early 1850s. Gilbert was working as an auctioneer and commission agent in partnership with Lewis MacPherson.
In November 1855, the Bendigo Advertiser recorded the dissolution of this partnership, with Gilbert Murdoch reported as “retiring” from the firm, which would continue under the name of Lewis MacPherson & Co.
An article about WL Murdoch in the Bairnsdale Advertiser and Tambo and Omeo Chronicle in April 1882 reported that the family moved to NSW in 1857, when he was three.
They appear to have settled in the Balmain district of Sydney. The young Murdoch was a fine scholar and obtained a law degree from the University of Sydney.
In 1878 he and his brother Gilbert set up a law firm in Melbourne, although it was observed that “Mr Murdoch probably finds the green sward more to his taste than parchments and processes.”
Murdoch’s ability as an all-round sportsman is well recorded, if all but forgotten. He showed great talent in cricket, pigeon shooting (something he pursued all his life), golf (which he took up later in life) and rugby.
In 1875 he captained the Balmain rugby team’s premiership winning side in the first year of that competition. His elder brother Gilbert was also a fine sportsman and played cricket for NSW, but never reached the heights of WL.
WL Murdoch’s true sport was cricket and it is his achievements on the cricket field that make him a true legend of that sport, and indeed Australian sport overall.
He was the second captain of Australia and the first Australian-born captain, first substitute fielder to take a catch, first man to score a double century, first recorded batsman to have leg theory bowling used against him and one of the first two to play for Australia and England. In all, he captained Australia in 16 test matches, including the 1882 game at The Oval that created the Ashes legend.
WG Grace, a good friend as well as opponent of Murdoch’s, wrote of him that, “He was an ideal captain, a born tactician, a genial chief, a firm though gentle ruler, and a man of singular pluck and resource” – high praise indeed from the greatest cricketer of that time.
It should also be noted that Murdoch was regarded as the WG Grace of the Southern Hemisphere and as second only to WG in terms of his skill as a batsman.
In 1880 WL Murdoch became captain of the Australian cricket team, but also that year ran into serious financial trouble that received much coverage in the press of the time.
It appears that he had entered into a partnership with a man in a South Sea Island shipping venture. When the ship foundered with a full load of cargo, the partner disappeared to America and it was discovered that the vessel was uninsured.
Murdoch had no option but to have himself declared insolvent in 1881 because he could not pay the creditors.
Of course bankruptcy in those days was regarded as something of a disgrace, but he did receive a sympathetic press, with the Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser of May 14, 1881, reporting that Murdoch was, “now free to commence his career afresh, assured of the warm sympathy of all who admire true sporting skill and determination.”
The year 1882 saw the famous victory at The Oval that brought about the creation of The Ashes legend.
The win sparked shock in England and jubilation in Australia that a colony could beat the mother country.
In October of that year an article in The Advertiser suggested that “...Sandhurst should not be behind hand in recognising the prowess of the Australian Eleven on the cricket field” and that “It has been suggested that the cricketers should be entertained at a banquet, and no doubt all the clubs in the district, as well as the cricket-loving public, would enter into the affair with great heartiness.”
On a ship back from England in 1884, WL Murdoch met and fell in love with Jemima (Minnie) Watson, the third daughter of John Boyd Watson, a gold-mining millionaire and fellow Bendigonian.
The couple were married in Melbourne on December 8, 1884. The following day, The Advertiser reported that, “Miss Watson has only recently returned from Europe, where she has been at a continental educational institution. She returned to Australia in the same vessel with the cricketers. It is stated that Mr JB Watson was opposed to the match, although Mr Murdoch offered to settle permanently in Sandhurst.
“This would point to the conclusion that the marriage has been celebrated against the wish of the parents and certainly the event was unsuspected by them, Miss Watson having been in Sandhurst on Sunday night and having left for Melbourne yesterday morning without their knowledge.”
The marriage in Collingwood was reported with some glee in the press, with one report pointing out that the minister who celebrated the wedding, “combines the business of auctioneer with that of celebrator of marriages.”
George Bonnor a fellow cricketer who was best man, was described as “the giant” and said to be the only one affected, as he too “will shortly put his head in the matrimonial noose.”
JB Watson, described as a Sandhurst capitalist, was also reported as declaring, “that of all his large fortune, she shall not inherit ‘one single pin’.”
There must have been some form of rapprochment between father and daughter in the years after the wedding as JB Watson’s will showed that at the time of his death in 1889, Minnie was receiving an annual allowance of £800 per year.
Following the marriage, Murdoch and Minnie travelled to Adelaide for a test against England. This was to be Murdoch’s last game for Australia for some time as he was involved in the strike of the Australian players for a greater share of the gate takings and was effectively dropped from test cricket for the next six years.
He and Minnie set up a home in Cootamundra, NSW, where Murdoch practised as a solicitor and in 1887 the couple were reported by The Advertiser as moving to Melbourne.
Eventually Murdoch was called back to captain the national side as Australia had performed poorly without him and the other dropped players.
Following the tour of 1890, Murdoch was offered a contract to remain in England and play county cricket. He set up home in Kensington and played for and captained Sussex from 1893 to 1900, finally retiring from first class cricket in 1904.
During this time, Murdoch also became one of the first two players to play for both Australia and England, playing a match against South Africa in 1892.
In 1910, Murdoch and Minnie returned to Melbourne for the winding up of JB Watson’s estate.
On Saturday, February 18, 1911, WL Murdoch attended an Australia, South Africa test match at the MCG. After having lunch with the MCC Committee, Murdoch was chatting with an old friend, Major Morkham, when he slumped forward, complaining of severe neuralgia.
Several committee members, who were doctors, gave assistance and a stroke caused by a “snapped artery” was diagnosed. Despite treatment, WL Murdoch lapsed into a coma and was taken by ambulance to Dr Moore’s hospital, where he passed away during the afternoon with Minnie by his side.
Upon receiving news of his death, the flag of the MCG was lowered to half-mast.
Minnie had Murdoch’s body embalmed and returned home to England. He was buried in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery on May 18, 1911. Play was suspended in all county matches during the funeral. Among the many tributes sent were wreathes from WG Grace and “Fred” Spofforth, the great Australian bowler, friend and team-mate of Murdoch.
As for Murdoch’s family, Gilbert died some time before 1884 and his mother died in 1899 at the home he and Minnie shared in Kensington, London.
Minnie died in March 1917, with Ruby, their daughter, dying at the age of 31 only a few days later on the day of her mother’s funeral. At the time of Minnie’s death, their sons William and Donald were in the army and described as “serving King and country.”
Ivy, a daughter, was engaged to a Major TV Brown, late of the AIF in 1919. Idina, another daughter, was 22 at the time of her mother’s death in 1917.
While trying to track down what became of the family, I did discover a letter to The Times of London written in 1990 by Peter Murdoch, a grandson of WL Murdoch, which showed that the family interest in cricket had not dimmed.
The letter bemoaned the fact that the term “The Ashes” was being used for sport between Australia and England other than cricket and claimed his “grandfather has definitely turned in his grave at the Kensal Green Cemetery” because of this.
Footnote: I would like to recognise the help I received in researching this story and thank the National Library of Australia and the British Library for their excellent newspaper databases. I must also thank the wonderful people in the local studies centre of Bendigo Library for the help I received from them. Any mistakes are my own.
See Part 2 of the series will be in Wednesday's Bendigo Advertiser and online.
