Chuck Fleetwood-Smith - Early Years

Early Years

The third child of Fleetwood Smith and his wife Frances (née Swan), Fleetwood-Smith was born at Stawell in the Northern Grampians area of western Victoria. The family was well known in the district for their long involvement with the local newspaper, and for Fleetwood Smith's association with the organising committee of the Stawell Gift. During his infancy, Fleetwood-Smith was given the nickname "Chuck", a contraction of the polo term "chukka". After attending primary school in Stawell, he enrolled at Xavier College when the family moved to Melbourne in 1917. In the early 1920s, he was a member of Xavier's powerful First XI, which included the future Test player Leo O'Brien and Karl Schneider, who played first-class cricket while still at the school, but died of leukaemia at the age of 23. The team won the Victorian Public Schools premiership in 1924, but Fleetwood-Smith left the school soon after. It is believed that he was expelled, although the school records are incomplete and do not mention this.

Returning to Stawell, where his family had relocated a year earlier, Fleetwood-Smith completed his education locally and turned out for the Stawell cricket team in the Wimmera league. In three seasons from 1927–28, he captured 317 wickets for Stawell and took seven wickets in a representative match, playing for the Country Colts against the City Colts. He came to the attention of cricket clubs in Melbourne while representing the league in a Country Week tournament. Around this time, his father decided to combine his first and last names, and the family styled themselves as Fleetwood-Smith.