Sydney Riot of 1879 - Background

Background

England cricket tours to Australia started in 1861, and while successful, were still in their infancy in 1879, despite the first Test match being played in 1877. The teams were of variable quality; while promoters sought the best cricketers, they still had to agree to terms. In addition, many could not afford the time for the long boat trip, the tour itself, and the return voyage—the journey itself often took up to two months. Aside from a tour by an Australian Aboriginal team in 1868, the Dave Gregory-led campaign in 1878 was the first major Australian tour to England. The tour was generally regarded as a success; a highlight was the Australians' famous victory over a very strong Marylebone Cricket Club outfit, which included W. G. Grace, the dominant cricketer of the 19th century, in less than four hours.

Keen to make the most of this success, the Melbourne Cricket Club—the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket was not created until 1905— invited Lord Harris, an eminent amateur cricketer of the time, to lead a team to Australia. The team was originally meant to be entirely amateur, but two professional Yorkshire bowlers, George Ulyett and Tom Emmett, joined the tour team after two Middlesex players had to withdraw due to a bereavement. The main distinction between amateurs and professionals was social status, and although amateurs were not paid for playing, they did receive generous "expenses". Despite the presence of two professionals in the team, the Englishmen were described as "Gentlemen", a euphemism for amateurs. Now that Ulyett and Emmett were in the team, they did a large part of the bowling, and commentators felt that Harris had overworked them.

At the time, English cricket was dominated by amateurs. These scions of the ruling class were generally educated in elite sandstone private schools—such as Harrow and Eton—and universities of the establishment such as Oxford and Cambridge, and to them, sport was a social leisure. In contrast, the Australians were regarded—by the social standards of the 19th century—as coarse, rowdy and uncultured. The likes of bushranger Ned Kelly heightened perceptions that Australia had a bandit culture. Violence, heckling and abusive chanting among drunken spectators and gamblers at sporting grounds were commonplace in 19th century Australia, and the prevalence of betting was seen as a major cause of crowd unrest. There were many instances of concerning player behaviour during the 1878 tour of England, and Gregory's men were considered to be unrefined and raucous.

Cheating was a regular occurrence in 19th century Australian cricket, and the inter-colonial rivalry was strong—the modern states of Australia were separate colonies until their federation in 1901. As in real life, the sporting rivalry was at its most bitter between the two most populous and politically powerful colonies, New South Wales and Victoria. The endless dispute between the colonies over whether Sydney or Melbourne would be the capital of Australia eventually forced the compromise that saw the construction of Canberra mid-way between the two cities. With regards to sport, cricket administrators from both colonies sought to undermine their cross-border counterparts. On the field, matches were dominated by tit-for-tat throwing wars. Both colonies sought to stack their teams with players who either had borderline—and sometimes flagrantly—illegal bowling actions to use physical intimidation as a means of negating opposition batsmen. Gregory, whose action was regarded as highly dubious, was prominent in his New South Wales team pursuing a policy of condoning illegal bowling. It was amidst a background of inter-colonial rancour and a belligerent Australian sports culture that the riot broke out.

Soon after Gregory's 1878 Australian team returned home, Lord Harris's Englishmen arrived. Australia won the first match, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, by 10 wickets. The match was later recognised as the third Test match in history. New South Wales paceman Fred Spofforth—nicknamed "The Demon" because of his ferocious pace—took 13 wickets in the match, including the first ever Test hat-trick. The next tour match was against New South Wales and started on 24 January at the Association Ground in Sydney. New South Wales won by five wickets, despite the absence of Spofforth—who withdrew from the home side after spraining his wrist the night before the start of the match— and Gregory, who had been dropped for missing a training session and failing to provide an explanation for his absence.