Grace G.F. “Fred” Image 1 Gloucestershire 1878

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Downend, near Bristol born G.F. “Fred” Grace was a right-handed batsman who bowled right arm fast round-arm. Fred Grace was the youngest member of the Grace family. His four elder brothers all played cricket: Henry, Alfred, “EM” and “WG”. While he was called “G. F. Grace”, using his initials in the same way as for both E.M. and W.G., in fact he was widely known as Fred while they were always known by their initials only. His two oldest brothers were always known by their first names, Henry and Alfred. Grace first attracted notice in club cricket, playing for his father’s West Gloucestershire Cricket Club in 1864 when still only 13. Despite his coaching, it was said of him then that he did not play with so “straight a bat” as WG, but was “more resolute in his hitting”. Mention was made of the great promise shown in his fielding, always an outstanding feature of his game; he was hailed as “a glorious field”.

His earliest appearance in a match now rated first-class was Monday 21st to Tuesday 22nd May 1866 at the Magdalen Ground, Oxford for a hastily organised Gentlemen of England XI against Oxford University (OUCC), the University winning by 10 wickets. Aged 15, Grace took a wicket and had scores of 0 and 10. W.G., aged 17, was in the same team and it was at this match that W.G. received an invitation from Edmund Carter to join the OUCC, but he had to refuse because his father intended him for medical school. In due course, Fred would follow him into the study of medicine.

On Thursday 25th June 1868, Grace played for the new Gloucestershire County Cricket Club in its first ever match, which was a two day game at Lord’s against Marylebone Cricket Club (M.C.C.). His brothers E.M. and W.G. were in the same team but the match was by no means first class. Gloucestershire won by 134 runs. The County club was not actually new because it had pre-existed for over twenty years as the West Gloucestershire Cricket Club, based in Bristol and effectively run by the Grace family. It renamed itself as the County club in 1867 but it did not have a County-wide remit because of a rival club called the Cheltenham and Gloucestershire Cricket Club.

It is generally agreed that the inaugural first class match played by Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, per se, was against Surrey at Durdham Down, Clifton from Wednesday 2nd to Friday 4th June 1870. E.M., W.G. and Fred Grace all played for Gloucestershire who won by 51 runs. Grace bowled well, taking 4-56 and 4-31. He scored 16 (hit wicket) and 15 which were useful runs in a low-scoring match. The County club has always dated its foundation to 1870 (it celebrated its Centenary in 1970) but its formal constitution was not completed until March 1871 when it finally merged with the Cheltenham and Gloucestershire.

With Gloucestershire now a first class County, Grace set about establishing himself as a first class player. Like E.M. and W.G., he was a genuine all-rounder. On Thursday 14th July 1870, Grace made his debut for The Gentlemen in the prestigious Gentlemen v Players fixture at The Oval. He failed with the bat and scored two ducks but he succeeded with the ball. After The Gentlemen had scored 198, The Players struggled and were dismissed for 148 with Grace taking 5-38. It was the first time he captured five wickets in a first class innings (his previous best was his 4-31 in the match against Surrey). The Gentlemen’s second innings belonged to WG who hit 215, well supported by Walter Money with 109. They totalled 513 but didn’t leave themselves time to bowl The Players out. Although Grace again bowled well, taking 3-9 in 15 overs, The Players with 109-4 held on for the draw.

From Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th August 1870, Grace played alongside W.G. for The Gentlemen of the South against The Gentlemen of the North at Meadow Road, Beeston. The North, captained by W.G.’s long-time rival A.N. Hornby, won the toss and decided to bat first. They scored 287, W.G. taking 6-89 and Fred 1-53 (Hornby scored 103). The South were 6-1 at close of play on Thursday. W.G., who opened the innings, went on to make 77 on Friday morning, sharing a third wicket partnership of 122 with Isaac Walker. When he was out, Fred came in to join Walker and came of age as a cricketer. They shared a stand of 294 for the fourth wicket, broken when Walker was out for 179. There was then something of a collapse as the South went from 430-4 to 482 all out just before the close. Fred scored 189 not out and that remained his career highest innings. On the final day, the North managed to avoid the innings defeat and amassed 289 (W.G. 3-83; Fred 2-61) to ensure a draw. Prior to this match, Grace’s highest score was 33. As Eric Midwinter put it, “here was another cricketing talent to be nurtured”.

Grace had made his debut in the North v South match in 1870 but without much success. Although this fixture did not quite equal Gentlemen v Players in terms of prestige, it was nevertheless the standout event in the pre-international programme because, in theory, it featured all of the best players in England as they were chosen on technical ability alone, not on status. Grace and W.G. won the game for the South at Lord’s in May 1871 when they shared a fourth wicket partnership of 170. W.G. scored 178, Grace 83 and the next best was 22 by Harry Jupp in a total of 328 which was enough for the South to win by an innings and 49 runs (Grace did not bowl).

There was always controversy surrounding Grace’s elder brothers E.M. and W.G. about the money they, as nominal amateurs, made from cricket. Grace himself was once barred from a Gentlemen v Players match because of match fees he had claimed for appearances with the USEE.

The English cricket team in Australia in 1873-74 is sometimes called W.G. Grace’s XI. The Melbourne Club had invited W.G. to form a team for the tour. There were several refusals but eventually a team including Fred Grace, Walter Gilbert, Harry Jupp, James Lillywhite, William Oscroft and James Southerton boarded the P&O steamer Mirzapore at Southampton and sailed to Melbourne where they received a rapturous welcome. Then it all turned sour.

In the aftermath of the Sydney Riot of 1879, cricketing relations between England and Australia were strained and the 1880 Australian tourists had difficulty arranging fixtures. The establishment at Lord’s, spearheaded by Lord Harris, had effectively embargoed them and they only played four first class matches from May to August but many more against local club teams. They were most welcome in the north of England but one southern player who had faith in them was Fred Grace. Operating on a freelance basis for a match fee, he played against the Australians in their opening match for a club team in Southampton and then for three others in Manchester, Northampton and Harrogate. Importantly for the Australians, Grace was a go-between from them to W.G. who, in the words of Malcolm Knox, “did not belong to (any Lord’s) clique”. W.G., as always, was pragmatically alert to financial opportunity and offered them a match against Gloucestershire. This broke the Lord’s embargo and Harris soon relented.

The Gloucestershire v Australians match took place Monday 2nd to Wednesday 4th August at the Clifton College Close Ground and the Australians won by 68 runs. All the Grace brothers and Billy Midwinter played for Gloucestershire but, with eleven wickets, Fred Spofforth won the game for the Australians. It was a big match both on the day and in terms of its legacy. Knox says that Gloucestershire treated it “as an international” and a huge crowd attended. In the longer term, it convinced first the Graces and then Harris that international cricket was the way forward and negotiations began to ensure that such a match took place that summer.

Grace was selected along with E.M. and W.G. to play for England at The Oval. The match was played Monday 6th to Wednesday 8th September and was later recognised as the inaugural Test in England. Grace was out for nought in both innings and so became, albeit retrospectively, the first player to be dismissed for a pair on Test debut. He made his mark on the match by holding a celebrated, and possibly match-winning, catch on the boundary in front of the gasometer at the Vauxhall End. This was from a shot by the giant Australian batsman George Bonnor off Alfred Shaw. Bonnor hit the ball so high that he and his partner Harry Boyle had turned for their third run before, finally, the ball came down to Grace who had positioned himself perfectly to catch it cleanly. That catch became part of cricket’s folklore and has been described as “the most famous deep field catch in history”. Although the England v Australia match at The Oval in September 1880 was granted Test status retrospectively, it is the first instance of three brothers playing together in a Test match with EM, WG and Fred all members of the England team.

The Test match ended with an England victory on Wednesday 8th September. Grace went to Stroud for a USEE “odds” match played 9th to 11th September. It was his last cricket match. He had caught a cold during the Test match which was made worse by being soaked twice during showers at Stroud. He returned home to Downend to try and recuperate but still had the cold on Tuesday 14th September, when he travelled by train to Basingstoke as he was due to play in a benefit match at Winchester the following day. He took a room at the Red Lion Hotel in Basingstoke. He could not play in the benefit match because his condition had worsened and he became bed-ridden at the hotel where a doctor diagnosed a problem with his right lung. Grace’s brother Henry and his cousin Walter Gilbert came to see him, Gilbert remaining with him throughout his illness. There were conflicting reports by telegram about his condition until the morning of Wednesday 22nd September, when he suddenly deteriorated and became critical. Several family members, including W.G., set off for Basingstoke but Grace died aged 29 at 13:15 that day. W.G. and Henry were told while awaiting a train at Bradford-on-Avon railway station.

The cause of death, though given as “congestion of the lungs”, was pneumonia. Grace was buried in the cemetery at Downend and an estimated 3,000 people followed his coffin. The Australians wore black armbands during their last match which began on the day of the funeral. The Times wrote: “His manly and straightforward conduct and genial manners won him not only popularity, but the esteem of hosts and friends”.

It has been alleged that Grace’s illness developed “after sleeping in a damp hotel bed”. Gilbert, who stayed at the hotel for several days, later wrote to The Daily Telegraph: “It having come to my knowledge there is a rumour abroad that Mr. G.F. Grace’s fatal illness was caused by sleeping in a damp bed at the Red Lion Hotel, Basingstoke, I beg to contradict it. He had a bad cold before he left home, and on my arrival at Basingstoke he told me that he had received another chill whilst waiting at Reading Station. By inserting this you will greatly oblige me, and also do justice to the members of a family whose attention and kindness to my cousin all through his illness could not have been surpassed had he been at home”. The “damp bed” story is refuted by evidence to the contrary, as described above, because Grace’s illness began with the cold he caught during the match at The Oval and he was already ill when he arrived in Basingstoke.

As a team, Gloucestershire declined in the 1880’s following its heady success in the 1870’s and one of the stated reasons for this was Fred Grace’s early death, there being a view that “the county was never quite the same without him”. Writing about the Graces in Barclays World of Cricket, Ronald Mason said of Fred that he “is visible only as through a glass darkly, as after a youth of great promise and pride he was smitten with sudden illness and died (aged only 29)”.

Fred Grace was unquestionably a top class cricketer through the 1870’s but, like everyone else, he was overshadowed by W.G., with whom he was especially close. Bernard Darwinwrote that Fred was the sibling (they were in a family of nine) to whom W.G. “was most devoted” and Fred’s death created a “real and permanent gap” in W.G.’s life. In his classic work, Beyond a Boundary, C.L.R. James observed that the three Grace brothers were a “clan”, unlike other sets of cricketing brothers. James concluded that W.G. was “close enough” to E.M. but he felt the death of Fred more than other bereavements.

In 195 first class matches, Fred Grace scored 8 centuries and 32 half centuries, totalling 6,906 runs at an average of 25.02. He took 329 wickets at 20.06 apiece, with a best return of 8-43, taking five wickets in an innings on 17 occasions and 10 wickets in a match 5 times. He also took 171 catches in first class play and stumped 3 batsman as an occasional wicket-keeper.