The week before last I went from Cape Town to Pretoria aboard the Blue Train. The journey takes about 30 hours, and the train stops only once, after about six hours, for passengers to stretch their legs for about an hour in a tiny hamlet on the edge of the Grand Karoo plateau, which looks to me an awful lot like the Wimmera, or, at a pinch, the Mallee.
The halt is called Matjiesfontein and there are a few old houses, some dusty-looking sheep, a defunct post office, a cricket pitch of sorts, some stables abandoned by the British army after the end of the Boer War, and a dear old “spa hotel,” the Lord Milner, with a public bar where the Blue Train people had arranged for us to have refreshments.
Bear in mind that these were the first premises in which I had set foot outside Cape Town, only four days after I arrived from London. I have never before set foot upon the continent of Africa.
In the bar there were a clapped out but functioning upright piano, a huge Edwardian cash register, a large clock that had stopped at half past six, and an assortment of ancient sporting and other team photographs hanging on the walls at either side of the front door, and on the short sides of the room, flanking the counter.
Those sporting team photographs included the Blair Lodge School first cricket XI for 1895 (in Polmont, near Falkirk in Stirlingshire, Scotland, about 20 miles from Edinburgh); the same school’s officer corps of cadets; the Nottinghamshire county XI for 1897; Major Barton’s Cape XI (date unknown); Lord Hawke’s South African XI (1898–99), and “the Australians (Seventh Team) 1890,” in which, on the left, wearing his trademark bowler hat, a very youthful but nevertheless unmistakable Hugh Trumble stands, our great-grandfather J. W. Trumble’s famous younger brother. Of course he does!
I couldn’t believe it, but yes: the relevant portion of the caption read: “H. Trumble.” There must be some algorithm relating to colonial populations, relatively high birth rates, patterns of descent, and the intercolonial and international Edwardian cricket enthusiasm that would go a little way towards accounting for this amazing coincidence. Even so, I was and am still completely astonished by it.
I have no idea how this rather fine group photograph found its way to Matjiesfontein in the Grand Karoo. Great Uncle Hugh certainly played with the Australian tourists in the Cape and Natal in 1902, but this was taken twelve years earlier. It’s a possible explanation, and at this stage the only one that is in any way viable. At any rate, it is in fine shape and so am I.
How are you? I am well. I have been doing some Research. I have been on the trail of Trumbles in literature, inspired by your blog. You know, Angus, I only recently discovered how immense your blog is. I was aware, of course, of the blog entries which you sent me links unto, but it was only a week or two ago that I realized there was more material there that I could access. Wow! I don’t know how you do it, and hold down a job, and write a book! Your blog, Angus, puts me in mind of Thomas de Quincey, who saw the totality of his work in the nature of a Gothic Cathedral, each tiny part a piece of an enormous, colossal, evolving whole, The English Mail Coach—the Nave, etc., anyway, I only saw your Virginia Woolf piece a few days ago, after quite a lot of reading. I had set myself the task of finding the Trumble reference I remembered, indistinctly, from my studies at Cambridge with my modernism tutor. I failed to impress him from an early date with my researches on T. S. Eliot, who, I discovered had exchanged several amiable and charming letters with Groucho Marx, which I drew his reluctant attention to, and later in an informal “symposium”-style tutorial at the pub, I had interjected a remark about April being truly-ruly the cruelest month where I come from (it was because I was fed up with seasonal references being northern-hemispheric-o-centric). Anyway, I decided to re-read V. Woolf. I had a stroke of luck—I quickly found a copy of To The Lighthouse in the op shop. I was sure this was the book—so sure that after I scanned it for Mr. Trumble in vain, I read it properly, to be sure, to no avail. My local library coughed up Mrs. Dalloway which was my next guess, but again, no dice. I had, however, read another of this lesbotic genius’ mistresspieces, and while I agree with your assessment of her Bloomsbury snobbisme, I was getting “into” them, as they say in the classics. But still Mr. Trumble eluded me—no matter, I was sure that The Waves would be the one. My local library network had exhausted itself giving up Mrs. Dalloway, but nowadays we library patrons can borrow from any library across Victoria, and Swan Hill had a copy of The Waves. However, after 2 weeks my library told me that the Swan Hill Waves was “missing”—imagine that, Angus!—but the kind and helpful librarian at Wonthaggi told me—not to worry—he would organise another copy—leave it to him. 2 weeks later I got an email that my “Waves” was ready to collect. Well, I was excited, then deflated because I realized you had found the reference by yourself, but when I collected the book, I got the scent of the chase again, because what I had got was the 1976 Hogarth Press edition of V. W.’s The Waves—the two holograph drafts transcribed and edited by J. W. Graham, who must have been ever so keen on V. W., because he has copied out her notebooks and added all her crossings out, etc. (as you can see). I realized that here was an opportunity for original Trumble research, so I commenced reading. Let me say that, while I cannot identify the Trumble episode in any form in the first draft, and there is a Turnbull/Trumble passage in the second draft (see over), the reading was not unprofitable. Oh no. The first draft contains dozens and dozens of references to Louis, the Australian, son of a banker and his Australian accent, boomerangs, colonial inferiority—that Virginia had a definite idea about Louis and his Australian origin and she made sure she didn’t forget it for subsequent drafts. I thought about that a lot, and it occurred to me that she probably didn’t know many Australians, but as she cast her mind back to the twilight years of Victoria, and the Golden Age of Cricket, in the nostalgic glow of her method, one name might have popped up in the stream of her consciousness—Hugh Trumble, Australian test cricket champion, and, let’s not forget, bank manager. Is it not possible, no no, almost certain, that when casting about for a name for her gentleman on a train, her mind free-associating behind the twin filters of her arch-lesbotic superciliousness, and her disappointing anti-Australian prejudices, her final choice is actually an unintended tribute to a great and noble Trumble,
A mighty tall trundler named Hugh,
Who oft saved the skin of the ’Roo,
The foe thought him dead,
But he popped up his head,
“If you want me, I’ll soon pull you through!”?
Keep up the good work Angus.
Lots of love from Hamish.
P.S. What about Trumbles in art? I think we can by now consider Trumble and Trumbull to be interchangeable, especially in the distant past. Have you considered the case of John Trumbull (1756-1843), the American artist who fought in the War of Independence, after which he traveled to London and paris (as many Trumbles before and since) and worked with West the Quaker neoclassicist; apparently Trumbull is well represented in your American museums and he wrote his “Autobiography” (1841, repr. 1953). I got this out of the Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists—is there no field in which Penguins do not cover all aspects of life and learning? Must go now and scour the op shops of South Gippsland for hidden treasure.
Our great-grandfather, J. W. Trumble, was an inveterate writer of letters to the editor of The Times newspaper, invariably about pressing matters relating to Test Cricket. For many years he enjoyed the status of a sort of Senior Statesman of Cricket, having himself played for Australia in 1888, although his younger brother Hugh was the more successful, indeed legendary player. Whilst on a golfing holiday at the Ugadale Arms Hotel at Machrihanish, near Campbeltown in Argyllshire, Scotland, on July 30, 1926 (p. 15), for example, J. W. Trumble wrote the following measured, if somewhat leaden critique of the then state of test wickets.
FOUR STUMPS OR FOUR DAYS?
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir:—The necessity for some improvement in the conditions of Test Match cricket as now played is apparent to most followers of the game. The bat on present-day good wickets has got the better of the ball and huge scores and unfinished games (except in Australia, where matches are played out) are the order of the day. Why is this? In the old days there were no huge scores and bowlers could hold their own with batsmen and there was no trouble about the three days limit for matches. Is it that batsmen to-day are superior to the batsmen of the early Test Match periods? I think not. I am sure the great bats of the past would have had a very rosy time of it on present-day wickets. Present-day bowlers are not so formidable, but that, in my opinion, is mainly because wickets as now prepared beat them. Formerly the bowler could get turn on the ball because the ball with spin would grip the turf and take the break. Now, because of the smooth and polished face on the present-day wicket, secured by the heavy roller working on the firmed up soil, the ball cannot grip the turf. It simply slips on and becomes an easy ball for the batsman to negotiate. I hold then that the present-day compacted wicket (the product of binding top dressing and the heavy roller) us responsible for the unsatisfactory condition into which the game has fallen.
The position in Australia is worse than it is here. There the glossy-faced, grassless and concretelike wickets render the bowlers’ task almost hopeless. And it is not to be wondered at that Test Matches in Australia take a week or more to complete! In my time, when cricket was played on the wickets as then formed and prepared, three days sufficed for a match. It was even difficult sometimes to get wickets to hold for three days, and in some of the earlier Australian inter-State contests two wickets were prepared for and played on in the one match. Play then was bright, full of incident, and always interesting. Now it is generally otherwise. In view of this it is obvious something should be done to shorten play and to make the game more attractive for the cricketing public. To this end many suggestions for amendment of the rules in aid of the bowler have been made. The drawback, however, to the adoption of any of these suggestions is that sometimes the bowler would require this aid, and sometimes he would not, accordingly as the wicket was good or bad.
I hold the proper thing to do would be to tackle what I consider the cause of the trouble—the wicket—and bring it back to what it was in the old days—namely, a piece of genuine, natural springy turf. To do this we would have to cut out the binding clays and chalky soils, come down to the lighter roller, and shorten the time occupied in preparation of the wicket. In Australia Test Match wickets, after a preliminary nursing, have at least 12 days’ continuous preparation prior to play. They then become practically polished concrete blocks. I am satisfied if we got back to the old-time natural turf wicket the present-day defects in the game would disappear. The bowler would again be as formidable as he used to be, scoring would be restricted, and matches would finish in reasonable time. Trusting my views may be worthy of some consideration,
Yours &c.,
J. W. TRUMBLE
In spite of this cri de coeur from a knowledgeable veteran of the game, test wickets remained essentially unaltered, and, compounded by Don Bradman’s astonishing performance four years later in the 1930 ashes series, the problem facing English bowlers ultimately resulted in the adoption of lethal “fast leg theory” tactics, or Bodyline. It is a melancholy fact that sage, non-professional, non-legal advice proffered by Trumbles of successive generations is rarely, if ever, followed.
My dear friend and colleague Lyn Bell Rose has this morning brought to my attention the curious fact that the Indesign computer program “check spelling” tool proffers the following substitutions for “Trumble”:
She comments, “You can’t make this stuff up,” but adds, “well, O.K., we can’t, but computer programmers obviously can, and do.” Which brings to mind the irritating fact that when I worked at the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide, the version of the Microsoft Word program that was then current urged each and every one of my colleagues who happened for whatever reason to type my name into a document to alter it to “Anus Tremble.” My tactfully worded letter of protest to Mr. Bill Gates obviously either went astray, or to Sullivan and Cromwell in case a restraining order should become necessary. However, I am fortunate in life to share the general outlook of mehitabel the cat: “i m toujours gai toujours gai / i know that i am bound / for a journey down the sound / in the midst of a refuse mound / but wotthehell wotthehell...”
The following garrulous, unsigned, single-paragraph article about my great-grandfather, entitled “Mr. John William Trumble,” appeared on the front page of Cricket, Vol. 5, No. 119, on Thursday, May 27, 1886:
Of the thirteen cricketers forming the Melbourne Club Australian Team, Mr. Trumble is the youngest bar one. The junior of the party is Mr. Bruce, who completed his twenty-second year on Saturday last, and can claim an advantage in point of age of her comrade and great chum, though only to the extent of nine months. Born in Melbourne on Sept. 16, 1863, Mr. Trumble will reach the close of his twenty-third year just about the time he will be leaving England with the rest of the Australian cricketers, on their return to the Colonies. Educated at MelbourneUniversity, Mr. Trumble threw in his lot with the South Melbourne Club, with which society has been closely and actively identified during his career. For some years past he has played a leading part in Victorian cricket, though it is only recently that he has figured in Inter-Colonial and representative matches. The season of 1882-83 is the first, as far as we can trace, in which he came out at all prominently, and the records of that summer credit him with more than one score of three figures. It was not, though, until the season before last that he really established his reputation as one of the foremost cricketers of Victoria. Since that time he has occupied a prominent position as one of the best all-round players in the Colony. The first Inter-Colonial match of 1884-85, begun on Boxing Day, saw him in excellent form, both with bat and ball. Going in first wicket, after a long stand by Messrs. Scott and McDonnell, he played excellent cricket, and in addition to a contribution of 87 to the Victorian total of 482, was instrumental in the dismissal of two wickets in the first innings of New South Wales, at a cost of twenty runs. This promising performance he followed up a week later, with another display of equal merit against the English team which visited Australia under the auspices of Shaw, Shrewsbury, and Lillywhite. The absence of the members of Murdoch’s Australian team from the combined eleven on that occasion, gave several of the younger players an opportunity of distinction, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Mr. Trumble, in particular, proved his abilities unmistakably, and his score of 59 was not only the third in point of value, but one of the best innings of the match in merit. In the last of the engagements between Shaw’s Eleven and a Combined Team of Australia at the end of the English tour he was, too, again successful. Both with bat and ball he did good service, and in addition to two creditable scores of 34 not out and 10, he was credited with three English wickets at a cost of only fourteen runs. The return match between Victoria and New South Wales was also a success for him, and here again his all-round cricket was much above the average. Two excellent scores of 16 and 35 were credited to him, but his best performance was with the ball, and in the first innings of New South Wales he took six wickets for 84 runs. The organization of the Melbourne University Club compelled Mr. Trumble last season to give up his old love, South Melbourne, and the University eleven found in him one of their most reliable all-round players. As a batsman as well as a bowler, he maintained his reputation thoroughly, and several of his performances in both departments were particularly noteworthy. Mr. Scott and he were the two principal contributors to the long score made for Melbourne in the Inter-University match, and these two, indeed, were credited with 224 of the total of 346 from the bat, of which Mr. Scott subscribed no less than 168. Meanwhile, he had done an excellent performance with the ball for his University against the Richmond Club, five of whose wickets he had taken at a cost of only eight runs. Though only moderately successful in the two Inter-Colonial matches, his all-round cricket was good enough to give him a position among the probable candidates for a place in the Fifth Australianteam, organized under the auspices of the Melbourne Club. His chances were regarded as a little doubtful, but an excellent performance in the test match against the Victorian eleven made his position secure. A capital innings of forty was his contribution to the Australian total of 375, but this was not his only credential, and indeed, his bowling was even more noteworthy. His analysis in the first innings of the Victorian eleven was remarkable. At one period, he sent down no less than nineteen maiden overs, and in all he delivered 120 balls (25 maidens), for seven runs and one wicket. So far, Mr. Trumble has taken part in two of the three matches played by the Australian team in England, and in these he has not been very successful, though the same remark will apply to the majority of the team. He has, in fact, still to make his mark on English grounds, and for this reason the best comments on his play will be those of a writer who knows his form well on Australian soil. “Felix,” a practical and capable critic, in the Australasian, in comparing the qualifications of various candidates for the Australian team, speaks highly of Mr. Trumble’s abilities as a cricketer. “Trumble,” he says, “is good enough for any team in Australia. He watches the ball well, has an excellent defense, can hit hard when he feels so disposed, and can adapt himself to circumstances well as most batsmen. Apart from his excellence as a batsman, his bowling capabilities are of a high class, and it is my conviction that he would distinguish himself in more than one match in the old country in this department of the game.” Mr. Trumble, I may add, bowls slow round-arm, with a high delivery. He is a lawyer by profession, and intends, we believe, immediately on his return to Australia, to commence practice.
J.W. Trumble and his younger brother Hugh (q.v.) were both introduced to cricket by their father, William (q.v.), who was a slow leg-break bowler, and played for South Melbourne in the time of J. S. (“Jack”) Swift, who taught the Trumble boys on a patch of land by the Yarra at Kew.
The two brothers were chosen to play together for Victoria against the visiting English XI in March, 1887. In that season and the following one, i.e. 1887-88, they played together against New South Wales, South Australia, and G. F. Vernon’s English XI. This was the tail end of J. W.’s brief cricketing career, but only the very beginning of Hugh’s more stellar one.
Thereafter J. W. Trumble seems to have assumed the role of senior statesman, commentator, inveterate correspondent to the newspapers on cricketing matters, and something of a fixer, easily securing tickets to Lord’s Cricket Ground for visiting colonists, while Hugh became the star sportsman, and, much later, the full-time professional administrator, and club secretary.
In 1928, my great-grandfather was still writing to The Times newspaper with copious recollections of F. R. Spofforth, whom he described as “the World’s Best Bowler,” but his opinions were evidently considered worthy of leading articles in the Argus, as on New Year’s Day 1904, when they ran his “Views on the Problem of Disputed Decisions in Cricket.”
According to the Argus, Mr. J. W. Trumble’s proposed remedy for the nuisance of Sydney crowds, who were beginning to take up a discreditable, hostile, and insulting attitude towards the umpire,
is one that demands a high standard of behaviour from cricketers, and of loyalty to the game. All decisions should, he says, be accepted instantly, and without question, or any appearance of resentment, and then the susceptible and excitable crowd [even a Sydney crowd] will find no excuse for its attack upon the umpire.
Ill health may have caused J. W. Trumble’s premature retirement from first class cricket.
His son Jack, who evidently suffered from infantile paralysis, later recalled that an eminent doctor called Sir Colin Mackenzie visited the family in Nhill, and advised J. W. to sail with his family to Europe to seek better care and treatment. Auntie Winkie was born in London while the family was staying there.
Upon resuming his legal practice in Nhill, J. W. Trumble set up the local Golf Club, having been bitten by that particular bug whilst holiday-making in France, of all places.
Both J. W. and Hugh Trumble regularly went back to England, and witnessed the famous bodyline series at Lord’s in 1932, and returned the following year. They were familiar fixtures, sitting together in the committee box at the Melbourne Cricket Club.
Hugh Trumble was the third of the five children of my Irish great-great-grandfather William Trumble (1828–1908) (q.v.). Hugh was a renowned Test cricketer. An English opponent, C. B. Fry, called him “one of the greatest bowlers of all time.”
Hugh was born at home in Sackville Street, East Collingwood, on May 19, 1867.
He went to Hawthorn Grammar School, and played grade matches with the Melbourne Cricket Club.
He joined the National Bank of Australasia in 1887, and rose to be accountant at Richmond in 1903, and, excitingly, manager at Kew from 1908. Evidently the bank accommodated his demanding international cricket commitments.
On March 12, 1902, at St. George’s Church of England, Malvern, where my father and grandfather before him were both churchwardens, Hugh Trumble married Florence Christian, a Queenslander. The marriage seems to have survived this encumbrance.
In the summer of 1887–88 Hugh Trumble first played cricket for Victoria, taking 7 for 52 against New South Wales with his medium-paced off breaks.
He made five tours of England, the first in 1890: according to Wisden each time he improved “almost beyond belief.” In 1896 he took 18 wickets in three Tests, including 12 for 89 in a losing side at The Oval. A fine slips fieldsman (45 Test catches) as well as an accomplished batsman, Hugh Trumble shared with Clem Hill the long-standing record for a seventh wicket partnership (165) in the fourth Test of 1897–98. Hugh Trumble made the double (1,183 runs and 142 wickets) on the 1899 tour of England; it was then that W. G. Grace called him “the best bowler Australia has sent us.”
In the 1901–02 series against England, Hugh Trumble was victorious in two Tests as captain, taking 28 wickets for the series and a hat-trick at Melbourne. In 1902, in two of the closest Test matches of all time, he took 10 for 128 at Old Trafford (where Australia won by three runs), and at The Oval made 64 not out and 7 not out, while taking 12 for 173 (England won by one wicket).
Hugh Trumble’s Test career finished spectacularly on the Melbourne ground in the 1903–04 series when he took 7 for 28 in England’s second innings which he ended with another hat-trick to insure Australia’s victory by 218 runs. In 31 Tests against England he took 141 wickets at 21.78, a record aggregate for either side until beaten in 1981 by Dennis Lillee. Trumble scored 851 runs in Test matches at 19.78 and made three first-class centuries.
C. B. Fry saw Hugh Trumble as a “cunning and long-headed adversary, who knew every move of the game.” Trumble made the most of his height (6 ft 4 in), kept an impeccable length, turned the ball sharply on helpful pitches, and varied pace deceivingly. “Where most bowlers attacked weakness, Trumble fed the opposition’s strength, challenging the batsman’s ambition,” wrote A. G. Moyes, who ranked this imperturbable and resourceful bowler as one of the immortals of the art. M. A. Noble described Trumble’s approach to the wicket as “sidelong and insinuating, with his neck craned like a gigantic bird.” Lanky, with long bones, a prominent nose and large ears, Hugh Trumble was affectionately described by Sir Pelham Warner as “that great camel.”
These genetic traits have survived intact in the present generation.
A life member of the Melbourne Cricket Club, and club secretary from 1911 until his death, Hugh Trumble was a shrewd, genial, and popular administrator. While secretary, he oversaw the building of two new grandstands at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, now sadly superseded by the somewhat Neronian architecture of Daryl Jackson. He was a renowned story-teller, generous in his time with the press, and encouraging to young players. He was an inveterate letter-writer to The Times newspaper, usually on pressing current issues of international importance (and nothing other than cricket).
Survived by his wife, six sons and two daughters, Hugh Trumble died at home in Hawthorn on August 14, 1938, and was fashionably cremated. Memorabilia held by the Melbourne Cricket Club include his pipe, one of his imported stetsons, a caricature by Hal Gye, and a rather dour portrait by the artist A. E. (Peter) Newbury, who in 1922 married his niece, my grandfather’s sister, Ruth Compson Trumble (1892–1964).
Today I tackled another of the regular inquiries I receive about eighteenth-century paintings of children with cricket bats.
With his long hair and loose shirt, the English schoolboy Richard Heber (1773–1833), here portrayed in 1782 by the American expatriate John Singleton Copley, exhibits the informality and naturalness that was such a desirable quality in British portraiture of this period, while the paraphernalia of the great game of cricket allude to the manly sports in general.
Looking fearlessly toward the bowler’s end, leaning on his bat and holding the ball—which means that play cannot commence until he chooses—Heber strikes an easy but authoritative pose. The son of a well-to-do, intellectually minded clergyman, Heber was to become a passionate book collector, one of the leading bibliophiles of his generation.
In the early 1820s, Richard Heber’s close friendship with the nineteen year-old Charles Henry Hartshorne (1802–1865) led to rumors about a homosexual relationship between the two—Heber being twenty-nine years older. Hartshorne had composed Latin verses for Heber while still a schoolboy. When in 1825 Heber suddenly resigned his seat in Parliament, it was claimed that he fled abroad just before a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of sodomitical practices. The Tory John Bull wrote:
Mr. Heber, the late Member for Oxford University, will not return to this country for some time—the backwardness of the season renders the Continent more congenial to some constitutions.
Heber’s friend Sir Walter Scott feared the rumors were true, but no evidence has been found of any outstanding warrant.
Richard Heber is not to be confused with his half-brother Reginald, who in later life became second Church of England Bishop of Calcutta and composed the famous hymns “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” and “God That Madest Earth and Heaven.” Bishop Heber died whilst taking a bath, half way through a pastoral visitation of South India.
In America cricket is obscure and mysterious, and this makes it possible for me to conceal my almost total ignorance of the game. I derive particular amusement from reinventing myself here as a cricket aficionado. For example, I can explain the tapering, rounded shape of the cricket bat that was standard in the mid- to late eighteenth century. I speak with authority about the gradual flattening of the bat, the squaring off in the front, back, sides and “shoulder” during the Regency period. On it goes. With luck I can explain that the boy in the painting is holding the bat absolutely correctly, as far as I can tell from having myself batted execrably as a child whilst being systematically brutalized at Melbourne Grammar School, that forlorn, crudely rusticated stone gulag in South Yarra. I have a dim recollection of being dismissed for a duck – L.B.W., moreover, a concept I simply did not understand.
This was especially humiliating because my great grandfather and his more famous brother both played test cricket for Australia between 1887/88 and 1903/04. Great Uncle Hugh’s celebrated hattricks in successive test matches in 1904 was an achievement that apparently stood for ninety years, until it was finally overtaken in 1994 by a fat person who likes to send obscene text messages to young women in provincial English bars and nightclubs who are not his wife. O tempora, O mores.
On that occasion – I mean the eclipsing of that famous succession of hattricks – Great Uncle Hugh’s photograph appeared on the front page of The Times newspaper in London. He has somehow found his way into the files of Getty Images also, though I cannot imagine how the international law of copyright allows them thus to own his portrait.
