Who we are, part 2 (Dad)

Our grandfather, T. C. Trumble, a descendant of the Trumble hunter-gatherers of Northern India and the Levant.

Thanks to the National Geographic Society’s Geno 2.0 Project, I can now dilate further upon the distant origins of us Trumbles. All such genetic studies begin with the identification of the “marker” for our oldest male ancestor, and walk forward thence to more recent times, showing at each step the line of his descendants.

What is a marker? Each of us carries DNA in every cell of our body, a hugely complex combination of genes passed from both Mum and Dad. This combination endows us with traits that range from eye color, height, and bone structure (fabulous, if I do say so), to athleticism or otherwise, creativity, intelligence, and even susceptibility to certain diseases. As part of this process of combination and re-combination, the Y-chromosome is passed directly from father to son down a purely male line, in our case the Trumble line, unchanged from generation to generation. Mitochondrial DNA, on the other hand, is passed from mothers to their children, but only their daughters pass Mitochondrial DNA to the following generations. In other words it traces a purely maternal line. We have already dealt with this, and, with it, our exciting dalliance with Neanderthal and Denisovan man.

Now, parts of the DNA are passed on unchanged, unless a mutation occurs—a random, spontaneous, natural and usually harmless change. The mutation, known as a marker, acts as a beacon; it can be mapped through generations because it, too, is passed down through the generations for thousands of years. When geneticists identify such a marker, they try to determine when it first occurred, and in which region of the world: in Ethiopia, or Manchuria, or the Yukon, or Borneo, or Tierra del Fuego. Each marker is essentially the beginning of a new lineage on the human family tree.

Branch M42: ca. 75,000 years ago

The common direct paternal ancestor of all men alive today was born in Africa around 140,000 years ago. Naturally he was a Trumble. He was neither the first human male nor the only man alive in his time. He was, however, the only male whose Y-chromosome lineage has survived until now. All men, including our direct paternal ancestors, trace their ancestry to one of this man’s descendants. The oldest Y-chromosome lineages in existence, belonging to the “A” branch of the tree, are found only in African populations.

Around 75,000 years ago, the “BT” branch of the Y-chromosome tree was born, defined by many genetic markers, including M42. The common ancestor of most men living today, some of this proto-Trumble’s descendants began the journey out of Africa, to India (!) and to the Middle East. Small groups would eventually reach the Americas. Others would settle in Europe, and some from this line remained near their ancestral homeland in Africa.

Individuals from this line in Africa often practice cultural traditions that resemble those of their distant ancestors. For example, they often live in traditional hunter-gatherer societies. These include the Mbuti and Biaka Pygmies of central Africa, as well as the Hadza of Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika), a range of possibilities that I feel quite sure would have tickled my late father, and filled my mother with deep skepticism and, perhaps, a wry or mischievous chuckle. She was modestly proud of her own ancestors.

Now, as M42-bearing populations migrated around the globe, they picked up additional markers on their Y-chromosomes. Today, there are no known BT individuals without these additional markers.

Branch M168: Africa/Asia, ca. 70,000 years ago

As the proto-Trumbles left Africa, they migrated across the globe in a network of pathways that spread out like the branches of a tree, each limb of migration identifiable by a marker in our DNA. For male lineages, the M168 branch was one of the first to leave the African homeland.

Moving outward from Africa and along the coastline, members of this lineage were some of the earliest settlers in Asia, Southeast Asia, and, significantly, Australia, the Aboriginal Trumbles. Some from this line would even travel over the land bridge to reach the Americas. The Trumble who gave rise to the first genetic marker in our lineage probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania. My preference would be for Kenya, a distant premonition, as I have already put it, of gins-and-tonic on the verandahs of suburban Nairobi or in Happy Valley. The descendants of this rather blasé Trumble became the only lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African man living now.

Why did this Trumble and/or his descendants leave Africa? The first migrants probably ventured across the Bab-al Mandeb strait, a narrow body of water at the southern end of the Red Sea, crossing into the Arabian Peninsula soon after M168 originated—perhaps 65,000 years ago. These beachcombing Trumbles made their way quite rapidly to northern India and Southeast Asia, following the coastline in a gradual march eastward. One can see it, I think, in the satisfactorily Brahmin Trumble eyebrows. By 50,000 years ago, they had also reached Australia. These were the ancestors of today’s Australian Aborigines.

It is also likely that a fluctuation in climate may have contributed to our ancestors’ exodus out of Africa. The African ice age, as we have already seen, was characterized by drought rather than by cold. Around 50,000 years ago, parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to a savanna, the animals hunted by our ancestors expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Our nomadic Trumble ancestors therefore followed the good weather and the animals they hunted, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined. In addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there was a great leap forward in modern Trumbles’ intellectual capacity. Many scientists believe that the emergence of language gave we Trumbles a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn’t been able to earlier: all these allowed ancient Trumbles rapidly to migrate into new territories, exploit new resources, and replace or subsume other hominids such as the Neanderthals.

Branch M89: South Asia (hmmm) or West Asia, ca. 50,000 years ago

The next male ancestor in our ancestral lineage is the man who gave rise to M89, a marker found in 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans. This Trumble was born around 50,000 years ago in northern Africa or the Middle East. The first Trumbles to leave Africa probably followed a coastal route that eventually ended, satisfactorily, in Australia. Our ancestors followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East and beyond, and were part of the second great wave of migration out of Africa.

Beginning about 40,000 years ago, the climate shifted once again and became colder and more arid. Drought bore down upon Africa and the grasslands reverted to desert, and for the next 20,000 years, the Saharan Gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, our Trumbles had but two options: to remain in the Middle East, or to press on. Retreat to the home continent was no longer an option. While many of the descendants of M89 remained in the Middle East, others continued to follow the great herds of wild game through what is now modern-day Iran into the vast steppes of Central Asia.

These semi-arid grass-covered plains formed an ancient “super-highway” stretching from eastern France to Korea. Our Trumbles, having migrated north out of Africa into the Middle East, then traveled both east and west along this Central Asian superhighway. A smaller group continued moving north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans, trading familiar grasslands for forests and high country.

Today, geneticists have found the lineage in 1% to 2% of Pakistani and Indian populations. However, it is about 4% of some Austro-Asiatic-language-family-speaking groups in India. It is about 9% of some Dravidian-language-family-speaking groups in India, and it is 9% to 10% of male lineages in Sri Lanka. In Borneo, Borneo!, it is about 5% of the population. In Malaysia, it is about 6% of the population.

Branch P128: South Asia, ca. 45,000 years ago

The next male ancestor in our ancestral lineage is the Trumble who gave rise to P128, a marker found in more than half of all non-Africans alive today. This man was born around 45,000 years ago in the Middle East or Central Asia. The descendants of P128 migrated to the east and north, picking up additional markers on their Y-chromosomes. This lineage is the parent of several major branches on the Y-chromosome tree: O, the most common lineage in East Asia; R, the major European Y-chromosome lineage; and Q, the major Y-chromosome lineage in the Americas. These Trumbles went on to settle the rest of Asia, the Americas, and Europe; many others traveled to Southeast Asia. Today, P128 individuals lacking these additional markers are rare in most populations, and are most commonly seen in Oceanian and Australian Aboriginal populations.

Branch M45: Central Asia or South Asia, ca. 35,000 years ago

This Trumble traveled with groups in the open savannas between Central and South Asia during the Paleolithic era. These were big game hunters, and parents to two of the most widespread male lineages in modern populations, one that is responsible for the majority of pre-Columbian lineages in the Americas (haplogroup Q) and many others from Asia and Europe. Another one that spread farther into Asia produced the highest frequency lineages in European populations (haplogroup R). Today, Trumbles of this lineage who do not belong to a descendant branch are rare, and geneticists have found them most often, again, in India. These populations include such diverse groups as the Saora (23%), the Bhumij (13%), and Muslims from Manipur (33%).

Branch M207: Central Asia, ca. 30,000 years ago

Trumble M207 was born in Central Asia around 30,000 years ago. His descendants went on to settle in Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East over the following 20,000 years. Today, most western European men belong to one branch—R–M342—all descended from this glorious Trumble lineage. While it appears to have been one of the earliest to settle in Europe more than 25,000 years ago, more recent population expansions associated with the post-glacial re-population of northern Europe after the end of the last ice age, as well as the spread of agriculture during the Neolithic, also contributed to its high frequency in Ireland, Britain, France and Spain. One descendant lineage—R–L62—is common in Eastern Europe and India (again; are we detecting a pattern?), and was probably spread in part through the migration of Indo-European steppe nomad Trumbles over the previous 5,000 years.

Branch P231: Central Asia, ca. 25–30,000 years ago

The Paleolithic Trumble who founded this lineage was also a nomad. His descendants include two major branches that today account for most European men and many others from Central Asia, West Asia, and South Asia.

Branch M343: South Asia or West Asia, 17–22,000 years ago

The first Trumbles of this lineage lived as hunter-gatherers on the open savannas that stretched from Korea to Central Europe. They took part in the advances in hunting technology that allowed for population growth and expansions. When the Earth entered a cooling phase, most Trumbles from this line sheltered in the southeast of Europe and in West Asia. It was from these regions that their progeny rapidly expanded when the ice receded once more. Some of these Trumbles migrated west across Europe. Other Trumbles moved back toward their distant ancestors’ homelands in Africa, passing through the Levant (!). Through these movements and the population boom triggered by the Neolithic Revolution, these Trumbles and their descendants came to dominate Europe. Today, it has a wide distribution. In Africa, geneticists have found this lineage in Northern Africa (6%) and central Sahel (23%). Its frequency in Europe is at times high and at other times moderate. It represents about 7% of Russian male lineages, about 13% of male lineages in the Balkans, about 21% of Eastern European male lineages, 55% to 58% of Western European lineages, and about 43% of Central European male lineages. In Asia, most men of this lineage are found in West Asia (6%) and South Asia (5%). However, trace frequencies of around one half of a percent from this lineage are present in East Asia, our very distant Han Chinese Trumble cousins.

Branch L278: West Asia, date yet to be determined

While some Trumbles from this group traveled west into Central Asia, others moved south toward the Levant. Today, they are present in trace frequencies of less than 1% in Italy, the Ukraine, and the region of the Pannonian Basin, pottering about in their characteristically Trumblish way.

Branch P310: West Asia, date yet to be determined

Trumbles of this lineage strolled into Central Asia, Europe, and the Levant (!). One such Trumble branch has the highest frequency of any male line in Western Europe. However, rather than a single movement across Europe, this lineage’s branches may represent many simultaneous and successive waves of migration. Today, it is 48% to 52% of male lineages in Ireland. This comes as no surprise to us, for we already knew that our Irish great-great-grandfather William Trumble (1828–1908) emigrated to Australia from Ballymote, Co. Sligo, in 1841, aged fourteen. The family also had connections to the little town of Castlerock, near Lough Foyle in Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Their father, John Trumble, was evidently a freeholder, and their mother’s name was Ann (née Knott). John Trumble survives in the land records for two parishes in the neighborhood of Ballymote, Co. Sligo. It seems he paid a church tithe or tax for arable and bottom land, and what is unsentimentally described as “reclaimed bog” at Feenaghroe in the parish of Toomour, to the tune of £1/10/10½.

However, looking at the much farther distant horizon, we are now sure that Branch P310 also represents 45% of those in France—Les Trumbles. It is about 38% of the male population in Spain—Los Trumbles. It is about 8% of male lineages in Italy—i Trumble. It is about 5% of male lineages in Oman. It is 1% to 2% of the male population in Iraq and Lebanon—the Lebanese Trumbles. It is also 1% to 2% of the male population in Kazakhstan, the sturdy Kazakh Trumbles. Today, members of this lineage are even more widely distributed across Europe and West Asia. Yet they reached their highest frequency in Ireland where we and our descendant branches contribute to between 35% and 38% of the male population. It is between 1% and 2% of male lineages in Germany—Die Trumbln. It is about 2% of the male population in Croatia. It is also present in some paternal lineages from the Ashkenazi population of eastern Europe. Can this perhaps mean that certain Trumbles were in fact once Jewish, or, at any rate, proto-Jewish—because this almost certainly predated Abraham and Sarah by several millennia? Quite possibly, and, if so, how very wonderful!

Great Grandmother Susan Compson Trumble

On January 9, 1889, our great-grandfather John William Trumble (1863–1944) of Kew, Victoria, married at Christ Church, St. Leonards (North Sydney), Susan Compson, elder daughter of John Davies, of Leddicott, Lavender Bay (later Bayview Street, McMahon’s Point). Her death notice appeared in the Argus on August 19, 1938: “TRUMBLE—on the 17th. August, 1938, at Myoora, Irving Road, Toorak, Susan Compson, loved wife of John William Trumble. (Privately cremated on 18th August.)” Myoora was by this date a genteel guesthouse cum nursing home. According to her death certificate Susan’s parents were John Davies, “draper,” and his wife Jane.

Susan’s sister, Mabel Annie Mason Davies, younger daughter of the same John Davies, of Leddicott, Lavender Bay, married on February 7, 1888, also at Christ Church, St. Leonards, John Robert, eldest son of John Hardie, of Louisville, Darlinghurst-road, Sydney. Both ceremonies were conducted by the Rector of Christ Church, the Reverend Alfred Yarnold, an Evangelical veteran of the Church Missionary Society’s outpost in Hyderabad; soon to be rural dean of North Sydney, and chaplain to the Right Reverend William Saumarez Smith, Bishop of Sydney. Mrs. Trumble’s sister Mrs. Hardie died on June 2, 1938.

These shreds suggested to me at first that the Davies family arrived in Sydney aboard the Orient line’s S.S. Sorata on January 23, 1883, when they headed the list of Saloon passengers as “Mr. Davies, aged 60; Mrs. Davies, aged 57; Miss M. A., aged 21, and Miss S. C., aged 23.” Mr. J. S. Davies (aged 30) might be the John Stafford Davies who in 1923 was still living at Leddicott, McMahon’s Point, presumably a brother; there is also a Mr. Wm. J. Davies, aged 20, whom I cannot trace.

However, according to her death certificate, when she died Susan was seventy-five, and was unequivocally born in Sydney (having lived twenty-five years in New South Wales, and fifty in Victoria). If this is true, then it certainly casts doubt on the identity of the Davies family aboard the Sorata in 1883, where Miss S. C. Davies is several years older than Susan Compson Trumble. Yet (a) the age discrepancy is not large; (b) it may simply have been a point of vanity that Susan shaved off a couple of years in order to topple her future husband; it was far easier to get away with that then than it is now. As well (c), the Davies’s voyage aboard the Sorata may have been the final leg of an extended visit home to England or Wales; the family could have profitably migrated to Australia up to several decades earlier, or even more.

In any case, on Tuesday, July 21, 1885, the following advertisement appeared on page 3 of the Sydney Morning Herald: “WANTED, a good plain COOK and Laundress; references. Mrs. Davies, Leddicott, McMahon’s Point, N[orth]. S[ydney].” To my knowledge this is our great-great Grandmother Davies’s only surviving public utterance. Jane Davies died on March 25, 1890, aged fifty-three. Her mortal remains lie buried in St. Thomas’s Cemetery in North Sydney. John Davies died the following year, on August 26, aged sixty-three, and was buried beside her: thus further doubt is cast on the true identity of the Davies family aboard the S.S. Sorata.

Mr. Davies’s name (either as “John Davies, Leddicott,” or more often “Davies, Leddicott”) appears frequently in the Sydney Morning Herald right through the later 1880s and the early 1890s as the point of contact for sales and lettings of fairly modest properties in and around North Sydney, but in quite high volume; whether he and his son and namesake were agents or else shrewd investors and property developers is anyone’s guess, but I suspect the latter.

But then there is the draping concern: Was real estate merely a sideline, and did John Stafford Davies inherit not only the family home in Lavender Bay, but also a controlling interest in the family retail businesses also? Regardless, Great-Grandmother Susan Compson Trumble certainly had money. Great-grandfather J. W. Trumble spent a good deal of it sailing back and forth to England to attend the Ashes series at Lord’s Cricket Ground; drafting extremely tedious letters to the Editor of The Times newspaper about how groundsmen ought to maintain a good cricket pitch, and enjoying extended holidays with friends in Scotland and, in the teeth of North Sea gales, playing golf on rugged lowland links.

N.B.

For several years—incredible as it may seem—a tiny, somewhat Pooterish, but nevertheless intriguing question has been rattling around in my head for which I could find no answer, until now.

It never seemed important enough to justify expending any serious amount of time and energy on fiddly research, but since I have regularly asked colleagues (as casually as possible, because, let’s face it, you don’t want to seem too bonkers) and have consistently drawn a blank, I have become more and more determined to get to the bottom of the matter.

In a brief article for that superlative organ the La Trobe Journal (editor: John Arnold of Monash, a brick), I have edited and put in its context a remarkable letter of introduction that has since 1854 slumbered peacefully in the Public Record Office of Victoria. It was written in favor of Andrew and Georgiana McCrae by the Dowager Duchess of Gordon to Lord Hotham (the cousin of the Governor Sir Charles Hotham).

At the head of the Duchess’s monogrammed notepaper Her Grace scribbled the address and date: “Huntly Lodge [in Aberdeenshire, above] / N.B. / April 14. 1854”.

“N.B.”

No, not “Northampton and Bath,” nor (of course) “New Brunswick,” nor “nota bene,” nor indeed “Naphthyl Butyrate,” nor (God help us) “narrowband” (a hilarious suggestion from one of our young Yale graduate students who, but for this extraordinary lapse—after all, he or she knew that I was talking about an item of handwritten correspondence dated 1854—seems fairly bright in every other respect).

Finally, yesterday, with the effortlessness of the deeply learned, my distinguished senior colleague Emeritus Professor David Bindman of University College London and Harvard instantly came up with the answer: “North Britain.”

The old terms “North Briton” and “North Britain,” meaning “Scot” and “Scotland” respectively, came into vogue after the Act of Union (1707) but were thoroughly revived in the Regency period thanks to Sir Walter Scott, notwithstanding all that tartan, caber-tossing, and gloomy Scottish scenery in the Waverley novels—the bloodthirsty clashes of warring clans.

The use of “N.B.” in personal correspondence up to the mid-nineteenth century was largely confined to Scots of the Duchess of Gordon’s class and generation who were inclined to see Scottish national identity as bound harmoniously to the concept of a greater Britain, and not fiercely autonomous, nor indeed proudly anti-English.

It was especially useful when addressing northern English gentlemen such as Lord Hotham whose traditional tendency was to be deeply suspicious of anything and anybody north of the border. The closer to Scotland they lived, the more suspicious they often were, and, though not a borderer, Lord Hotham certainly was a Yorkshireman.

This quaint usage seems to have died out soon after Sir Rowland Hill’s Post Office tactfully pointed out that “N.B.” was too easily confused with “[London] N8.”

However, the story does not end there.

In an astonishing convergence of separate articles of correspondence, as different as it is possible for any two letters to be, I now find that as recently as 1926, our great-grandfather, J. W. Trumble, that well-respected Australian country solicitor and senior statesman of test cricket, wrote a somewhat leaden (and, it must be admitted, tedious) critique of the then parlous state of test wickets on both sides of the globe. He was just then on a golfing holiday in Scotland, and his letter to the editor of The Times newspaper, which was published on July 30 (p. 15), gives the following address: “Ugadale Arms Hotel, Machrihanish, Campbeltown, N.B.”

Trumbles in Fiction II

Ever since great-grandfather J. W. Trumble established his first legal practice at Nhill in the Wimmera, successive generations of Trumble descendants have practiced law in Victoria and elsewhere, and show no sign of letting up. However, there does seem to be some curious predisposition on the part of minor novelists to cast in the role of barrister and solicitor fictional persons who happen to be called Trumble.

As far as I can see, there is no evidence to suggest that Trumble and Palmer; Trumble and Hamilton; Mallesons, nor indeed latterly Donaldson Trumble Lawyers in Melbourne ever offered themselves as direct models for those few fictional Trumble legal practitioners whom I have painstakingly unearthed thus far, but certain resonances in the name certainly seem to be unequivocally “legal.”

It is possible that the influence of our kinsman Jonathan Trumble, sometime Governor of Connecticut (1769 to 1784), may have been a factor, although his rash and inexplicable change of spelling (well before the Declaration of Independence, to “Trumbull”) makes this seem rather unlikely. Nor were he or his son and namesake (the American soldier, patriot, professional artist, and second Speaker of the United States House of Representatives) qualified attorneys.

In a long article entitled “Murder of Late” in The Saturday Review (February 2, 1929, p. 137), H. C. Harwood offered a stern critique of Superintendent Wilson’s Holiday, an anthology of short stories by G. D. H. Cole and M. Cole (London: Collins, 1900), as failing to satisfy certain basic rules of detective fiction. These may be summarized as follows:

A crime, almost always murder, is committed in an early chapter. Suspicion rests on several persons. The chief investigator makes known the facts (or a great majority of them), but conceals his opinions. In the end the identity of the criminal comes as a surprise to the reader. Now, the criminal must have both motive and opportunity. To divert the reader’s attention it is necessary (a) to ascribe to some one or more persons a greater motive or opportunity, (b) to conceal the criminal’s motive, (c) to conceal the criminal’s opportunity, or (d) to conceal the criminal’s identity. The success of the author is to be estimated by the extent to which he does one or more of these four things without refusing to the reader information available to the chief investigator. That is all that matters. Wit, humour, elegance, sensationalism may make a good detective story better, but cannot make a weak one good.

The Coles are amusing but slight; the short story is not their medium. “‘That,’ Wilson added to Kingdon, ‘I discovered from a paper in the possession of Hirst and Trumble, and it was that which put me on the true trail.’” In other words, an essential piece of evidence has been kept from the reader but given to the detective and that will not do. The same vicious reticence recurs in other of the stories; where it does not, the culprit is obvious.

Cricket Reform

Several months after he wrote to the editor of The Times about the current state of wickets, on October 16, 1926 (p. 6), our great-grandfather J. W. Trumble submitted further unsolicited thoughts, restating almost in its entirety, but with embellishments, his earlier line on binding clays, and the heavy roller. No doubt the sub-editorial decision to publish it was borne by widespread enthusiasm for the game of cricket, but, in his slightly dogged way, J. W. Trumble manages to come across as interfering, certainly, but slightly bossy also. Nor was this to be his last word on the matter:

CRICKET REFORM

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—May I before returning to Australia, avail myself of the medium of your paper to supplement my remarks in my previous letter on the subject of cricket reform? I would like also to say that I am pleased to learn, on the announcement of Lord Harris, that the Advisory Committee of the M.C.C. is now giving attention to this matter. There is no doubt that the conditions in which the game is now played unduly favour the batsman as against the bowler, and as a consequence rob the game to a great extent of that attractiveness which was formerly its great charm. Only those of us who had experience of first-class cricket some 40 or 50 years ago and have since kept in touch with the game can fully appreciate this. We know that the groundsman now holds sway over the game, and that he has been encouraged by cricket committees in recent years, largely for financial reasons, to secure a wicket which, mainly by the introduction of binding soils and the use of the heavy roller, is little short of the condition of concrete.

As regards the composition of turf, I may here say that it is possible for the soil expert to produce almost any class of turf, and as indicative of this it may be of interest if I say something of the M.C.C. (Australia) wicket, and its preparation for Test Match play. A short time ago the groundsman, at my request, broke open the ground at the wicket, and went down to a depth of over one foot, and, as I suspected from its non-draining condition, I found the soil all the way down similar to what it was on the surface. This represented an accumulation of heavy black clay top dressing which had been put on yearly over a period of about 40 years. In preparing our wicket, after nursing it for some time, the groundsman, for about 12 days before play, proceeds with its more immediate preparation. He then floods the area, and, when the flooding gradually soaks in, leaving the surface of the consistency of putty, he knows he has the required moisture content to carry the wicket through the period of play, however long that may be. The surface is then worked up daily by the heavy roller, until at last it becomes of the hardness of a marble slab. After the cutter has done its work, an expert scytheman takes off most of what remains of the grass, and the heavy roller grinds out the substance of what is left. The final rolling puts a polished face on the wicket, preventing the spin ball from getting a grip of the ground, and the surface of the wicket assumes a coconut matting appearance.

Can one picture a more absurd representation of a turf wicket than this? It might be just as sensible to cut out all this toil of preparation and put down a permanent concrete bed. In the matter of spin on this class of wicket I might instance the bowling of [Bill] Howell, one of the greatest of Australian medium-pace spin bowlers. The condition of the wicket often beat him in the early stages of a game, but so accurate was his bowling that in time he wore off a patch of the polished face and then succeeded in getting on terms with the batsmen. I question, however, whether on the wickets as now prepared it would be possible for a medium-pace bowler to get in on our wickets as Howell did, even at a later stage of play.

This all goes to show to what lengths groundsmen can get in the preparation of present-day wickets. The position in Australia is rapidly becoming farcical, and should have immediate attention. You are interested in this country because you are concerned in Test cricket over there. The first move, however, should be made here. I have given to Sir John Russell, Director of Rothamsted Experimental Station, samples of the Melbourne and Adelaide wickets. He was much surprised that their appearance, and a member of his staff suggested that they resembled a substance with commercial possibilities unearthed in Scotland from which oil was extracted.

It is contended that the ball now used is to a large extent responsible for the non-success of our bowlers. While admitting that bowlers are to some extent handicapped by this ball, I cannot agree that the return to the smaller ball will improve matters very much. The wicket will still beat the bowler. One has only to bring to mind the great medium-pace bowlers of the past, and look for their class now, to realize the change, gradual though it has been, that has come over the game.

Assuredly the secret of what is wrong with cricket lies in the wicket. Let us discard the binding soils and the heavy roller and get back to the old-time natural springy turf, and with batsman and bowler on equal terms matches will end in a reasonable time, and, instead of being tests of patience and endurance, they will bring out those qualities of initiative and resource and the ability to rise superior to surroundings which so characterized the play of many of our great cricketers of the past.

Yours, &c.,

J. W. TRUMBLE

Four stumps or four days?

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.

J. W. Trumble (1863–1944)

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 Melbourne University, 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 Australian team, 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.