Heathfield Stephenson's All-England Eleven — The First English Tour of Australia, 1861-62

By the late 1850s Melbourne and Sydney both had thriving cricket cultures but no benchmark of English standard. Earlier proposals to bring out an English team had foundered on the cost. The catering firm of Spiers and Pond, freshly enriched by the Melbourne railway boom, supplied the capital that the cricket establishment had been unwilling to risk.

George Parr's All-England Eleven was approached first but declined; Stephenson then assembled a side dominated by Surrey professionals, the strongest county of the day. The team trained on the voyage out by bowling at a net rigged on the deck of the Great Britain.

The 1861-62 tour was conceived as a money-spinner. Spiers and Pond, who ran the refreshment rooms at Melbourne's railway stations, had originally offered Charles Dickens £10,000 to lecture in Australia; when Dickens declined they turned to cricket and offered each player £150 plus expenses to make the journey. Surrey provided the bulk of the side — H.H. Stephenson as captain, William Caffyn, William Mortlock, George Griffith, William Mudie and Tom Sewell junior — with Roger Iddison and Ned Stephenson from Yorkshire, Tom Hearne and Charles Lawrence from Middlesex, George Wells from Sussex and George Bennett from Kent making up the twelve. They sailed from Liverpool on 20 October 1861 in Brunel's revolutionary iron steamship SS Great Britain and arrived in Melbourne on Christmas Eve to a public reception that included a procession through the streets. The first match, against Eighteen of Victoria, began on Christmas Day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; an estimated 15,000 attended on day one and the three-day aggregate of 45,000 paid receipts of £6,000, enough to underwrite the rest of the tour. Stephenson's men won six matches, lost two and drew four, losing once to Twenty-Two of Castlemaine and once to Twenty-Two of New South Wales. None of the games were first-class, since the Englishmen always faced odds, but the standard of cricket was respectable and Caffyn took the most wickets. Charles Lawrence stayed behind in Sydney as coach to the Albert Club, beginning the chain of events that would lead him to captain the 1868 Aboriginal team to England.

“The Englishmen were welcomed with a fervour which surprised even themselves.”

“We had given the Australians the thing they wanted: a yardstick by which to measure themselves.”

Stephenson and his men returned to England as celebrities. Spiers and Pond used the profits to expand into the London hotel and catering trade. Lawrence's decision to stay began Australian professional coaching, and within two years a second tour led by George Parr was on its way out. Caffyn would emigrate permanently after the 1863-64 tour and become the most influential coach in colonial cricket.