On 17 May 1895, in his 47th year, W.G. Grace became the first cricketer to score 100 first-class hundreds, raising the milestone in a Championship match against Somerset at Bristol. He carried on to 288 — his ninth-highest career score — and when he reached 200 the home crowd brought champagne onto the field for him to toast himself at the wicket. It was the centrepiece of an 'Indian Summer' that produced 1,016 runs in May alone.
Grace had passed his 47th birthday in 1895 and was widely thought to be in decline; his 1894 season had been moderate, and many obituarists had begun preparing copy. Instead he reduced his medical workload and committed to a full 1895 county campaign, telling the Gloucestershire committee he wanted the 'hundred hundreds' before he stopped.
Grace had ended 1894 on 98 first-class hundreds. He scored his 99th in early May 1895 against Sussex, leaving the County Ground match against Somerset as the natural venue for the milestone — his home ground, his county opponents, his crowd.
Grace had begun the 1895 season late, on 9 May, and stood on 99 first-class hundreds. The Somerset fixture at the County Ground in Bristol was his earliest realistic chance to bring up the landmark. He gave a chance early on the morning of 17 May, then settled and played through the day. He passed 100 in the afternoon to a long ovation; the Bristol papers reported that play was held up while spectators ran on to shake his hand.
He batted on. By the close he was past 200; champagne was carried out to the middle and Grace, never one to refuse hospitality, drank a glass between overs and toasted the crowd. He went on the next morning to 288 before being caught, an innings that lasted around five and a half hours and contained more than thirty boundaries. The Gloucestershire scorebook, still preserved at Bristol, marks the hundred with a heavy underline.
It was the headline act of the 'Year of Grace,' as Wisden called its 1896 tribute. He followed 288 with 257 against Kent and 169 against Middlesex, and on 30 May became the first man to score 1,000 first-class runs by the end of May — finishing the month on 1,016 from ten innings, a feat only matched twice since (Walter Hammond 1927, Charlie Hallows 1928).
Grace had eighteen Coalport china plates made to commemorate the hundred, each engraved with the details of one of his centuries; surviving examples now sit in the Lord's museum.
Grace 99 not out overnight; Bristol papers announce the morning's pursuit.
Reaches 100 mid-afternoon to a sustained ovation; play held up for handshakes.
Passes 200; champagne brought onto the pitch.
Grace toasts the crowd at the wicket between overs.
Out for 288 the next morning, caught.
Becomes the first batsman in cricket history to reach 100 first-class hundreds.
By 30 May 1895, completes 1,000 first-class runs in May — a first.
9 May 1895
Grace begins his season, on 99 first-class hundreds.
16 May
Match v Somerset begins; Grace 99* overnight on day one.
17 May, afternoon
Reaches 100th first-class hundred; play held up.
17 May, evening
Passes 200; champagne on the pitch.
18 May, morning
Out for 288; Gloucestershire post a heavy total.
30 May
Grace becomes first to score 1,000 first-class runs in May.
“He was the first to do it, and he did it in his forty-seventh year, on his own ground, against the county next door.”
“I shall never play a better innings.”
Wisden devoted the 1896 Almanack's lead essay to 'Year of Grace, 1895'; a national testimonial fund raised £9,073, the largest sporting subscription of the Victorian era. Grace's appetite returned: he played another twelve seasons of first-class cricket and would finish with 124 first-class hundreds, a tally not passed until Jack Hobbs in 1925.
The first 'hundred hundreds' in cricket — bowled at by his county opponents and toasted with champagne at the crease, all in his 47th year. Cricket's most documented batting milestone.
The 17 May innings is the single most cited day in pre-Test cricket's domestic history. The 100-hundreds club it founded now has 25 members. Coalport's commemorative plates have become collectors' items, with the Lord's set displayed near the Long Room. Modern statistical revisions briefly downgraded Grace's tally (Wisden 2018 reduced it to 124 from 126) but the 17 May milestone — celebrated in the contemporary press, the Coalport plates and Grace's own letters — is fixed.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.