William Gilbert Grace, the Victorian giant who had effectively invented modern batsmanship and dominated English cricket for forty years, died at his home in Mottingham on 23 October 1915. He was 67. The Zeppelin raids over London in his final weeks were said by family to have agitated him beyond endurance.
Grace had played for Gloucestershire and England, captained both, scored 54,000 first-class runs and taken nearly 3,000 wickets. He played his last Test in 1899 at the age of 50.
Grace had been in declining health through 1915. The first German airship raid on London came on 31 May 1915; further raids continued through the summer and autumn.
Grace's last competitive innings had been in 1914, for Eltham against Grove Park, at the age of 66. By 1915 his health was failing. Family lore — repeated by his nephew and by writers including A.A. Thomson — held that the Zeppelin raids over south London in September and October 1915 distressed Grace enormously; he was said to have shaken his fist at the sky and shouted at the German airships. Whether or not the raids hastened his end, he suffered a stroke on 9 October and a second, fatal one on 23 October at his home, Fairmount, in Mottingham. He was buried at Beckenham Cemetery on 26 October. Wisden's obituary the following spring ran to many thousands of words. With Trumper having died in June and the Test cricketing world otherwise consumed by the war, Grace's passing felt like the closing of an era. He had been the dominant figure in cricket since 1865; almost no one playing in 1915 could remember a time before him.
1914: Grace's last competitive innings, aged 66
Summer-Autumn 1915: London Zeppelin raids reportedly agitate him
9 October 1915: Suffers a stroke
23 October 1915: Dies at Fairmount, Mottingham
26 October 1915: Buried at Beckenham Cemetery
1848
WG Grace born at Downend, Bristol
1865
First-class debut for Gentlemen of the South
1899
Last Test appearance, against Australia at Trent Bridge
1914
Final competitive innings for Eltham
23 Oct 1915
Dies at home in Mottingham, aged 67
“He revolutionised cricket. He turned it from an accomplishment into a science.”
Tributes came from every cricketing nation despite the war. The MCC held a memorial service at St Paul's. A statue was eventually erected at Lord's; the Grace Gates at the ground bear his name.
The greatest figure of Victorian cricket dead at 67, his end reportedly hastened by the Zeppelin raids on London.
Grace's contribution to cricket is impossible to summarise: he made batting an attacking craft, he gave the professional game its first nationally famous figure, and his beard remains the most recognisable face in the sport's history. Wisden's 1916 obituary called him 'the most famous cricketer of all time' — a verdict English cricket has never seriously revisited.
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.