Andrew Ernest Stoddart (11 March 1863 – 4 April 1915) was an English sportsman who played international

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

for England, and rugby union for England and the British Isles. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1893. He has the unique distinction in captaining England in three distinct sports; cricket, rugby union and

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

Cricket career

Born in Westoe,

South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. Historically, it was known in Roman times as Arbeia, and as Caer Urfa by Early Middle Ages. According to the 20 ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, England, he was the youngest son of a wine merchant, who moved the whole family to Marylebone, London, in 1877. Stoddart made his reputation in club cricket and was playing for Middlesex by 1885. He was a flamboyant right-handed batsman and a right arm medium pace bowler. He played 16 Test matches captaining England in eight games of which he won three, lost four and drew one. His 173 at Melbourne in 1894–95 was, for 80 years, the highest score by an England captain in Test cricket in Australia. Stoddart was also the first England captain to ask Australia to bat first, and the first to declare a Test innings closed. Andrew Stoddart Vanity Fair 9 July 1892

When he was 23, just a year after his first-class debut, he was toying with the idea of giving up his amateur career in England to join his brother in Colorado. His plans changed when he took the record for the highest ever score in cricket at the time with an innings of 485 for

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

against Stoics on 4 August 1886. No declarations were allowed in the game and the Stoics, living up to their name, fielded all day without a chance to bat. Stoddart was seventh out, having batted six hours and ten minutes and clubbed one eight, three fives, and 64 fours. The runs were scored at a rapid pace – the score was 370 for 3 at lunch after 150 minutes of play. He made 207 for Hampstead in the next match three days later and on 9 August was playing for Middlesex and made 98, a grand total of 790 runs in a week. Stoddart was a man with a great zest for life in his younger days. He had danced then played cards till dawn before the Stoics game, batted almost through Hampstead's innings of 813, then played tennis, went to the theatre and turned in at 3 a.m. His next innings was against Kent when he posted his maiden first-class century in scoring 116. Seventy years later, David Frith used ''My Dear Victorious Stod'' as the title of his acclaimed biography of Stoddart.

Rugby career

Stoddart also played ten rugby union internationals for England, and captained England four times. During his footballing career, Stoddart was at the forefront of many rugby firsts. In 1888, with fellow cricketers Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury he helped organise what became recognised as the first British Lions rugby union tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1888. The team played 55 matches, winning 27 of 35 rugby matches. He took over the captaincy early in the tour when Robert L. Seddon drowned in a

sculling Sculling is the use of oars to propel a boat by moving them through the water on both sides of the craft, or moving one oar over the stern. A long, narrow boat with sliding seats, rigged with two oars per rower may be referred to as a scull, it ...

accident. In 1890, Stoddart became a founding member of the

Barbarian F.C. The Barbarian Football Club, known as the Barbarians is a British-based invitational rugby union club. The Barbarians play in black and white hoops, though players wear socks from their own club strip. Membership is by invitation. As of 2011, p ...

, the invitational rugby club. On 27 December that year, Stoddart was given the captaincy of the very first Barbarian team, in a game against

Hartlepool Rovers Hartlepool Rovers F.C. are a rugby union club who play at The New Friarage, West View Road in Hartlepool. The club play in Durham/Northumberland 1, the seventh tier of the English rugby union system after being relegated from North One East at t ...

Personal life

While on tour in Australia, Stoddart met Emily Luckham, also known as Ethel Elizabeth, a popular singer and reciter married to Bulletin journalist and Manly, New South Wales sporting identity, Robert Adams Luckham. In 1901, Emily left for Europe, reportedly for the good of her voice. She did not return, and her husband divorced her on grounds of desertion in 1903. She married Stoddart in 1906.

Later life

Stoddart and his wife lived in St John's Wood, London. He worked on the London Stock Exchange, then became secretary of

Queen's Club The Queen's Club is a private sporting club in West Kensington, London, England. The club hosts the annual Queen's Club Championships men's grass court lawn tennis tournament (currently known as the "cinch Championships" for sponsorship reas ...

. But like many wholehearted sportsmen, including fellow England captain, Arthur Shrewsbury, with whom he had opened the batting in Australia in 1893, he found life difficult after leaving the arena. In 1915, in failing health and burdened by debt he committed suicide, by firearm, in his bedroom in London. His remains lie in an unmarked grave in Radford, Coventry. A street in

is named after him.

Legacy

A portrait painted by Henry Weigall Jr, of Stoddart batting and

Gregor MacGregor General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central Am ...

keeping wicket, was given to the MCC in 1927 by W.H. Patterson, a MCC committee member. The identity of the artist of the oil painting was only reaffirmed in 2018. The picture regularly hangs in the Pavilion at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

Notes

References

External links

Cricinfo page on Andrew Stoddart

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stoddart, Andrew 1863 births 1915 deaths 1915 suicides A. E. Stoddart's XI cricketers A. J. Webbe's XI cricketers A. Priestley's XI cricketers Barbarian F.C. players Blackheath F.C. players British & Irish Lions rugby union players from England C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers Cricketers from South Shields Earl De La Warr's XI cricketers East of England cricketers England international rugby union players England Test cricket captains England Test cricketers English cricketers of 1864 to 1889 English cricketers of 1890 to 1918 English cricketers English rugby union players Gentlemen cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers Home Counties cricketers I Zingari cricketers Lord Londesborough's XI cricketers Lyric Club cricketers Married v Single cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Middlesex cricket captains Middlesex cricketers North v South cricketers Rugby union players from South Shields Suicides by firearm in England Wisden Cricketers of the Year Suicides in Westminster