John Sheddon Swift (3 February 1852 – 28 February 1926 at

Kew, Victoria Kew (;) is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km east from Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Boroondara local government area. Kew recorded a population of 24,499 at the 2021 census. A city ...

) was a Victorian

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

er and Test match umpire. He played three matches for Victoria as a right-hand batsman, scoring 65 runs at an average of 13.00 with a highest score of 28. He also kept wicket, taking two catches. Swift umpired eight Test matches, and was the first Australian to regularly officiate. He made his debut in the match between

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on 31 December 1881 to 4 January 1882, officiating with

James Lillywhite James Lillywhite (23 February 1842 – 25 October 1929) was an English Test cricketer and an umpire. He was the first ever captain of the English cricket team in a Test match, captaining two Tests against Australia in 1876–77, losing the fir ...

. In 1882–83 he and Ted Elliott stood in all four Test matches, the first time two umpires had officiated throughout an entire series. Moyes commented that "apparently we had reached the time when some kind of qualification was required and some consistency in appointment was observed." This was the series that saw presentation of

The Ashes The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, '' The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first ...

urn to the English captain,

Ivo Bligh Ivo is a masculine given name, in use in various European languages. The name used in western European languages originates as a Normannic name recorded since the High Middle Ages, and the French name Yves is a variant of it. The unrelated So ...

. Swift's last match was between Australia and England in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

from 25 February to 1 March 1887.

References

* Pollard, Jack, ''Australian Cricket: 1803–1893, The Formative Years''. Sydney, The Book Company, 1995. () * Moyes, A. G., ''Australian Cricket: A History'', Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1959.

External links

* Australian Test cricket umpires Victoria cricketers 1852 births 1926 deaths Australian cricketers Melbourne Cricket Club cricketers {{Australia-cricket-bio-1850s-stub