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When the postman knocked...

The Madras Cricket Club Team, 1864 ; (below) Off to the Calicut Week races.

I have never started this column with my favourite subheading which reflects the fact that several people out there are keeping up with `Madras Miscellany'; but a couple of pictures which arrived with last week's mail are too good to keep for the end. I'm constantly surprised by the information — in letters, clippings, books etc. — readers send me, but the top of my list has to be today's pictures.

The first comes to me from R.Vaidyanathan, an avid collector of coins and other items. He writes to tell me the first Madras match outside the Presidency (Miscellany July 26), against Calcutta, was in 1864 and not 1865. Well, my team list from the Club records had it right, but my typewriter got it wrong. And then Vaidyanathan bowled me today's surprise — a picture of that pioneering Madras team.

The picture above is from The Illustrated London News of March 12, 1864 and the caption states, “We give above, engraved from a photograph taken by Mr.R.Smith, of Madras, the portraits of eleven members of the Madras Cricket Club who lately went to Calcutta to play against the Calcutta Cricket Club. Attempts had been made in previous years to bring the two elevens together, but were discountenanced by the absurd notion — still prevalent with some old Indians (meaning, old India hands) – that a good seat in the saddle or a good lift to square leg is evidence of an idle disposition in the members of the civil service. It required some courage to make the announcement that eleven men wanted permission to leave their Presidency for such a frivolous pursuit as a game of cricket. Fortunately, an old Etonian — Sir William Denison — was at the head of affairs during this cold season, and his experience had not led him to the sapient conclusion of Friend of India — “the better the cricketer, the worse public servant.” He kindly threw his influence into the scale, and it was mainly owing to him that the match came off (in January)…. In our engraving, Mr.Linton is the gentleman with a handkerchief about his head (neck, in fact) and with his bare arms crossed, who stands in the middle, being the fourth of the standing figures; Captain Beckley stands at his left hand.” Judging by the positioning of the players, I could well be wrong about Linton captaining the side; the player seated in the centre looks more impressive captaincy material.

Only these two players are identified, no doubt because Linton top-scored with 67 (including a five) and Beckley's ‘fiver' “deserved special mention.” Madras won the match by 61 runs, its 124 and 141 being replied to by Calcutta with 100 and 104, the match ending on the morning of the third day.

My item on ‘Canterbury Week', Calicut, had a good soul reach out to the archivist at the Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, and he did come up with the fact that the Calicut Week certainly existed, but why it was called what it was he had no idea. He did, however, think that it might just be possible that the link could be through St.Augustine's College in Canterbury, a training institution for Anglican missionaries, many of whom came out to this part of India. He also added that the Graphic, a great rival of The Illustrated London News, had on June 15, 1889, carried a picture feature and short-write-up of Canterbury Week, Calicut, a week of “races, balls and other excitements” – reflecting what I had said (Miscellany, July 26).

The six pictures — all too many to reproduce here — are captioned: 1) Some of the visitors from the neighbouring hills arrive at the club at 6 a.m. (and they are seen alighting from a covered bullock cart drawn by two bulls); 2) They all want their cut at once, so the Barber has a bad time of it (as the sahib waits, two of his bearers are seen dragging the barber towards him); 3) Preparations for the Canterbury Week; Ball-coolies polishing the floor (a dozen loin-clothed, beturbaned and bare-bodied workers are seen manually polishing the wooden floor of the Club's hall for the balls, while two others attend to a punkah); 4) The regulation pony, being over height, has his feet pared and his withers shaved (while owner and judges watch the booted and coated syces at work); 5) At the races, the man in the tub: “Have a shy, sir?” (watched by well-dressed Indians and planters and their wives, the busker urges a participant to hurl a light stick at a man in a barrel whose behatted head alone is visible); and 6) The road going to the races (bullock carts, horse-drawn coaches of all types, hackeries and planters on horseback all rushing to the races).

The brief write-up says, “John Bull, as every one knows, is fond of transporting his insular amusements to every part of the globe, frigid or torrid, whither business summons him; and so we find an imitation “Canterbury Week” established in a town only eleven degrees from the equator. There is a gay time in Calicut once a year during the slack season, when the coffee-planters on the Wynaad Hills have no work to do, and are waiting for their crops to ripen. Then they all congregate in Calicut and for one week only make the most of their time by having races, balls and other excitements.”

My search for information about a Dr. Lobo of ‘Sydapeth'; on behalf of Henry Noltie (Miscellany, July 26), has brought me an answer – from Noltie himself, who certainly appears to access better information about Madras in Edinburgh than we can here. It appears that the Rt. Rev. Michael Francis Lobo D.D. was Episcopal Governor (or Acting Bishop) of the San Thomé Establishment. And apparently the flowers were drawn not by him but in his garden by, very likely, Govindoo, the artist Cleghorn inherited from Robert Wight and who worked at the Agri-Horticultural Society. Apparently Cleghorn took Govindoo with him to the gardens of several other eminent people in Madras to sketch their flowers and other vegetation.

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