Arnold Bertram - Richard Morais/Freelance Photographer

The 110th anniversary of the Senior Cup cricket competition in Jamaica coincides with the hosting of the ICC Cricket World Cup competition by nine CARICOM states. As Jamaica prepares to stage the grand opening ceremony of the third-largest global sporting event after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, popular interest in the event would certainly be stimulated by a reflection on that major landmark in the development of Jamaica's cricket which took place in 1897.

First English Goodwill Tour

It was with the expansion of freedom and leisure for the entire society, which came with the emancipation of slavery in 1838, that the "fine old English game of cricket" took root on Jamaican soil. It was brought by British colonial administrators and soldiers and on its arrival, the game was embraced by the local elite as an institution of imperial culture, for whites only.

On March 30, 1895, the first English Goodwill Cricket team to visit the Caribbean, led by R. Slade Lucas, arrived in Jamaica to play three matches against a local team led by Frank L. Pearce, who was also the captain of Kingston Cricket Club.

In the first two matches, the Jamaicans went down to an innings defeat. The night before the third match, the visitors were shown a good time and Jamaica won the third match by eight wickets.

Before Slade Lucas left Jamaica, he presented a Challenge Cup to be played for by senior cricket clubs in the capital city. He also made a donation of equipment to Jamaica's first group of black cricketers, comprised in the main of graduates of Calabar Elementary school, organised by David Ellington, a hackney carriage driver. In deference to their sponsor, the group who had previously called themselves the Jamaica Cricket Club renamed their club Lucas. Within two decades, Calabar Elementary would also produce J. K. Holt, Sr., the 'W.G. Grace' of Jamaican cricket and George Alphonso Headley, the first genius to emerge in West Indies cricket.

Kingston Cricket Club

Occupying pride of place among the five clubs competing for the Senior Cup in the inaugural year, was the Kingston Cricket Club, established in January 1863 by the elite of colonial society in the hall of the Collegiate School on Hanover Street. Among the founders were Laurie R. Fyfe, colonial secretary; James Allwood, assistant colonial secretary; A. H. Miles, collector general of Jamaica; and, Thomas Harty, canon of The Church of England in Jamaica. The club's patron was the Lieutenant Governor, Edward Eyre, who became governor two years later and presided over the most ruthless repression of the Morant Bay Rebellion.

The Kingston Cricket Club was the best prepared for the competition. They had the services of a professional English coach, S.B. Lohmann in 1894, and were one of the few clubs with a home ground, having acquired Sabina Park in July 1880. The affiliation of the Collegiate School in 1881 guaranteed a nursery of young cricketers from the institution that produced most of Jamaica's cricketers in the 19th century.

The club's team included 10 of the 11 players who played for Jamaica in the first match against Slade Lucas' English Goodwill Team of 1895. Among these were Captain A.M. Byng, the leading run-getter in both 1896 and 1897; C.R. Chandler, the finest bowler in the island; and, W.G. Farquharson, one of the seven Jamaicans included in the West Indies Cricket Team which toured Canada and United States in 1886.

Kensington Cricket Club

The cricketers who registered Kensington Cricket Club in 1879 began as the St. Andrew Juniors, a group of students of St. George's College who left with their headmaster, Father Jaeckel, to establish the Marie Villa School at 37 Duke Street, in September 1877. Among these young cricketers were J.M. Burke, S.C. Cargill, Ernest DaCosta and Dr. J.F. Cargill, who gave a part of his property in Camperdown for their playing field. In 1881, the club moved to Emerald Park on North Street and Cosmo Lorenzo Dicks succeeded E.G. Orrett as captain.

The Dicks family owned a property in St. Catherine called Kensington, hence the name change from St. Andrew Juniors to Kensington.

Coming into the competition, Kensington certainly had the most enthusiastic group of cricketers, including two of the finest young cricketers in the island, J.J. Cameron and G.V. Livingston.

In the two decades preceding the start of Senior Cup Cricket in 1897, the record shows that they played 202 matches, winning 125, losing 61 and drawing 16.

Melbourne Cricket Club

Melbourne, the third cricket club in the island's capital, was registered on May 3, 1892. Its membership described their club as being open to "men of modest means", and set a membership fee of five shillings. The founding members gathered at 68 Hanover Street, the home of Thomas Gunter, a manager of the railway, to launch the club. The captain of Melbourne, Major G.S. Cox, was already a major figure in Jamaica's cricket and included on Melbourne's team were M.M. Kerr, Jamaica's batting stylist, his brother E.A. Kerr and G.V. Brandon.

The Garrison Cricket Club

The Garrison Cricket Club was formed by the British soldiers organised in the West India Regiments stationed at Up Park Camp and Port Royal. The Garrison Club had played the game more continuously than any other institution since the introduction of cricket to Jamaica. However, its strength fluctuated with the quality of the players serving in the West India Regiment at any particular time. It was a team of officers who represented the Garrison in the competition. Their 13 players registered for the Senior Cup Competition included nine lieutenants, three captains and one private. In Lieutenant Travers, they had one of the finest all-rounders playing cricket in Jamaica.

St. George's Cricket Club

The St. George's Cricket Club came into existence the year preceding the competition, and played their cricket on part of the Paradise Pen property which was renamed Clovelly Park. C.P. Hurditch was the first captain. Unfortunately, the club remained in existence for only one year, after which most of its members transferred to the Kingston Cricket Club.

The Exclusion of Blacks

Not one black cricketer was on any of the five teams competing in the inaugural year of the Senior Cup competition since none of the clubs offered membership to blacks. There were certainly black players of quality in the city. The previous year Lucas had defeated Kensington in a practice match, but in 1897, cricket at the highest level was still the exclusive pastime of a white ruling elite.

Excluded from the official game, black people played with limited resources among themselves. As one contemporary observer remarked: "Black people are particularly enthusiastic about the game. It is quite common to see tiny, black children, innocent of clothing, indulging in it, with all the assurance of their elders, using, however, sugar canes for wickets, coconut palm leaf for a bat and whatever they can lay hands on for a ball."

The Competition

Given the extent to which cricket shared the same social space as Christianity and classical education in the self-imposed mission of Victorian England to "civilize" the colonies, it was hardly a coincidence that the inaugural year of the competition was also the year in which Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was celebrated. Every church in the island held special services in honour of the Queen, and some 30,000 persons witnessed the unveiling of her statue. Commemorative medals were distributed to school children and bonfires blazed on hilltops throughout rural Jamaica.

It was against the backdrop of Her Majesty's loyal subjects demonstrating their love of the monarchy and fidelity to the Empire that the first Senior Cup competition began. The one-inning matches were played on Saturday afternoons with the overs limited to five balls.

The local elite dressed in their fineries, travelled by horse and buggy to the matches where the governor himself was often in attendance. At Up Park Camp, the military band played and drinks were served.

Kingston won the cup in the inaugural year and was the only team to pass 200 runs in an innings. The champion bowling attack of Chandler, Verley and the captain, F. L. Pearce, was just too much for the opposition. G.V. Livingston, the Kensington medium pacer, was the outstanding bowler of the competition, collecting 21 wickets in the four matches.

The competition immediately energised club cricket. Training became far more focused, recruitment became more systematic as clubs eagerly drafted graduates from the existing secondary schools who could now look forward to a continuation of their cricket careers within an organized framework.

The island's leading newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, provided its readership with the results of the games as well as an extended commentary which focused interest not only on the results, but on the personalities as well.

The old game played at leisure with eternal intervals for drinks and tea was about to be replaced by a far more competitive approach. In 1901, Lucas' team of black cricketers was admitted to the competition, and three years later, in 1904, recorded the first of three successive wins in the Senior Cup Competition.

Arnold Bertram is a historian and former Parliamentarian and author of a forthcoming publication, 'A History of Cricket in Jamaica'. Email: redev.atb@gmail.com.