George Harris, 4th Baron Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 England (Eng) |
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| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |
| Bowling type | n/a | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 4 | 224 |
| Runs scored | 145 | 9990 |
| Batting average | 29.0 | 26.85 |
| 100s/50s | 0/1 | 11/55 |
| Top score | 52 | 176 |
| Balls bowled | 32 | 3446 |
| Wickets | 0 | 75 |
| Bowling average | n/a | 23.44 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 1 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 |
| Best bowling | n/a | 5/57 |
| Catches/stumpings | 2/0 | 190/0 |
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Test debut: 2 January 1879 |
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George Robert Canning Harris, 4th Baron Harris, GCSI, GCIE (born St Anne's, Trinidad 3 February 1851, died 24 March 1932 in Faversham, Kent) was a British politician, cricketer and cricket administrator. He succeeded to his title in 1872, before which he was known as The Honourable George Harris.
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[edit] Early Life
He was born in Trinidad when his father, George Harris, 3rd Baron Harris, was serving as Governor, then moved to Madras when his father was posted to the governorship there. At the age of 13, the young Harris was sent to Eton to finish his education.
[edit] Cricket Career
Lord Harris was the second-ever captain of the English cricket team. He also played for Kent and Oxford University. He won two of his four Tests as English captain, losing one and drawing the other.
In 1878-1879, Harris led a touring England side to Australia. They played one Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground – the third Test ever played. Australia, led by Dave Gregory, won by 10 wickets. Later in the tour, a match against New South Wales led to the Sydney Riot of 1879 when an umpire employed by the English team made a decision against the locals.
Harris led England against Australia on three further occasions:
- 1880 at The Oval – England won by 5 wickets in the first Test played in England.
- 1884 at Lord's – England win by an innings and 5 runs.
- 1884 at The Oval – Drawn.
He played for Kent for over forty years, from 1870 to 1911, captaining them from 1871 to 1889 (some sources (eg CricketArchive) say 1875-1889, with no official captaincy appointment for 1871-4). He was President in 1875 and Secretary from 1875 to 1880.[1]
He had a long association with Lord's as both player and administrator. In 1862, aged eleven, he was practising at Lord's. It was not till 1929, at the remarkably advanced age of seventy-eight, that he played there for the last time, for MCC v Indian Gymkhana.[2] He served as President of the MCC in 1895. He was a Trustee of MCC from 1906 to 1916 and Honorary Treasurer from 1916 to 1932. Additionally he was for some years chairman of the MCC Finance and Cricket Sub-committees. It is therefore not surprising that it was written of him: 'No man has exercised so strong an influence on the cricket world so long...'[3]
In July, 1909 he chaired a meeting of representatives of England, Australia and South Africa which launched the Imperial Cricket Conference and agreed rules to control Test cricket between the three nations. In 1926, he presided at a meeting at The Oval, when it was agreed that 'governing bodies of cricket in countries within the Empire to which cricket teams are sent, or which send teams to England' should be eligible for ICC membership. The meeting had the effect of creating three new Test-playing nations: West Indies, New Zealand and India.[4]
Not all thought that he used his power well. Alan Gibson once wrote that he was 'an antediluvian old tyrant', though he later retracted this, saying that Harris was a more complex figure than that.[5]
In the 1984 Australian TV series Bodyline: It's Just Not Cricket, Harris was portrayed by Frank Thring. He is depicted as being a driving force behind Douglas Jardine's Bodyline strategy, while not understanding the seriousness of it. However Harris had died by the time that the 1932-3 Bodyline tour of Australia took place and, as the Wikipedia article on Bodyline observes, the TV series took some liberties with historical accuracy for the sake of drama.
[edit] Political career
Lord Harris served in the House of Lords as Under-Secretary of State for India from 25 June 1885, then as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War from 4 August 1886 to 1890 in the Conservative Government.
He served as Governor of the Presidency of Bombay in British India from 1890 to 1895. His appointment was not universally well regarded, with one anonymous writer penning a poem expressing the hope that Bombay would not suffer too greatly from Harris' political inexperience.
His governorship was notable mainly for his enthusiastic pursual of the sport of cricket amongst his fellow Europeans in the colony, at the expense of connecting with the native population. When the interracial Bombay riots of 1893 broke out, Harris was out of the city at Ganeshkind enjoying cricket matches. He returned to Bombay only on the ninth day of rioting, and then primarily to attend a cricket match there.
Many later writers credited Harris with almost single-handedly introducing and developing the sport in India. The game was, however, well established among the natives before his arrival. Furthermore, in 1890, he rejected a petition signed by over 1,000 locals to relocate European polo players to another ground so that the locals could use the area for cricket matches. It was only in 1892 that he granted a parcel of land to the newly formed Mahomedan Gymkhana for a cricket field, adjacent to land already used by the Parsi Gymkhana. His reluctance to do so is evident in his written comment:
- I don't see how we can refuse these applicants; but I will steadfastly refuse any more grants once a Gymkhana has been established under respectable auspices by each nationality, and tell applicants that ground having been set apart for their nationality they are free to take advantage of it by joining that particular club.
When Harris left India, a publisher circulated a collection of newspaper extracts from his time as governor. The introduction stated:
- Never during the last hundred years has a Governor of Bombay been so sternly criticised and never has he met with such widespread unpopularity on account of his administration as Lord Harris.
On his return to England, Harris again served in the Conservative Government, as a Lord in Waiting, from 16 July 1895 to 4 December 1900.
Lord Harris married the Hon. Lucy Ada Jervis, daughter of Carnegie Robert John Jervis, 3rd Viscount St Vincent, in 1874. He died in March 1932, aged 82, and was succeeded in the barony by his son George.
| Preceded by No Appointment |
Kent CCC Captain 1875-1889 |
Succeeded by Frank Marchant and W. H. Patterson |
| Preceded by James Lillywhite |
English national cricket captain 1878/9-1880 |
Succeeded by Alfred Shaw |
| Preceded by Honourable Ivo Bligh |
English national cricket captain 1884 |
Succeeded by Arthur Shrewsbury |
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Kynaston Cross |
Under-Secretary of State for India 1885–1886 |
Succeeded by Baron Shuttleworth |
| Preceded by Viscount Sandhurst |
Under-Secretary of State for War 1886–1890 |
Succeeded by Earl Brownlow |
| Preceded by Lord Reay |
Governor of Bombay 1890–1895 |
Succeeded by Viscount Sandhurst |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by George Harris |
Baron Harris 1872–1932 |
Succeeded by George Harris |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Barclay's World of Cricket - 2nd Edition, 1980, Collins Publishers, ISBN 0-00-216349-7, p170.
- ^ The Cricket Captains of England, Alan Gibson, 1989, The Pavilion Library, ISBN 1-85145-390-3, p14.
- ^ Barclay's World of Cricket - 2nd Edition, 1980, Collins Publishers, ISBN 0-00-216349-7, p170.
- ^ ICC History 1909-1963
- ^ The Cricket Captains of England, Alan Gibson, 1989, The Pavilion Library, ISBN 1-85145-390-3, p14.
[edit] See also
[edit] Reference
- A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, Ramachandra Guha, Picador, 2002.
[edit] External links
Categories: 1851 births | 1932 deaths | Old Etonians | Cricket administrators | English cricket captains | English cricketers | English Test cricketers | Kent cricketers | Oxford University cricketers | MCC cricketers | Presidents of the MCC | Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom | Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India | Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire | Governors of Bombay
