Andrew Stoddart

Andrew Ernest Stoddart (11 March 1863 – 4 April 1915) was an English cricketer and rugby union player. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1893.

Cricket career

Born in South Shields, County Durham, 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 played 16 Test matches captaining England in 8 games of which he won 3, lost 4 and drew 1. He was a flamboyant right-handed batsman and a medium fast bowler.

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 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 August 9 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.

Punch celebrated the Stoddart Ashes win in 1894-95 with a poem which contained the lines -

Then wrote the queen of England

Whose hand is blessed by God

I must do something handsome

For my dear victorious Stod.

Seventy years later, David Frith used My dear victorious Stod as the title of his acclaimed biography of Stoddart.

Rugby career

A talented all round sportsman, like most men who have held the record for the highest individual score, he also played in 10 rugby union internationals for England. 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 union games and 6 out of 19 matches and drawing 1 played under Australian rules with Stoddart one of the outstanding players. He took over the captaincy early in the tour when the R. L. Seddon died in a sculling accident. In 1890 Stoddart again showing his openness to new ventures, became a founding member of the Barbarians, the invitational rugby club. On 27 December, Stoddart was given the captaincy of the very first Barbarian team, in a game against Hartlepool Rovers.

Later life

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 failing health and burdened by debt he committed suicide, by firearm, in London in 1915. A street in South Shields is named after him.

External links

• Cricinfo page on Andrew Stoddart
• Simon Wilde on Stoddart's 485*
• CricketArchive page on Andrew Stoddart
• Photo
• Biography of Arthur Budd with an England team photograph including Andrew Stoddart