England Take the Honours
History Makers—Part XXIII
What follows is the latest installment in our series on the inaugural women’s Ashes tour of 1934/35. The previous installment is here.
Exhibition Ground Brisbane. Australia v England (First Test Match)
Day Three: 31st December 1934
Close of Play: England won by 9 wickets. Australia 47 and 138 (EM Shevill 63, KM Smith 12, MEM Pedan 11, MF Spear 5-15) England 154 and 34-1 ( EA Snowball 18*, P Antonio 1-20). Match Attendance 6,000. Gate Receipts £394.
Shevil Digs Deep, but England gets home
Essie Shevill continued to dig deep to secure a 31-run lead, but she was the lone batter to get on top of the England bowling. Runs were hard to come by off the accurate bowling of Partridge and Turner. When Archdale brought on Spear, she quickly returned Pedan and Antonio to the pavilion. Shevill’s younger sister, Fernie Blade, played a couple of positive shots before being caught by Child, providing Hide with her first wicket of the game. When Anne Palmer, who had batted for 43 minutes for four singles, was bowled by Joy Partridge, the innings closed at 154. Hilda Hills, who had broken her nose on day one, could not bat due to illness. Shevill was undefeated on 63 made in 244 minutes, whilst Spear had bowled 34 overs with 24 maidens, taking 5-15.
England took 33 minutes to secure victory, losing only one wicket. Maclagan was comprehensively beaten by Antonio for nine. Snowball and Hide took England home when Hide hit Antonio for four.
Scoring with Grace
Grace Morgan, England’s reserve wicketkeeper, was England’s official scorer in the first test. She works for the Ministry of Health and captains the Civil Service Team. She said she would rather play than score, but kept the book immaculately with details that will help historians in years to come.
Morgan’s work can be seen here, courtesy of Women’s Cricket History.
Morgan would have to wait nearly fifteen years to debut in Test Cricket. She played her second and final Test in 1951 and remains the fourth-oldest test player. Morgan is the only cricketer to have scored, played, and umpired in Test cricket. She scored in seven Tests before making the first of her two Test appearances and umpiring one Test in 1954. She continued playing for the civil service until 1966, before returning to the scorebook for a few more years.
The Match Program
The University of Queensland published a review of the match program in 2014.
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