Introduction: The catalyst for this article was Ger Siggins' recent contribution about the remarkable innings by George Kenny for Dublin University 2nd XI against Rathmines School and the attached list of Irish double hundreds.
However the central figure in the piece which follows has obsessed me for many years; to be more precise since 1969, when I first read of him and his somewhat unlikely contribution to cricket history. As will be seen, I have not been able to uncover all the details of his life and would welcome any assistance on these points that might be forthcoming.
The year 1895 is one of some importance in cricket's long and dramatic story. It began with England, under the leadership of AE "Drewy" Stoddart wrapping up a series win in Australia, after a contest every bit as gripping as that of 2005.
It followed with WG Grace, having been thought by many to, at 47, be over the hill, not only becoming the first man to complete 1,000 first class runs before the end of May, but also becoming the first to reach 100 first class centuries.
The thought that Mark Ramprakash will very probably the last to reach the hundred mark, provokes a vision of the portly and heavily built Doctor tripping the light fantastic for the benefit of Strictly Come Dancing.
Such thoughts are best passed over!
1895 was also the season in which that great batsman, but terrible captain, Archie MacLaren scored 424 for Lancashire v Somerset, a record which was to stand as county cricket's highest for 99 years, until Brian Lara hit the English domestic scene.
It was also a season of historical importance in Ireland. The first ever first class match to be played in the country took place in College Park in May, between Dublin University and MCC, the hosts winning by 56 runs.
Included in the MCC side was WILLIAM COAPE OATES.an Englishman, who was, however, a captain in The First Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and currently stationed in Ireland. His performance in this match was useful. In the following game, when MCC took on Ireland at Rathmines, his contribution was modest.
However on 12 June, he not only hit 313* for his battalion against The Army Service Corps at The Curragh, but took part in an unbroken second wicket stand of 623, then a world record for any wicket in all classes of cricket. Later he appears to have become somewhat ashamed of his achievement.
He was born on 7 July 1862 at Beesthorpe Hall, near Newark in Nottinghamshire into a wealthy family with a strong military and cricket tradition. His grandfather, also William Coape Oates, fought with Wellington - a participant, it is almost certain, in the first recorded match in Ireland - in Spain and at Waterloo.
His father, William Henry Coape Oates, played a fair standard of club cricket, besides, in the fashion of local landowners of the day, pouring money into Notinghamshire CCC, which he served for many years as Honorary Secretary. He also had a controlling interest in the local newspaper The Newark Advertiser, an interest later maintained by William and his younger brother Francis. Francis, incidentally did play against Eton, as did William's son.
At Harrow Oates was a prominent cricketer, opening the batting for the XI on several occasions in 1879, and also, appearing against them once when the Lords and Commons XI turned up one short. However he was unable to gain a regular place and was 12th man v Eton at Lord's, something which was always a great source of regret to him.
Among those who did succeed in the Harrow XI of William's time was the Tasmanian, John Dunn. Later seen as the best bat in the Army, Dunn, stationed in Ireland in 1886, made 2,968 runs, easily the record for an Irish season, then and now. He had passed 2000 the previous year also. He was drowned off Taiwan in 1892, with almost all his ship's company, returning from a match which Hong Kong, where he was then stationed, had played in Shanghai.
Oates, stocky and powerfully built, was a right hander.He was mostly a front foot player, scoring by powerful straight and off drives.
On leaving Harrow, he embarked on a military career, entering Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, to prepare for The Army. Dunn was also there and the two linked up again in the Ist XI.
Dunn was a heavy scorer, whereas Oates was not. However it was the latter who was captain in 1881, the year in which he was also elected to MCC membership. In the annual match against deadly rivals, Royal Military College, Woolwich, Oates scored 131.
This was an innings of which he was very proud; it gained a place in his Who's Who entry almost 40 years later.
One might wonder why he, a much inferior cricketer, captained the XI. Perhaps the fact that Dunn was Australian and Oates a wealthy Englishman had something to do with it. A more fanciful suggestion might be that those responsible for the appointment had the percipient view that Tasmanian born captains tend to lose vital matches in English cricket!
Later in 1881, Oates, probably because of his father's financial investment, played four matches for Nottinghamshire in the County Championship.Apart from making 39, opening the batting in the second innings of his first match v Surrey at The Oval, he did little, though against Gloucestershire, he had the experience of observing a massive Grace innings at close quarters, as The Doctor, reached 182* after his side had been forced to follow on.
That season, and in the next, Oates also played a few non first class matches for the County. Against XXII Nottinghamshire Colts, he opened the batting with Arthur Shrewsbury, the greatest batsman of the day after WG, and made 22.
Shrewsbury, who took his own life twenty years later in the mistaken belief that he was suffering from an incurable disease, made 0!
1883 saw Oates an officer in the Munster Fusiliers and, two years later, the Regiment was involved in heavy fighting in the Burmese War, from which he emerged with the campaign medal and two clasps.
By 1893 the Ist Battalion were in Co Cork, where Oates turned out several times for Cork County, taking full use, as Dunn had some ten years before, of the benign turf of The Mardyke. In these run sprees, he was often joined by a private soldier in the Fusiliers, one Francis Fitzgerald.
MCC, as stated above, came to Dublin in May 1895.
Against the University, Oates opened the visitor's batting with HW Studd, one of the famous brotherhood, whose leading member was brilliant all rounder, turned evangelist, CT Studd. HW was also in the Army, he finished as a general. Together in this match, he and Oates put on 57 for the first wicket, thus recording the inaugural first class half century partnership on Irish soil. Oates made 22 and 25 in the match, but was unable to prevent defeat.
Against a rather weak Irish side at Rathmines, he failed twice with the bat, falling to two of the Hamilton brothers. In his first innings, again opening, he was caught by Oxford Blue and classic left hander Drummod of the bowling of left armer Blayney for 0. In his second knock, when he went in down the order, Blayney - always known as Bud - caught and bowled him for 7.
And so to the match at The Curragh on 12 June. It was, by all accounts though there are not many, a hot sunny day. The wicket, as it always seems to have been there was firm, fast and true.
Yet the Army Service Corps (ASC), on winning the toss, were bundled out for 51. Oates strode out to open the Fusiliers' batting. Did he, as some would be humourists, including this one, have fondly imagined, pause at the pavilion gate, to anticipate by 17years the words of his famous namesake and mutter, "I am just going out and may be some time?"
Be that as it may, he soon lost his partner but was joined by Fitzgerald. Together they set about a weak and rapidly disintegrating attack.
It became an exhibition of slogging, with the fieldsmen soon making little effort to chase the ball. Oates gave two chances, Fitzgerald, "several." Neither showed any other inclination to get out and give another batsman or two a chance to join in the carnage.
Whether the match was originally for two days, I have been unable to find out. Possibly the ASC, again anticipating historical events by some years, staged their own "Mutiny at The Curragh", and simply gave up.
At any rate there was no second day's play. It is difficult,at his distance, to disagree with the comment in The Irish Field 6 January 1909 " From we have heard it was accomplished in conditions bordering upon the farcical."
Oates, in particular, and the cricket world in general, seem to have shared this view. Unlike his 131 v Woolwich, he made no further mention anywhere of his record. His Wisden obituary, short enough in all conscience, does not refer to it either.
I have been unable to discover any further information about Private Fitzgerald, who finished the day on 287*. Their stand was worth 623* and, though surpassed as an all time record for any wicket in all cricket in a match in Victoria in 1913/14, and twice more by Indian schoolboys - one of whom was a certain SR Tendulkar - still holds fourth place in the list. It does, for what it is worth remain the Irish, and indeed European, record.
Oates and the Fusiliers fought with great courage in Boer War between 1900 and 1902. No doubt he found time for cricket, which was widely played among the troops and, indeed, by many of their enemy.
He was severely wounded and returned home to half pay and his Nottinghamshire estate. Here, he wrote his best selling book - for those who like that sort of thing - Wild Ducks. How to rear them and how to shoot them. It might be said to have been a volume based on a contradiction!
When war broke out in 1914, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel and became commanding officer of the territorial battalions of the local regiment, the 2/8 Sherwood Foresters.
These were the troops sent to Dublin to help suppress the Easter Rising in 1916. They were also the troops who suffered more than 200 casualties at the narrow Mount Street Bridge crossing of the Grand Canal as they tried to gain access to the city from Kingstown, as it was still officially called. To the best of my knowledge Oates was not with them, but was in France, though any clarification on this point would be welcome.
He wrote a history of the regiment at war, but I have been unable to see a copy. He was certainly at their head in France and Belgium in 1917 - 1918. He led them in some of the fiercest fighting of the war at Passchendaele in the former year, being himself awarded the DSO.
The following year he was promoted Acting Brigadier - General, and headed his men in action against the final German offensive of the War. He received two "Mentions in Dispatches."
The war over he returned to private life, taking an interest in the newspaper and becoming a Justice of the Peace.
He wrote the regimental history, and returned also, as long as his health allowed, to his old passions of hunting, shooting and fishing.
He died in the Bromhead Nursing Home, Lincoln on 20 February 1942.
Copyright: Cover Point
