Lieutenant Colonel Henry Maclaurin

                           Lieutenant Colonel Henry Normand MacLaurin

                            Born in Sydney 31 October 1878

                            Killed at Gallipoli 27 April 1915.

                            SUCC 1896-99

                               “...a man of lofty ideals ...”

MacLaurin is remembered at Gallipoli by a landmark called ‘MacLaurin’s Hill’.

He was a highly successful barrister, active in the militia forces when he enlisted on 15 August 1914, almost as soon as war was declared, and just over a week before his father died.

 Tony  Cunneen, who has done invaluable research into lawyers’ service in the Great War, has written about the NSW legal profession:

“While they were certainly members of what the historian Manning Clark called the “comfortable classes” they were also willing to forgo the security and safety of that class and give all their support to the cause of national identity and honour on the battle fields on the other side of the world.”

 MacLaurin played only two seasons for Sydney University CC.  In 1896-97, after scoring only 44 runs at 7.3 in 2nd Grade, he was inexplicably promoted to 1st Grade (1st Grade cap number 53) where he played another two games without distinction (15 runs at 7.5). In the season when the Club was readmitted on humbling terms to the 2nd Grade Competition in 1898-99, MacLaurin was twice selected in  the1st XI  (which won the 2nd Grade competition). An energetic 54 was followed by a non-descript 5 and he played no more.

A cousin was Ambrose Freeman (1873-1930) who played one 1st Grade game for SUCC in 1902 and whose brother, Douglas Freeman was killed at Quinns Post, Gallipoli, a week after MacLaurin was killed.

His mother was Eliza Ann (nee Nathan) (1846-1908) and his father was Sir Henry Normand MacLaurin (1835-1914), a Scotsman, Chancellor of the University of Sydney from 1896 until his death. He was also President of the Legislative Council, the Upper House of the NSW Parliament. A dominant figure in conservative politics, he was nevertheless admirably open to fresh educational ideas, especially those brought forward by the NSW Labor Government of 1910 which related to the reform of the Senate of the University. His second son, named after his father, was educated at Blair Lodge School Polmont in Scotland, a private boarding academy for boys, and then at Sydney Grammar School. Two other sons, Charles and Hugh both served in the War.

Charles was the father of Catherine who was in turn the mother of a prodigiously talented family including Alistair Mackerras, Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School from 1969 to 1989. 

After graduation BA in 1899 and admission to the NSW Bar,  MacLaurin carried on his work as a barrister from 11 Wentworth Chambers in Elizabeth St, specialising in accountancy. He also pursued a military career. Commissioned in the NSW Scottish Rifles in 1899, he eventually rose to command the 26th Infantry Regiment in July 1913. When he enlisted in the AIF, he was immediately appointed Lieutenant Colonel, commanding the 1st Infantry Brigade, a force of 4000 men. At 36 years of age, he was young for such responsibility but he wisely chose more experienced men to command battalions under him.

In a letter to  Justice David Ferguson (whose son, Arthur, a Law student who had also been to Sydney Grammar, was killed in France in 1916)  in March 1915, MacLaurin confided that rumours of the soldiers’ bad behaviour in Cairo had been exaggerated.

“With 20,000 men it can be easily seen that some would play up for a bit while their money lasted…”

He stood up for his men, attacking those civilians who were “doubtful and dissatisfied and critical”. Their accounts were “false and malicious”. Although he was a stern disciplinarian, he had a fine reputation among his men who respected his energy and enthusiasm especially when they trained under him in Egypt.

When orders of the landing at Gallipoli came through, MacLaurin was said to have “happily cancelled his leave and bounded smiling up the stairs to the General’s office to plan the attack.” (Cunneen).

During the afternoon of 27 April 1915, at about 3.15 pm, MacLaurin “was standing on the slopes of the ridge that now bears his name… in the act of warning soldiers to keep under cover when he too was shot dead…MacLaurin was buried by his men where he fell.” In 1919, he was reinterred at the 4th Battalion Parade Ground Cemetery. He was posthumously promoted to Brigadier General.

He was the fifth of the 337 from Sydney Grammar who were  killed or who died in the War. An extraordinary 2172 ‘Old Sydneians’ enlisted. (I am indebted to Dr Philip Creagh who has carried out painstaking and forensic analysis of the Old Sydneians who enlisted). There was widespread grief among the legal profession. A ceremonial service to honour him was held at the Banco Court on 5 May 1915 and special mention was made in the minutes of the Bar Association.

He was the first of the Club’s former players to be killed.

CEW Bean, the Great War's pre-eminent historian, and the grandfather of Ted Le Couteur, a 1st Grader with the Club in the 1960s, wrote:

“…a man of lofty ideals, direct, determined, with a certain inherited Scottish dourness…but an educated man of action of the finest type that the Australian universities produce.”

 James Rodgers

SUCC Players Killed in World War 1 and 2 - Lest We Forget

MEMBERS OF THE SYDNEY UNIVERSITY CC

KILLED IN SERVICE OF AUSTRALIA

WORLD WAR I

Major John Nicholas Fraser Armstrong,

(SUCC 1902-04)

died 5 July 1916, France, aged 38

Captain William Robert Aspinall MC

                 (SUCC 1912-14)

Killed 20 July 1917 in France, aged 24

_________________________________

Lieutenant Robert Anthony Barton

(SUCC 1914-15)

died 9 June 1917, Messines, France, aged 22

_____________________________________

Lieutenant Alan Russell Blacket

(SUCC 1913-15)

died 16 August 1916, France, aged 22

__________________________________

Captain Norman Walford Broughton DSO

(SUCC 1908-15)

died 10  September 1917, The Somme, France, aged 28

________________________________________________

Major Gother Robert Carlisle Clarke

(SUCC 1894-97),

died 12 October 1917, at Zonnebeke, Belgium, aged 42

_______________________________________________

Sergeant William Hilder Gregson

(SUCC 1895-1901),

died 14 November 1916, Guedecourt, France, aged 39

________________________________________________

Corporal Clifford Dawson Holliday

(SUCC 1914-16),

died 20 July 1916, Fromelles, France, aged 21

_______________________________________

Captain Roger Forrest Hughes

(SUCC 1908-13),

died 11 December 1916, Flers, France, aged 26

_______________________________________

Gunner Eric Neal Clamp Leggo

(SUCC 1916-17),

died 20 October 1918, France, aged 25

__________________________________

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Normand MacLaurin

(SUCC 1896-99)

died 27 April 1915, Gallipoli, aged 36

_______________________________

Private Alan David Mitchell

(SUCC 1911-12)

died 5 May 1915, Cairo, Egypt, aged 23

__________________________________

Lieutenant Alexander Roxburgh Muir MC

(SUCC 1914-15),

died 13 October 1917, Ypres, Belgium, aged 22

_________________________________________

Lance Corporal Clarence Garfield Page, MM

              (SUCC 1911-13)

Died 22 July 1916, Pozieres, France, aged 27.

______________________________________

Lieutenant Elliot D’Arcy Slade

(SUCC 1911-12)

died 30 March 1918, Villers Bretonneaux, France, aged 23

_________________________________________________

Captain Arthur (johnnie)  Verge

(SUCC 1899-1904)

died 8 September 1915, at Alexandria, Egypt, aged 35

_____________________________________________

Captain John Stuart Dight Walker, MC.

(SUCC 1904-07)

died 21 July 1918, at Merris Nord, France, aged 32

____________________________________________

WORLD WAR II

Captain Stephen Denis Foley

(SUCC 1934-37)

died 14 May 1943, at sea off the Qld coast, aged 27

_____________________________________________

Lance Sergeant Jack Thomas Garvin

(SUCC 1922-24)

died 4 June 1945, Labuan, Borneo, aged 43

_______________________________________

Major Llondha Holland

(SUCC 1920-21)

died 14 May 1943, at sea off the Qld coast, aged 41

______________________________________________

Flying Officer Jack Ledgerwood

(SUCC 1939-41),

died 21 September 1943, Steeple, UK, aged 21

_________________________________________

Brigadier Geoffrey Austin Street

(SUCC 1913-14)

died 13 August 1940, Canberra, aged 46

______________________________________

Captain Laurence Edward Tansey

(SUCC 1936-37),

died 17 August 1943, at sea near Bowen, Qld, aged 24

________________________________________________

Pilot Officer John Alan Traill

(SUCC 1941-42),

died 18 June 1944, at Gannes, France, aged 21

__________________________________________

Major Ian Firth Vickery

(SUCC 1931-39),

died 27 November 1942, Soputa, New Guinea, aged 28

MICHAEL FORBES - RIP (1952 -2021)

                                                                   MICHAEL FORBES (1952-2021

The Club is saddened to hear of the death, on 8 March, of Mick Forbes. He was 68. )

Mick spent 3 seasons with the Club, 1975-78, playing mainly 2nd and 3rd Grades as a right arm medium pacer and effective lower order batsman whose statistics are most impressive. He had previously played in the Sutherland Shire. He was popular with his team mates who appreciated his wholehearted attitude and his pleasant personality. 

The Club extends its sincere sympathy to Mick’s wife, Kerry, and to their two children.

MICHAEL FORBES  SUCC 1975-1978

 Inns    NO  HS  Runs   Ave      Wickets  Runs    Ave

   47     7    54   483  12.4       135    1932   14.3

James Rodgers

Lieutenant Elliott Darcy Slade

Lieutenant Elliott Darcy Slade
Born at Dulwich Hill. 27 July 1894
Killed in action. 30 March 1918

DUTY

A father writes about his eldest son:

             “...having seen where his duty lay, he did not hesitate to carry it out to his uttermost.” 

Duty.

His son has read, in his studies of English literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Voluntaries’.

                 “So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

                 So near is God to man.

                 When duty whispers low “Thou must”,

                 The youth replies, “I can”. “

The Commanding Officer of 33 Battalion writes to the father:

              “Your son distinguished himself throughout this difficult operation by his excellent leadership, his coolness and courage…such a fine officer…he set us all a splendid example. He won the love and esteem of the whole Battalion and we deeply mourn his death.”

 Darcy Slade was killed on the afternoon of Easter Saturday, 30 March 1918,  leading his men in the counter-attack on Villers Bretonneux. As he was just about to fire his rifle, near  Hangard Wood, a German bullet ricocheted off the rifle and “entered his brain killing him instantly.” He has no known grave. 

He was the first son of John Elliott Slade (1866-1940) and Ada, nee Champagney (1869-1945). His father was much respected as Chief Survey Draughtsman for NSW. His family had the small consolation of receiving a package containing Darcy’s personal effects and a suit case which contained a German bayonet. 

 Darcy played just three times for the Sydney University Cricket Club in the 3rd Grade side of 1911-12, scoring 12 runs and taking 3 wickets. This was the season when the Club won both 1st and 2nd Grade Premierships. He is one of the thousands who have played lower Grades for the Club without ever reaching 1st Grade. He is one of more than 2000 ‘University men’ who enlisted in The  Great War. He is one of the 17 Cricket Club players who were killed; one of twelve Law Students killed in The Great War. The hopes of a generation went with him.

 He had won a scholarship from Gordon Public School to Sydney High School from 1907 to 1911 and a bursary to study Arts at Sydney University in 1912. And so he played his three games at the end of the 1911-12 season and didn’t appear for the Club again.

 Darcy travelled from bucolic Wahroonga where he lived with his parents and their growing family in ‘Ellerker’ Cleveland St, first attending school at Gordon Public School on Lane Cove Rd ( now known as the Pacific Highway). This was the first public school on the North Shore when it opened in 1871. When Darcy was awarded his scholarship to Sydney High School, he travelled each day to the City and from 1912, he caught the North Shore line train to Milsons Point, then a ferry across the harbour and a tram up to the University on Parramatta Rd. There, he studied diligently excelling in Latin and English until he combined Law I subjects with Arts III in 1914. Darcy was awarded one of about 13 bursaries available at the time for those who wished to enjoy the advantage of a university education but who did not have the financial means. His father’s wage as a draughtsman gave him a secure job but his growing family left him unable to otherwise afford the type of challenging education that Darcy’s diligence and ability demanded. He had done particularly well in the matriculation exams for Sydney University in 1911, in some subjects with the future ALP leader, HV Evatt. 

By 1914, Darcy was employed as an articled clerk by SM Stephens, solicitor, at the ‘Citizen’s Chambers’ in Moore St in the city. He had earned himself the hope of a distinguished career in the Law. 

The declaration of war in August 1914 was a call to duty for young men of the Empire. So, a month before the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, Darcy Slade applied for enlistment. He’d served in the cadets at Sydney High and had been a Sergeant in the Sydney University Scouts. At 5’ 10” he was tall for his generation. His fair hair and fair skin made him look even younger than his 20 years but the faint moustache was a statement. He was going to do his duty. He enlisted in the AAMC without medical qualifications although recruits did serve in a variety of capacities in professional and non-professional roles in the Medical Corps.

He sailed in July 1915 on the hospital ship ‘Karoola’ but by September 1916, he was back in Australia, at Duntroon College, having transferred to the infantry. Then on 24 January 1917, he sailed again, on the ‘Anchises’ this time. Further training in England was preparatory to his promotion to Lieutenant in June 1917 and then onto France where he served at Passchendale  and Villers Bretonneux  from October 1917 until March 1918.

In Australia, the Slade family also farewelled their second son, Warren Champagney Slade, an old boy of ‘Shore’ School, known as ‘Mick’ or ‘Ginger Mick’ because of his red hair. He was aged only 18 when he enlisted in November 1915 and was to serve as a Lieutenant until 1919. He was then one of the oldest veterans of the Great War when he died in 1994, aged 97.

Darcy was killed in the same action as Lieutenant John Graham Antill  Pockley also of 33 Battalion. Pockley enlisted on the same day as his Wahroonga neighbour. He was the brother of Captain Brian Pockley, the first Australian killed in The Great War on 11 September 1914.

Slade and the Pockley brothers are remembered on the Wahroonga War Memorial which now stands in the Sir John Northcott Gardens adjacent to the railway station. Darcy is also honoured at St Andrew’s Church in Cleveland St, the same street in which the Slade family lived. The Slade family can claim connections through marriage with pioneering Australian families including those of Sir Norman Cowper and  Philip Gidley King.

Darcy Slade did his duty but Kate Atkinson’s words in  A God In Ruins (2015) should also have a place in his story:

           “War is man’s greatest fall from grace.”

James Rodgers

Nivethan Radhakrishnan Representative Selection

Congratulations Nivethan Radhakrishan on your selection into the NSW Metropolitan U/19 Selection!

Niv has 41 wickets @ 18.00 for the season and has played a key role in the success of both the 1st Grade and Poidevin-Gray Squad this season.

Niv was exceptional as captain of the PG’s Squad during our FDC T20 Day Fixture against Penrith, in which the Students won by a comprehensive 7 wickets.

Professor AD (David) Buckingham Obituary

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Professor AD (David) Buckingham CBE, FRS, FAA died on 4 February 2021 aged 91.

Professor Buckingham was one of the  most distinguished who have ever played for the Club.

An appreciation from the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ of 3 March 2021 appears below.

Professor Buckingham played for the Club from 1949 (beginning in 4th Grade in 1949-50) until 1953 (finishing with two seasons in 1st Grade), mainly as a top order batsmen and occasional off spinner. He made his only century in low-scoring seasons, when his 103 was instrumental in 2nd Grade’s victory over Cumberland in early 1952, the game before he was deservedly promoted to 1st Grade. He was awarded a Blue for Cricket in 1952.

When he studied at Cambridge University, he represented Cambridge in ten 1st class games. Although he spent most of his  years in England after graduation from the University of Sydney, Professor Buckingham continued to take a practical interest in the Club and was a Member of the SUCC Foundation.

1st class cricket 1955-60:

Matches Innings Not Outs Highest Score Runs  Ave    Wkts  Runs Ave

    10           20           1               61                349   18.4        0      43       - 

SUCC 1st Grade 1951-53:

Innings     Not Outs      Highest Score    Runs   Ave     Wkts   Runs   Ave

15                 2                    67no               501      29.5        0        11     -

SUCC all grades 1949-53

72                7                    103                1586     24.4         3       84     28.0

James Rodgers

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The Sydney Morning Herald - Wednesday, 3 Mar 2021 - Page 34

‘A laser-like focus on the forces of the universe’

Professor A. David Buckingham was one of the world’s leading molecular and optical scientists. He explored the fundamentals of physical phenomena as diverse as intermolecular forces (relevant to aspects of molecular biology and genomics) and nonlinear optics (intrinsic to laser-based technology and telecommunications). Based in England for most of his career, he was clearly proud of his Australian origins.

David grew up in Pymble with parents Reginald and Grace (nee Elliot) and twin siblings Joslin and Michael. Reginald and Grace had emigrated separately from England to Australia before World War I. Reginald worked for Dalgety and Company Limited, dealing with stud animals. Grace had trained as a nurse and was a pioneer of Australian baby health clinics. David’s unusual first name was in memory of Grace’s brother, John Amyand Elliot, who died at Gallipoli in 1915 aged 24.

David was sent to Barker College, where he excelled at cricket and on the rugby field . Both David and his brother, Michael, entered Sydney University’s faculty of science, where each won a University Medal (Michael’s in physics and David’s in chemistry) before they took their respective doctorates in England.

At Sydney University, David’s BSc Honours and MSc research projects were supervised by Professor RJW Le Fevre, a renowned physical-organic chemist. David’s cohort of firstyear undergraduates in 1948 was exceptionally gifted, including four who later became fellows of The Royal Society (FRS). Many of his contemporaries went overseas for doctoral studies before returning to enhance the pool of academic staff in Australia’s maturing universities.

In 1953, he was awarded the Shell Postgraduate Scholarship and chose to study for a PhD at Cambridge in the Theoretical Chemistry Department headed by Professor JE Lennard-Jones – a famous name in the field of intermolecular forces. However, Lennard-Jones was moving away from Cambridge and David was supervised by Dr John Pople, who was only four years older than he (and who went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1998). Together, they made important scientific discoveries that are significant to this day.

After gaining a cricket blue at Sydney University in 1953, David played rugby in Cambridge and English first-class cricket (1955-60 ). He later became one of the longest-serving (1990-2009 ) presidents of the Cambridge University Cricket Club.

After completing his PhD, Buckingham held chemistry lectureships at Oxford University with college responsibilities at Christ Church. Although primarily a theoretician, he also initiated key experiments at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.

There, Dr RL Disch and he accomplished an ingenious experiment to measure the electric quadrupole moment of carbon dioxide molecules. The ‘‘ Buckingham’ ’ is now the CGS unit (centimetre, gram and second measurement system) for this structural property of any molecule, indicating its charge distribution and strength of interactions with other molecules.

His equipment was moved to Bristol University after he took up its inaugural Chair of Theoretical Chemistry in 1965. It may have surprised the Bristol management that a theoretician needed more than office space, pencils, paper and computer time.

Buckingham’s time in Bristol was cut short by his return to Cambridge in 1969 as professor of chemistry and head of the Theoretical Chemistry Department, with a fellowship in Pembroke College. He attracted an impressive team of students, research scientists and academic staff to the department, establishing an enduring tradition of research on a variety of topics.

He lectured the main quantum mechanics course at Cambridge for more than 25 years. He aimed to make his lecture material intellectually demanding, challenging the most able students in the class. With elegance and clarity, he tended to focus on a single topic and treat it as thoroughly as possible.

His lectures were often attended by other academics who were keen to learn what they could from him. On one such occasion in Bristol, he asked his audience: ‘‘ Is that clear?’’ . The loud response from a senior colleague was: ‘‘ No, it is not.’’ Using his best cricketing skills, Buckingham played a straight bat and explained, patiently and respectfully, the point that his much-respected colleague had missed. This incident was regarded in awe by PhD students who were present.

His research expertise has produced discoveries ranging widely from basic physics to molecular biology and from materials science to chemical engineering, all of which are influenced by properties of individual molecules and interactions between them. Buckingham had the foresight to recognise many such applications far in advance of their practical realisation. For instance, the nonlinear-optical phenomena inherent in electro-optic processes that he pioneered, both theoretically and experimentally, are at the core of modern fibreoptical telecommunications and laser technology.

He also made a substantial contribution to scientific publishing as editor of several leading international journals in the field of chemical physics. At scientific seminars, he would usually ask a provocative or probing question of the speaker. He had a quick-witted ability to perceive the merit or frailty of an argument, but always behaving as a perfect gentleman – sometimes with a dash of the Australian larrikin. In 1973, at a conference in Houston, Texas, his fearless questioning challenged Dr Edward Teller, so-called ‘‘ father of the hydrogen bomb’’ .

Around the world, many distinctive honours and awards were bestowed on David. These included his FRS (1975), his Foreign Associateship of the US National Academy of Sciences (1992), his CBE (1997), and his Corresponding Membership of the Australian Academy of Science (2008).

Cambridge was his final resting place. His retirement at age 67 was marked in mid-1997 by a memorable scientific and social symposium at Pembroke College. He remained active in the university and on the international conference circuit for over 20 years after that.

Throughout his distinguished career in the northern hemisphere, David maintained active interests in Australian science (not to mention cricket and politics). A warm welcome always awaited him in numerous Australian research centres. His lectures and personal interactions during regular visits to Australia influenced many young scientists here, some of whom worked in his research groups in Bristol and Cambridge.

Enriching his life were his wife, Jill (nee Bowles), children Lucy, Mark and Alice, and eight grandchildren (one born in Australia). The atmosphere in the Buckingham household was always happy and hospitable. Jill and David had met in July 1964 on a trans-Atlantic liner bound for Canada and they were married in Oxford 12 months later. Jill, a physiotherapist, brought shared interests, astute guidance and unfailing support to their partnership of more than 55 years.

Brian Orr

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Alan Crompton 80 Not Out

On this day (28 February), 80 years ago, Alan Crompton (Crommo) was born in Sydney.

The Club, which is forever in his debt, now joins together to wish Alan the very best on reaching an age of much significance.

Alan played 1st Grade, firstly for Waverley (now known as Easts) and then for Sydney University, from 1958 until 1980, as a wicket keeper/batsman who scored 4768 runs in 1st Grade and took over 300 dismissals. In all Grades for both Clubs, in a playing career spread over 26 seasons, he scored 7266 runs.

But far more than any statistical analysis might reveal, one cannot think of Sydney University Cricket Club without thinking of Alan Crompton, one of the giants of the Club, who over the last 60 years has  so often held positions of deeply symbolic importance as he often represented the Club in much wider fields. He has always been able to mirror the Club to itself; to give expression to its soul as he stood for the highest ideals and traditions of the game.

In turn, he was Social Secretary, Honorary Secretary, a Vice President, a widely respected delegate to the NSWCA, President for 22 years and then Patron of the Club for a further 17 years.

He rose to great heights: Chairman of the NSW Board, Chairman of the Australian Cricket Board, Manager of Australian touring sides to New Zealand, Pakistan and India. And he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal, Life Membership of Cricket NSW, Life Membership of Sydney University Cricket Club, Blues for Cricket and Baseball. But his humility, graciousness and sense of service would never rest on these considerable laurels nor ever stand in the way of others. He is a highly valued friend to so many.

Crommo has set the standards in so many ways. The Club’s current position of success and the respect and regard in which it is held can be traced directly to Alan Crompton.

Alan, every good wish on your birthday and ad multos annos!

James Rodgers