On Tuesday 2 February 1892, a 24 year old university student waited to be called on to the ground to field as a substitute for the Australian cricket team.
It was late in the afternoon of the fourth day of the 2nd Test Match between Australia and England at Sydney's 'Association Ground' (now known as the Sydney Cricket Ground).
The young undergraduate was obliged, however, to wait while the Australian captain, Jack Blackham, tried to convince the English captain, the redoubtable WG Grace ('WG'), that Hutton was needed.
WG was in a foul mood. He had allowed controversy to swirl around him even before the team had left England and then throughout an ill-tempered tour. Now, the Australians' request to take the field with yet another substitute fielder was, in WG's mind, like piling Pelion on Ossa. Things had not been going well either for WG or his English team ('Lord Sheffield's XI') which, earlier in the tour, Grace had claimed to be "the best team that had ever left England." Blackham's request was stretching the limits of WG's forbearance.
Multiple Substitutes
Why did the Australians need a substitute fielder?
Well, actually, they needed two substitutes!
Firstly, NSW's captain, left hander Harry Moses, had unwisely begun the Test Match for Australia. He had wrenched his knee attempting a quick run during the 1st Test in Melbourne only three weeks previously. It became obvious during the Sydney Test that running between wickets and fielding were almost beyond him. In the 1st innings, Moses had made a laboured 29. WG, however, refused him a runner. WG was in no mood to be generous. He pointed out that he, a doctor, had advised Moses not to play and now he was unwilling to allow a substitute to field for him. Blackham persevered and WG eventually relented. Blackham nominated Syd Gregory, a fine fielder, who was 12th man for this Test. WG dug his heels in and refused the request for Gregory. Blackham then nominated the Test veteran, 33 year old Tom Garrett who was in Sydney, probably watching the game. WG finally agreed.
But now came another Australian request.
A telegram from Melbourne had arrived on Tuesday morning. It was addressed to Australia's all-rounder, Bob McLeod, and it contained distressing news. Bob's eldest brother, Norman, had died of complications from pneumonia at his home in Melbourne on Monday evening. Bob McLeod asked permission to leave Sydney late on Tuesday afternoon, after he had batted in Australia's 2nd innings, to be with his family in Melbourne. When he came in to bat, the crowd of 12,500 fell completely silent and then lustily cheered every run of his rather reckless 18. He was caught just before the afternoon tea break and dashed to catch the 5pm Melbourne train.
Australia's hard-fought 2nd innings, when the seemingly immovable Alick Bannerman took 448 minutes for his 91, concluded late in the day with a hattrick to Johnny Briggs but without Moses batting. England now needed 229 to win, having been 163 ahead on the 1st innings. The game was slipping away from Grace's grasp.
Australia, however, was lacking Moses, injured, and McLeod, by this stage on the Melbourne train. Garrett was already on the field. Gregory had earlier been refused permission to act as a substitute while the Australians wore black armbands out of respect for McLeod's family.
Blackham had another idea.
A young Melbourne University player was in the crowd. He had played his first game for Victoria at the Association Ground the week before the Test. And he had earlier played in the Intervarsity match against Sydney University during which he'd dominated the game, scoring 68 and taking 6 wickets.
His name was Ernest Hamilton Hutton.
Blackham approached WG.
WG: "Is he a better fielder than McLeod?"
Blackham: "Yes."
WG: "Then get someone else."
So, Hutton walked back to take a seat in the grandstand. Harry Donnan, who had been dropped from the 1st Test side after two failures when he scored 9 and 2, was summoned. WG, with more pressing things on his mind as he was to open the batting in England's quest for victory, this time agreed and Donnan fielded.
Australia was reduced to two main bowlers, George Giffen and Charlie Turner, but they took a wicket apiece, including Bobby Abel who had carried his bat for 132 in the 1st innings, the first instance of this in Test cricket. England struggled in gloomy conditions until Turner induced a thin edge to Blackham from WG and England went to stumps at a disastrous 3 for 11. On the next day, Australia won convincingly by 72 runs and the "best team that had ever left England" was 2-0 down in the three match series.
Who was Ernest Hamilton Hutton?
Hutton had been born at Mount Rouse, west of Melbourne, on 29 March 1867, the second of three sons (William Joseph was born in 1866 and George Gerald in 1869) to William George Hutton (1835-1869) and Elizabeth Ann Whitehead who had been married in 1864. William George's family, originally from Scotland, owned extensive properties around Mount Rouse and important pastoral and merchantile investments. William George Hutton died when Ernest was an infant and his mother, with three young sons, moved to Ipswich in Queensland where Ernest was enrolled at Ipswich Grammar School from the early 1880s. There he was an outstanding sportsman, participating in Victorian Rules Football, Rugby football, track and field, pole vaulting and hurdles, tennis, cricket and billiards. At full height, he stood an imposing 6 feet 2 inches. Years later, he was considered to be the best athlete in the school's 'Team of the Century.'
In November 1887, at Brisbane's Exhibition Ground, 20 year old Ernest Hutton played his first senior cricket game when he was selected for the XVIII of Queensland to play Shrewsbury's English touring side. Standing tall and batting left-handed, he scored only 10 and 0 but, two weeks later, he was selected in a curious non-first class match for 'LC Docker's XI' against 'A Smith's XI' at the Exhibition Ground. The two sides, captained by two of Shrewbury's team, Ludford Charles Docker and the future star of movies, Charles Aubrey Smith, contained English players, Australian players and a few young Queenslanders. The game appears to have been some sort of trial game before the major colonial matches of the tour. This time, Ernest top scored in the 1st innings with a free-scoring 31. Then in the 2nd innings, in a method of dismissal that gives some indication of his approach to batting, he was stumped by Dick Pilling from Smith's bowling. He was considered "stylish" at the crease and a fine fielder. Many years later, he was remembered as "a slashing bat". The XVIII of Queensland played another game against Shrewsbury's XI beginning on 2 December. In the 1st innings, Ernest was bowled for 5 by Joseph Merritt Preston, a tragic figure from Yorkshire who was to live only two more years. In the 2nd innings, Ernest was again stumped by Dick Pilling, this time for 16.
Next year, on 14 July 1888 and 21 July 1888, Ernest played two intercolonial Rugby games for Queensland against NSW only six years after the first match between Queensland and NSW. Although he had been captain of Ipswich Grammar's 'Victorian Rules' side in 1883, by 1888 the leading schools were playing Rugby exclusively and his natural sporting talent enabled him to switch to Rugby Football with apparent ease.
A student at the University of Sydney
During these games came news that Ernest had matriculated to Sydney University with Class II Honours in Mathematics. So, he left Ipswich and his family to take up residence among 22 other undergraduates at St Paul's College, paying 70 pounds per annum for the privilege of residing at the College. His mother must have inherited enough money to be able to send at least two of her sons to Ipswich Grammar and then to cover Ernest's fees at St Paul's.
His enrolment in Arts I for 1889 made Ernest elegible to represent Sydney University in its various sports. He played the 1888-89 season in the University's 1st XI but he struggled against experienced bowlers from the other clubs scoring just 82 runs and taking 3 wickets.
In 1889, he also played for the Sydney University Football (Rugby) Club which was undefeated premiers and he was chosen three times for NSW, scoring a try in NSW's narrow win against Queensland at Brisbane's Exhibition Ground on 31 August 1889. He was the twenty third NSW Rugby representative from Sydney University. So, by the time he was 22, he had played Rugby for both Queensland and NSW.
Ernest began the 1889-90 cricket season with Sydney University, averaging 46 in limited appearances until November 1889, and he also played against Melbourne University in the annual Intervarsity match. He was considered the best all round sportsman at Sydney University in this era.
Melbourne University
Then came another remarkable change for this young man of extraordinarily protean ability. After playing for a Queensland cricket team in Melbourne in March 1890 when he scored 30 against the Melbourne Cricket Club, Ernest enrolled at Melbourne University although he is not listed among the undergraduates of the University, despite passing first year in Natural Philosophy. He was apparently a resident of Trinity College for whom he scored a double century against Queen's College in March 1890 as well as taking 4 wickets. In the 1890 winter, he played 'Australian Rules' for the Melbourne Football Club and Tennis for Melbourne University. In 1891, he represented Victoria in Tennis.
Felix, writing in The Australasian in November 1890, was impressed with his ability as a cricketer.
"Hutton, the Queenslander, is justly regarded as the best all-round man in the team and with his fine athletic frame he looks as if he would never tire."
During the 1891-92 cricket season, the season when he almost took the field in the Test Match in Sydney, he was playing in Melbourne University's 1st XI with outstanding success with bat and ball. This, and his grand match for Melbourne University against Sydney University, presumably encouraged the Victorian selectors to choose him for the inter-colonial game against NSW in Sydney when a replacement was needed for Jim Phillips who was in dispute with the Victorian Cricket Association. In Victoria's resounding victory, just before the Test Match, Ernest scored only two runs and took one wicket (Charles Richardson LBW) but he threw two run outs. In February, Jack Blackham's acknowledgement of him as an even better fielder than Bob McLeod, following WG's query, seemed to rest on solid evidence.
So, by this stage, aged just 24, he had represented NSW and Queensland in Rugby, Victoria in cricket and Victoria in tennis.
But, there was more to come.
Ernest Hutton seemed to spend only 1891 and possibly 1892, at Melbourne University.
A Queenslander
He next appears in the Queensland side once more but, this time, in a first-class match, only the second first-class game that Queensland ever played.
On 24 March 1894, Ernest took the field, at Sydney's Association Ground, for Queensland against NSW before meagre crowds. Batting at number 5, he easily top scored with 31 in Queensland's dismal 113 before he was LBW to Andy Newell on a pitch significantly affected by rain on the first day.
Not Out in The Referee considered that Hutton "shaped with plenty of coolness and waited for favourable opportunities."
NSW had a 47 run lead even though Queensland was without Hutton's bowling because of a strain in his arm. Queensland, however, rallied despite Ernest scoring only 4 in the 2nd innings before he was bowled by Tom Garrett. NSW then had 200 to win, a score they achieved when Garrett and Newell added 35 unbroken for the ninth wicket. Four of those who had played such significant parts in the 2nd Test of 1891-92 again featured at the Association Ground: Garrett, Gregory, Moses and Donnan. And ernest Hutton who had played a small part, off-stage, and who had been imperiously rejected by WG.
That was Ernest Hutton's last appearance in a major game of any of his sports. In a social tennis game during the 1890s, he slipped, damaging his spine, and this was the end of his sporting career.
Fading from view
From 1894 until his death aged 62 on 12 July 1929 at his mother's home, 'Warrieua' in Ascot, Brisbane, he fades from view. He is said to have been a civil engineer. He was remembered as a charming man with rare personal qualities although he never married. He left a substantial estate of 10,786 pounds. For all his sporting talent, he had an indifference and a "casual attitude" to games, never training all that diligently and refusing to take games seriously.
But for WG's foul mood, however, he may have taken the field in a Test Match.
JAMES RODGERS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Max Bonnell
Alf James
Pat Rodgers
Ric Sissons
