Empire Cricket Booklet

viii

former Middlesex and Nottinghamshire all-rounder who represented Western Province), on discovering that South Africans were largely ignorant of the achievements of Aubrey Faulkner, perhaps the greatest all-rounder of his time, and the place he occupied in the country's cricket. This volume hopes to stimulate a new interest in the formative years of South African cricket, and to help shape the agenda for further research. A steering group in London, comprising Bernard Hall, Richard Parry, Jonty Winch and Keith Booth, together with Heinrich Schulze in Pretoria, were responsible for the genesis and planning of this volume, and it was at their request that we were brought in to contribute essays and to edit the final product. Many people have assisted along the way, and we would like to thank all of them for their help. Particular thanks are due to Robin Isherwood, who read all the chapters with his unrivalled thoroughness and attention to detail, and corrected statistical and grammatical errors as well as much else besides, and to Sharon Boshoff of Unisa Press, who has been exceptionally helpful in liaising with Unisa Press. Noel Garson and Graham Neame offered useful comments on several of the chapters, Carola Gruen and Krish Govender gave valuable assistance with the computer, and Hugh Lewin general advice. Cerillion Technologies Limited, London, kindly provided the steering group with a meeting room and hospitality on good many an occasion. Tony McCarron in Canberra, Australia, provided some important details on 'Krom' Hendricks, and David Rawdon, the new 'Laird of Matjiesfontein', was of great assistance onJ. D. Logan. For access to material, we are grateful to the late Major John Buist and his family who made available their private family collection on J. D. Logan; to Barbara Bailey for papers relating to Sir Abe Bailey; to Jeremy Haskins of Pretoria (the grandson of George Sennett), S. Terblanche of Hankey and Heloise le Roux of Pretoria (the granddaughter and great granddaughter, respectively, of Pieter de Villiers), Girly Elliott of Pretoria and Margaret Bell of

Kestell (both distant relatives of Thomas Hilder) for material on the Boer cricketers; to Adam Chadwick and the staff of the MCC Library at Lord's; to the trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives for access to the papers of R. M. Poore; to Dr T. Rogers of the Marlborough College archives; and to Michelle Pickover and the staff of the Historical Papers division of the Library of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for the minutes of the South African Cricket Association and other material. The staffs of the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale, London, the National Library of South Africa, Cape Town and Pretoria, the Johannesburg Public Library, the Surrey County Cricket Club Library and the Surrey History Centre were all enormously helpful. For his journey to Sri Lanka to retrace the steps of the Boer prisoners of war, Professor Heinrich Schulze was helped by a number of Sri Lankans and showered with much hospitality. Professor Michael Roberts supplied him with the contact details of various persons in Sri Lanka who, in turn, greatly assisted him while there; Chandra Shaffter provided important information on the match between the Boers and the Colombo Colts; Major Dun Serasinghe, second-in-command of the Military Academy at Diyatalawa, provided a military escort and access to a highly restricted military area in order to visit and take photographs of the Boer memorial in the prisoner-of-war cemetery; and Major Asela Hettiarachchi provided access to the military camp and barracks where the Boers stayed over a 100 years ago - access which otherwise would have been impossible to obtain. Financial aid for his research was given by the University of South Africa. The South African Historical Journal kindly granted permission to republish 'Abe Bailey and the Foundation of the Imperial Cricket Conference', as did Andre Odendaal to republish several photographs from The Story ofan African Game.

Bruce Murray and Goolam Vahed