Empire Cricket Booklet

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GEORGE LOHMANN

Like most tours at this time, it was essentially a commercial venture, rather than a mission to improve South African cricket. A huge discrepancy in standards was at times apparent: facing Ferris and Jack Hearne, XXII of Pretoria were clearly way out of their depth and at lunch the score stood at 17 for 16. 9 That match at Berea Park was well attended, but the lack of a decent contest at times kept the locals away. Some scathing criticisms have been penned on the match between the English team and the XXII of Country Clubs. The latter, in their two innings, only totalled 134, while four of the English team (two not out) made 201. The gate money on the last day amounted to 30 shillings -a striking proof of public disgust. 10 The one 'Test' match was played at Newlands, on 19, 21 and 22 March. A different England team was to start a similarly designated fixture in Adelaide within 48 hours of this one finishing. While simple logic dictates that there was no way both sides could be fully representative, 'England' - albeit strengthened in Cape Town by Ferris and Murdoch - won each by an innings, the Cape Town one by the rather narrower margin of an innings and189 runs. Lohmann's Surrey colleague, wicketkeeper Henry Wood, had starred with 134 not out batting at no. 8 in England's total of 369, and Ferris had bowled unchanged through both South Africa innings to take 13 wickets for 91, as the home side failed to reach 100 in either innings. There is little to suggest that South African cricket benefited, other than financially, from this tour. The gap in standards was just too wide. Over the next decade it was to narrow and George Lohmann would play a large part in that process. However, his first visit to the Cape was not, as it would have been on any of the three previous occasions, to play cricket, but to allow his health to recover sufficiently for the purpose of playing again for Surrey in 1893. The optimists were confident that Lohmann would be back in England, fully fit at the start of the 1893 season. It was unrealistic. The reporter from the Clarion who had interviewed Lohmann the previous summer was perhaps more street-wise and better informed in matters medical:

All cricketers and lovers of cricket will hear with profound regret of the illness of George Lohmann. To me it comes less as a surprise than a cause for sorrow, for when I last met Lohmann at Old Trafford I was concerned to observe the unnatural transparency of his complexion. I have seen that sign before and have learned to dread it. Well, George has gone to Africa, and we are told that he hopes to be back in May. I join in that hope. He will be badly missed by Surrey and by England, should he be unable to play. But May is not far off, and Africa is and I for one am anxious that so excellent a fellow and so sterling a cricketer should not return too soon.11 The costs of his stay in the Cape in an attempt to recover his health were met by the Hon. J. D. Logan, a wealthy patron of cricket in South Africa and a man with a colourful and interesting back gr ound in his own right. For his remaining days, apart from two less than full seasons in England, Lohmann's life was to be inextricably linked with Logan, with Matjiesfontein and with South African cricket. Although, in his early days in South Africa, an ailing Lohmann benefited from Logan's largesse, in later years he was self-sufficient, being involved as a professional with the Cape Town and Western Province Clubs and later, in 1897/98, in the same capacity, with the Wanderers in Johannesburg and, until failing health compelled him to return to the Cape, in a managerial position with the Johannesburg Waterworks Company. The Logan Connection It is possible that the Lohmann-Logan link was established through the agency of Walter Read, who had captained the1891/92 tour to SouthAfrica. There is no firm evidence, however, of such a connection and arguments for it would be weakened by the loosening of diplomatic relations between Read and Logan as a result of a lawsuit about the finances of the tour and perhaps by the fact that the professional Lohmann and notional amateur Read were playing colleagues rather than friends. Consequently, it is more likely that the common factor was Edwin Ash,