Empire Cricket Booklet

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cricket's 'Laird': James Logan

DEAN ALLEN

colonial society, adopting both the social origins and values of fellow 're-furbished gentlemen', to use Cain and Hopkins's term, back in the metropolis. In this period of transformation, men of Logan's status 'took to paternalism as squires to the manner born, and tried to recreate abroad the hierarchy which they were familiar with at home'. 3 Despite his own modest working-class background, Logan aspired to climb the social ladder and successfully combined business and politics as well as cricket to achieve his aims. In many ways, James Logan epitomised the process of cultural imperialism forged between Britain and her far-flung colonies. Indeed the development of Matjiesfontein and the creation of Logan's own personal 'empire' is explored here as a backdrop to the influence that this pugnacious Scotsman had not only on the development of cricket but also on the politics and wider history of the period leading up to the South African War. James Douglas Logan was born in Scotland on 26 November 1857 at Reston, a small working-class Berwickshire town close to the English border. His formative years were steeped in a strict family tradition instilled by his father, James Logan senior, who, like many of the working population of Reston, was employed by the North British Railway Company. Robert Toms, in Logan's Way, describes a 1 The Ideal Colonist'

LOGAN, THE HON. J.D., an enthusiastic supporter of South African cricket, died in August. It was owing to his generosity that the South African team of 1901 visited us. He was the Laird of Matjiesfontein, where he had a private ground, and a member of the Cape parliament. 1

Introduction

James Logan's death was recorded in the 1921 edition of Wisden, his obituary listed alongside reports of deceased players, administrators and other servants of the game. Twenty years had elapsed since his prized team of South African cricketers had toured the British Isles. While it is fitting that a man who had striven to be part of the imperial game should have his contribution recorded in cricket's 'bible: this succinct summary failed to do justice to a lifetime just passed For James Logan was no ordinary man. Ambitious, determined and an opportunist, Logan had arrived in South Africa in 1877 at a time when British imperial intentions were focused upon achieving control of the region. As Victorian society was being redefined by public schools and cricket promoted as a 'sport of empire', the imperial mission for the colonies was the 'export of the gentlemanly order' with an emphasis on individual effort and the values of order, duty and loyalty. 2 This chapter will show that Logan acted out this role with considerable acumen in South Africa's late nineteenth-century