Empire Cricket Booklet

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JONTYWINCH

Province rugby for more than twenty years. Simkins was president between 1893 and 1905 and Smuts from 1908 to 1918. Particularly intriguing is the fact that when Simkins was elected president of the South African Rugby Board in July 1893, Cadwallader was elected secretary/treasurer. They were the only office-bearers in a committee that was made up by two representatives from 'each state, colony or province'. The year they were in office together was regarded as productive with the newly designated South African Rugby Football Board proceeding towards a new constitution and adopting the rules of the English Rugby Football Union. Cadwallader was praised for getting the 'Football Board into shape, financial and otherwise', as he had inherited 'a very muddled state' with books and records having been lost during the amalgamation of the Central and De Beers Diamond Companies'. 75 As press reports pointed out, there was no reward for Cadwallader, despite his sterling efforts to assist rugby during the year. Shortly after he left Cape Town to accompany the South African cricket side on tour in 1894, the Board's delegates used the Annual General Meeting to elect Smuts as the replacement secretary/treasurer. Cadwallader was not nominated again and effectively paid the price for instigating the 'Hendricks Affair'. After losing his positions on the two national bodies, Cadwallader came to terms with the fact that he had virtually no support base in the Cape. He relocated to the Transvaal where he died in 1897, a 'case of such grievous need' that a public fund was set up to assist his wife and children. 76 His old rival, Charles Finlason, had remarked earlier: '"Old Caddy" deserves all the kudos that may be given him and it is no exaggeration to say that for the next fifty years and more the cricketers of this country will have cause to feel grateful to the first secretary of the SACA.' 77 Yet, when M. W. Luckin produced the first comprehensive history of South African cricket in 1915 - a work of 800-plus pages - Cadwallader was not mentioned. It was an unfortunate, perhaps sinister, omission by Luckin, who was then secretary of the SACA and claimed to have 'collected very extensive records of South African cricket'. 78

thereby ensuring that Robb's motion was defeated 12-2. 7 2 Vivian Bickford-Smith has since viewed Robb's objection as demonstrating 'the intimate relationship between ideology and self-interest', but he was seemingly unaware that another delegate, Harry Hands, rendered support and voted with Robb. Hands was a significant voice of dissension as he was the secretary of the Western Province Cricket Club between the years 1896 and 1913. In this role he had probably been instrumental in arranging for Hendricks to play for the All-Comers XI against the club. Of interest, too, is that Hands would some years later earn a knighthood for his services as mayor of Cape Town during the period of the First World War. 73 An important outcome of the crushing defeat that Robb suffered was that the WPCU was forced publicly to confirm its policy of exclusivity and to stand rigidly behind a racial barrier in the form of its resolution. A Cape Times leader said that it was not prepared to say the Union was wrong 'to exclude colour from Union cricket matches'. It did, however, criticise the cricket authorities for allowing multi-racial matches in the first place: 'A general free mixture of white and coloured youth in games nobody here is prepared to advocate' and it should not be followed by 'the admission to white cricket of the few coloured players good enough to be played in Union matches'. The newspaper argued that the cricket administration had only itself to blame for its predicament, but that once the problem had been created, it should 'somehow have been managed in private'. It was regretted that 'Hendricks and his friends and the coloured population' might read the report on the cricket meeting and be 'prompted to bitter and resentful impulse, no nursing of grudges'. 74 The WPCU's attitude hardened towards black players, whilst its policies were replicated by other committees in laying the foundations for the development and entrenchment of racially divided sport. It is significant that the 'clique' that Cadwallader had condemned in 1894 was firmly in control of cricket and rugby until the First World War. Two of the hardline cricket leaders, Simkins and Smuts, were also the dominant influences in Western