Thornburgh 1929 Ashes cricket bat mystery solved

The Maurice Leyland Yorkshire and All England X1 signed cricket bat, made by WM Sykes in London, had been hiding in plain sight at the college for at least the past 66 years, being used by boarders in the hallway and stored with cadet rifles along the way.

Former Thornburgh College staff member and cricket enthusiast Ian Doyle OAM first saw the bat in 1980, immediately recognising many of the signatures.

"This was no ordinary piece of historic Australian cricket memorabilia," he said. "The 23 signatures include many of the legends of Australian and English cricket from the 1920s and 30s."

They includes England players Jardine, Larwood, Hobbs and Hammond, and Australian players Bradman, Woodfull, Oldfield, Kippax and AA Jackson.

Getting to the bottom of where the bat came from and how it came to be in Charters Towers took more than 40 years to solve.

Mr Doyle said the era the bat was signed wasn't difficult to work out but the specific test match proved to be a greater challenge.

"A thorough and forensic investigation and many hours trawling through team lists, eliminating impossible combinations and identifying test debutants, all added to the intrigue," he said.

Flamboyant England captain Percy Chapman was identified as the owner of the bat, because it was a common practice for the owner to sign the back shoulder.

Bat signing was a regular occurrence and bat sales provided team and player funds.

"The key (to which test match it had been signed after) was identifying the three Australian test debutante bowler signatures of Wall, Hornibrook and Halifax on the bat," Mr Doyle said. "It had to be the 5^th Test played at the MCG in Melbourne between March 8 and 16, 1929, which Australia won by five wickets."

The test, completed over eight playing days, is now in the record books as the longest timeless test played between England and Australia.

Before that, Australia lost the first four tests and the Ashes, and the signatures hint at the history embodied within the scarred piece of timber.

The loss in Brisbane in the 1^st Test of the 1928/29 series, by a record 675 runs, was Don Bradman's debut test.

Australia was bowled out on a very 'sticky' wicket for just 66 runs in the second innings. They had been set an impossible total of 742 to win.

Bradman scored 18 and 1 and was dropped for the first and only time in his career.

He was reinstated for the 3^rd Test and scored 79 and 112, the first of his 29 test centuries over his 20-year career.

The 4^th Test in Adelaide was also won by England by just 14 runs. With a win likely for Australia, Bradman was run out on 58 for the first and only time in his career.

Archie Jackson, who made his test debut in this test, opened the innings with Bill Woodfull, at the age of 19 years and 7 months.

He scored 164 runs and still holds the record for the youngest player to score a century on debut in an Ashes series.

At the time, Jackson was considered by some a better young batting prospect than Bradman. Jackson tragically died from leukemia less than four years later.

Australia lost the 1928/29 series 4-1.

The Thornburgh Bat 5^th Test in Melbourne was won by Australia by five wickets.

Bradman scored 123 in the 1st innings and was 37 not out when Australian captain Jack Ryder hit the winning run. The Bradman era had begun.

"Once we had worked out at which test the bat had been signed, the next question to answer was, how did it get to the college," Ian Doyle said.

A statewide newspaper story in 1980 resulted in a number of people claiming the bat. None could conclusively prove ownership.

The 1980 story and further investigations in recent months identified the Anning family, pastoralists from north of Pentland, west of Charters Towers, as the donors of the 1928/29 5th Test Ashes bat to the college.

"While there is still some uncertainty about when the bat arrived at the college, there is no doubt that a member of the 1930 Thornburgh College 1st XI cricket team, Bev Anning gave the bat to the college," Mr Doyle said.

"Bev's cricket tragic father Frank Anning procured the bat on a business/cricket trip to Melbourne in 1929.

"When Frank died in 1943, his only son Bev inherited the bat and as Bev's two sons Frank and Mick weren't particularly interested in cricket, Bev gave the bat to Thornburgh, date uncertain."

Mr Doyle discovered the bat had lived a colorful life at the college before it was installed in the principal's office by principal Graham Thomson in 1956.

"It was retrieved from the cadet room beneath Thornburgh House where the .303 Lee-Enfield rifles were stored," he said. "Boarders played hallway cricket with it in the early 1950s and there are small flecks of paint on the bat as a result of it not being protected during renovations."

The Thornburgh bat's permanent future home will be in Thornburgh House in Charters Towers in a bespoke jarrah display case, using timber from an 1890 fortified wine vat stave from Bleasdale Winery at Langhorne Creek in South Australia.

The display case has been designed and produced by master craftsmen at Pfitzner Furniture in the Adelaide Hills.

At the South Australian Cricket Association's invitation, the bat in its display case featured at the SACA members' test dinner on December 6 at the Adelaide Oval, prior to the West Indies v Australia day/night test.

Thornburgh College principal Simon Murphy was a SACA guest at the Adelaide dinner.

Australian captain Pat Cummins has been approached to sign a book written about the Thornburgh Bat story, which will be kept with the 22kg bat and display case in Thornburgh House in Charters Towers.

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