Secret papers on bodyline held at Lord’s

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 17

Secret papers on bodyline held at Lord’s

On the eve of the final test of the current series between England and Australia comes news of secret papers at Lord’s on the most controversial of cricket tests between the two nations — the 1932-33 series. MICHAEL DAVIE, the London “Observer” correspondent, reports:

Tucked away in the pavilion at Lord’s, where the recent second cricket test between England and Australia was played, are documents about bodyline bowling that nobody is allowed to see. What’s more, it is pretty clear that the papers should not be there at all.

England’s bodyline tour of Australia caused the biggest sporting controversy of the century, and still arouses strong feelings and much debate. Besides the recent Australian-made TV drama serial, recently shown in Britain and strongly criticised for inaccuracies, three books have lately been published about it.

More than 50 years on, one might suppose that all the evidence about what really happened would be out in the open. Even State documents are available after 30 years. But not the “Gowrie papers” at Lord’s, presented to the M.C.C. by a certain Mr Legh Winser.

Even their existence is not widely known. R. E. S. Wyatt was Douglas Jardine’s vice-captain on the bodyline tour and remains a much-consulted primary source on the affair. He tells me he has never heard of the Gowrie papers, though he knew Gowrie.

In 1932-3, Sir Alexander HoreRuthven, later the first Earl of Gowrie, was Governor of South Australia: a tremendous soldier with a V.C. and D. 5.0., and a keen cricketer. Later, he became a popular and successful GovernorGeneral of Australia. After he returned to England, he became, in 1948, president of the M.C.C. He died in 1955.

At the height of the bodyline crisis, Hore-Ruthven was in England on leave. He became closely concerned with the politics of it, because the uproar was threatening to cause a serious rift between England and Australia. He attended meetings with the British Government.

In 1934, Australia was due to tour England. From South Australia, Hore-Ruthven strongly urged that Jardine should not again be England’s captain: otherwise the strain on Anglo-Australian relations might cause something to snap. Hore-Ruthven was thus at the heart of the crisis. So was his private secretary, Legh Winser. Mr Winser, I learned from the celebrated cricket writer and commentator, E. W. Swanton, was “an interesting chap.” He was sent out

to Australia for his health, played cricket for South Australia, and was private secretary to successive governors. He lived to be nearly 100. When he was 90, the Royal Adelaide Club staged a golf tournament to celebrate his birthday, and Winser went round in 10 strokes under his age. Swanton knew him well. Winser must have squirrelled away Hore-Ruthven’s papers about bodyline, since he showed Swanton letters to and from Hore-Ruthven and P. F. Warner, manager of the England team during the bodyline tour.

Swanton reproduced two of these letters in his autobiography, “Sort of a Cricket Person,” and a bit more in another book, “Follow On.”

“Winser had no hesitation in showing me the letters,” Swanson says. “He thought the truth ought to be known. He showed me some letters, but others he didn’t.”

Winser died in 1983. It was in the 1970 s that the Gowrie papers in his possession were turned over to Lord’s.

Lord’s have never made any public statement about them, or about how they acquired them. Enter the two grandchildren of

the first Earl of Gowrie: the Lord Gowrie now in the Cabinet, and his younger brother, the Hon. Malise Ruthven, the authority on Islam. The first earl died in England in 1955; his widow in 1965. The grandchildren (their father had been killed in the Second World War) inherited. Part of their inheritance was their grandfather’s archive. Taking their responsibilities seriously, they decided to present the whole archive to the National Library of Australia in Canberra, where it now is.

Three years ago, the Ruthven brothers learned for the first time that the M.C.C. had some of their grandfather’s papers at Lord’s when they were approached by Philip Derriman of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” He was writing a series of 50th anniversary bodyline

articles — now a book — and knew about the papers. The brothers agreed to help. They wrote to the secretary of the M.C.C., Mr Jack Bailey, pointing out that as “colegatees” of their grandfather’s estate they had given his private papers to the Australian National Library “for the use of reputable scholars and researchers,” and saying that under the circumstances they felt there could be “no possible objection” to making the papers in the M.C.C.'s possession available to Derriman. They heard nothing further. Derriman says: “I was fobbed off. I was put on to the curator, Mr Stephen Green, who was supposed to give me a verbal precis of the papers, but he told me almost nothing.” Another person who failed to

obtain access to the Gowrie papers is Laurence Le Quesne, a history master at Shrewbury School who has written a most scholarly history of bodyline, just out in paperback. He was refused, even though the “godfather” of the book and the author of its foreword is G. O. Allen, former England captain and former M.C.C. president. “It is a very strange business,” says Mr Le Quesne. A third person to ask for a look is this reporter. Mr Bailey, a wellrespected and well-liked man, wrote back in friendly fashion to say that “unfortunately” he was “bound by a committee decision that the papers as such — and in their entirety — should not be made available.”

He went on: “This is largely due to the wish to preserve beyond peradventure the feelings of those living folk who could be seen as being mentioned in a less than complimentary light.” Neither Wyatt, nor Le Quesne, nor Swanton could imagine who these “living folk” might be. There is a further, much more awkward question. Is the M.C.C. entitled to the papers? The answer seems to be “No.”

In a flurry of telephone calls to

Australia, I discovered how the papers reached Lord’s. One of the people I spoke to was Geoffrey Adams of Ocean Grove, in the state of Victoria. He emigrated to Australia (where he owned a country newspaper) just before the bodyline tour. He had played cricket for Hampshire in the late 1920 s and was a friend of Jardine. Later he became a friend of Legh Winser, who lived in neighbouring Barwen Heads.

How did the Gowrie papers reach Lord’s? “Through me,” says Adams. “Legh Winser had been approached by a number of people who wanted to see them, and he asked me what did I think. I said they should go to the M.C.C. and nowhere else. I wrote to the secretary and sent them myself. It would have been in the early or mid-19705.”

Why didn’t Winser send the papers himself? “He was a fairly old man by then.”

How many documents were there? “Quite a number of letters and other bits of paper. Most were handwritten.”

Some from Lord Gowrie? “Yes.” Had he read them? “Yes. Most interesting. I can’t remember the details, but there was stuff in there

that I thought the press boys in Australia shouldn’t get hold of.”

The question of the legal ownership of the papers never crossed Adams’s mind, he told me. “They were Legh Winser’s. How he got the letters I’m damned if I know.”

I told Malise Hore-Ruthven of my discoveries. He said he had been looking after the administration of his grandfather’s papers, while his brother in the Cabinet was otherwise occupied, and added, after thought: “In due course I will be requesting that the relevant papers should join the rest of the Gowrie correspondence and papers given by us to the National Library of Australia in Canberra.”

Miss Catherine Santamaria, the curator there of the Gowrie papers, says that it is a “particularly fascinating archive,” much used by researchers. It contains, though, only one bodyline letter, written by Gowrie on June 21, 1933, to J. H. Thomas, the then Dominions Secretary. She read me the letter. It is very long, and very critical of the M.C.C. The rest of the bodyline papers, said Miss Santamaria, would “complete a very valuable collection.”