Australian Dictionary of Biography

  • Tip: searches only the name field
  • Tip: Use double quotes to search for a phrase

Cultural Advice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website contains names, images, and voices of deceased persons.

In addition, some articles contain terms or views that were acceptable within mainstream Australian culture in the period in which they were written, but may no longer be considered appropriate.

These articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Australian National University.

Older articles are being reviewed with a view to bringing them into line with contemporary values but the original text will remain available for historical context.

Jack Marsh (1874–1916)

by Bernard Whimpress

This article was published:

Jack Marsh (c.1874-1916), Aboriginal cricketer, was born at Yulgilbar, in the Clarence River district, New South Wales, one of the Bunjdalung people. He possibly derived his surname from Francis Henry Marsh, whose property, Camira, was separated from Yulgilbar by the Richmond Range. Jack first made his mark as a professional runner. Influenced by the example of Charlie Samuels, he followed his elder brother Larry to Sydney in 1893. A sprinter and hurdler, Jack had a number of important wins and competed in Victoria and Queensland. Like a number of Aboriginal runners, however, he was exploited by his trainer and was suspended for 'running stiff' in Sydney in 1895.

Marsh began playing cricket in the Moore Park competition, then with South Sydney in 1897-98 and (following a merger) with the Sydney District Club. A right-arm, fast bowler, he famously clean bowled Victor Trumper for one in a colonial trial match in November 1900. Marsh was strongly supported by the Sydney club's secretary Alf Dent and was a brilliant performer in grade cricket, topping the bowling aggregates from 1901 to 1904, but became the victim of the hysteria over throwing that was then raging in both Australia and England. In his only full first-class season in 1900-01 he was leading the Australian bowling averages, with 21 wickets at 17.38 from three games, when Victorian umpire Bob Crockett no-balled him seventeen times for throwing in the first innings of his fourth match, against Victoria, in Sydney. This cast a cloud of suspicion over Marsh's subsequent career and enabled the selector Monty Noble to ignore frequent calls to pick him for subsequent interstate games.

At the centre of a controversial incident involving the English captain Archie MacLaren, Marsh was forced to withdraw from a match at Bathurst in 1902. Two years later he played against (Sir) Pelham Warner's visiting English team at Bathurst and took 5 for 55, bowling a mixture of pace and medium-paced off-cutters, but again his action was considered suspect. In later years Marsh possibly experimented with the googly and commentators such as the journalist J. C. Davis and player-writer Leslie Poidevin rated him in the same class as Australian bowlers Charles Turner and Frederick Spofforth and England's Sydney Barnes. In six matches for New South Wales in 1901-03 Marsh took 34 wickets at 21.47. Warren Bardsley wrote in his recollections that the reason Marsh had been 'kept . . . out of big cricket was his color'.

Poidevin described Marsh as 'a well set-up, perfectly built . . . man, with an ebony-black, smooth, clear shining skin and twinkling black eyes' who 'is quite good looking'. He was 5 ft 7 ins (170 cm) tall. Photographs of the fashionably moustached athlete, dressed in a suit, supported Davis's description: 'he loved to be decked out well, not gaudily, but neatly and stylishly'. Marsh's cricket ended in Sydney in 1905. Next year he ran against Arthur Postle at a carnival organized by John Wren in Melbourne. Marsh joined Alexander's Hippodrome Company, touring the country in a sideshow, and then probably became an itinerant worker.

Gaoled for assault in Melbourne in 1909, he blamed drink for his behaviour. He died on 26 May 1916 at Orange, New South Wales, from injuries received when he was attacked outside the billiards saloon of the Royal Hotel. His two assailants were charged with manslaughter but acquitted. A documentary film about Marsh was produced in 1987.

Select Bibliography

  • C. Tatz, Obstacle Race (Syd, 1995)
  • The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket (Melb, 1996)
  • B. Whimpress, Passport to Nowhere (Syd, 1999)
  • M. Bonnell, How Many More are Coming? (Syd, 2003)
  • P. Derriman, ‘Death in Orange’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Jan 1985, ‘Good Weekend’, p 23.

Citation details

Bernard Whimpress, 'Marsh, Jack (1874–1916)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/marsh-jack-13080/text23661, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 19 March 2024.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volume, (Melbourne University Press), 2005

View the front pages for the Supplementary Volume

© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2024

Life Summary [details]

Birth

1874
Yulgibar, New South Wales, Australia

Death

26 May, 1916 (aged ~ 42)
Orange, New South Wales, Australia

Cultural Heritage

Includes subject's nationality; their parents' nationality; the countries in which they spent a significant part of their childhood, and their self-identity.

Occupation