Australian Dictionary of Biography

Edna Crouch (1915–1997), cricketer, was born on 22 November 1915 at Wynnum, Brisbane, youngest of seven children of Queensland-born parents Alfred Crouch, fisherman, and his wife Rebecca Elizabeth, formerly Campbell. A descendant of the Ngugi people of Moreton Bay, Edna was part of a large sporting family. Her four brothers played rugby league, including Glen (Paddy) Crouch, who represented Queensland against New Zealand in 1925. She was educated at Wynnum State School.

Crouch’s emerging cricket career received a boost with selection in a representative Brisbane team (the local competition then being six teams strong) to play West Moreton in January 1932. A left-arm spin bowler, during her ten-year career she played for numerous Brisbane teams, including Triers, Wynnum, Excelsior, Bluebells, and South Brisbane, often with her first cousin Mabel Dorothy Crouch, formerly Campbell (1908–1957), an accomplished batter and descendant of the Quandamooka people of Minjerriba (Stradbroke Islands).

Edna and Mabel were selected to play for Queensland against the touring England cricketers in the 1934-35 season, and received additional guidance from the State coach Les Gill. Club fixtures were played on concrete pitches, so the move to the Brisbane Exhibition Ground’s turf wicket for this important match proved a challenge for the local players. The two-day game (22 and 24 December) was delayed by rain, and eventually began on turf that had been cut out, rolled, and prepared in twenty minutes after the covered wicket was found to be unsuitable for play. The Queensland women wore sandshoes on the wet pitch and field, slipping and falling, while the England players wore spiked boots. Queensland won the toss and sent England in to bat. Adapting quickly to the turf, Edna took the wicket of the England captain Betty Archdale for 7 runs, and bowled the top-scorer Joy Partridge for 63. Edna captured the last three wickets for only five runs in England’s total of 181, returning 5 for 25 from 27 overs, and was presented with the match ball to commemorate the feat. Mabel top scored in Queensland’s first innings with 28 not out, but the England team won easily by an innings and 41 runs.

A tall, sturdy woman, Edna’s bowling, delivered with the aid of strong wrists, was described in the newspapers as both economical and deadly. She continued to return impressive bowling figures in the Brisbane grade competition, her club batting, often as opener, was reliable. She and Mabel were selected to represent Queensland at interstate cricket carnivals in Sydney (1934 and 1939), Melbourne (1935), Brisbane (1936), and Adelaide (1938). Neither submitted their names for selection trials for the Australian team’s tour to England in 1937: each team member had to contribute £75 towards the cost and purchase their own cricket equipment, as well as forego any income during a six-month absence.

The Brisbane competition stalled during World War II, and some teams disbanded. In 1941 the Crouch cousins joined the Mowbray Park ‘cricko’ team, cricko being a fast, new game combining the rules of cricket and vigoro. They also participated in cycling and baseball. Although their cricket achievements were frequently reported throughout the 1930s, neither was identified in the Brisbane press as Indigenous. Perhaps not being identified or identifying themselves as such might have spared them the worst excesses of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, and the Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act 1939. They were the first Indigenous women to represent their State in cricket.

From the late 1930s Edna and her sister Grace ran a fish-and-chip shop at Wynnum, which was supplied by the Crouch family fishing business. On 21 March 1942 at St Peter's Church of England, Wynnum Central, Edna married Ben Archie Newfong, a champion boxer, and a labourer at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Minjerriba. He was also a Ngugi descendant, as well as having a Chinese fisherman as an ancestor. At the time of their marriage he was serving with the 15th Infantry Battalion, Citizen Military Forces, in Brisbane; later he would break his leg, preventing him from joining the battalion in New Guinea, and was discharged in November 1945. The couple moved between Minjerriba and Wynnum, but when their son John was born in 1943, the family settled at Wynnum so he could attend school.

The Newfongs became respected elders and representatives of their communities, and campaigned together for Indigenous people’s rights. Edna maintained close ties and kinship connections with her Ngugi, as well as her Goenupul and Nunukul, families and friends. Her heart and her home were always open to families and friends travelling between Minjerriba and the mainland. She was one of the few people who spoke some of the Gowar language of Moreton Island. With her husband, she was involved in the 1967 referendum campaign, while he was active in the Incapacitated Servicemen and Women’s Association (Queensland) (president 1977–83). In 1988 he came out publicly in opposition to a motion put before the Returned Services League of Australia’s national congress, that Aboriginal people should be ‘race tested’ (Walker 1988, 14) before being allowed to claim government benefits. In April 1991 he unveiled a memorial in the Jebbribillum Borta Park, Burleigh Heads, to honour Yugambeh people who had served in Australia’s defence, and in May 1994 the Newfongs opened a culturally appropriate facility for Elders (Nareeba Moopi Moopi Pa Aged Care Hostel) at Dunwich, Minjerriba.

Edna died on 8 April 1997 at Princess Alexandra Hospital, South Brisbane, and was buried in Myora cemetery, Minjerriba. She was survived by Archie (d. 1998), their son John—a prominent journalist, Aboriginal rights, and gay community activist—and daughters Judith and Elizabeth; their son Neville had predeceased her. Her niece Thelma Crouch, a fast bowler, represented Queensland (1948–54) and played for the Australian Juniors against England in Australia in 1949. Edna was inducted into the Indigenous Sport Queensland Hall of Fame in 1999.