ONE OF THE EARLIEST ARTEFACTS WITH AN ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND AUSTRALIAN CRICKET A prize bat presented by Fred Lillywhite to George Marshall

ONE OF THE EARLIEST ARTEFACTS WITH AN ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND AUSTRALIAN CRICKET A prize bat presented by Fred Lillywhite to George Marshall in 1861, the bat with specially selected ringed grain, stamped M. Dark and Sons, Lords Ground, the reverse stamped PRIZE BAT, FROM FRED LILLYWHITE, TO, GEO. MARSHALL, 1861, the reverse stamped PRIZE BAT, G. MARSHALL The early Australian international cricketer George S. Marshall is best remembered for his entrepreneurial flair. In 1861 he established Melbourne's first major sporting goods store as well as the Cricketers Hotel next door in Swanston Street. He began importing the best quality sports equipment from England including goods from Fred Lillywhite who with his brothers had established Lillywhites, the famous sporting outfitters that still trades to this day at Piccadilly Circus in London. The present high quality prize bat is dated 1861, the very year Marshall began the business. The decision to launch the business was no doubt influenced by the first England cricketing tour to Australia in 1861-62. Marshall played in the famous match billed between The World and the Surrey XI at the MCG on 1st, 3rd & 4th March 1862. Touring was the other activity that links Marshall and Lillywhite. Fred had organised the first overseas tour by an England team to the USA and Canada in 1859, whilst Marshall helped sponsor the second English tour to Australia, George Parr's team of 1863-64. One of the few accounts of Marshall's ground breaking Melbourne sports shop appeared in the autobiography of the pioneering Aussie Rules footballer Henry Harrison: ''Marshall, Melbourne's sporting goods entrepreneur, advertised for sale to the young man about town (concerned no doubt to be up with the latest in English fashion), 'famous Rugby Footballs which took the Prize Medal at the [London] Exhibition ... being a new description of ball, made on a scientific principle, and that will fly many yards further than the old-fashioned sort''. Other references appeared in 'Bell's Life' noting that the players for the following Saturday's teams ''would be posted in Marshall's window.'' The dated bat being offered for sale here must surely be one of the earliest surviving examples relating to cricket in Australia.