Jack Blackham
| Jack Blackham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born |
John McCarthy Blackham 11 May 1854 Fitzroy North, Victoria, Australia |
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| Died | 28 December 1932 (aged 78) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
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| Occupation | bank clerk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Parent(s) | Frederick Kane Blackham and Lucinda (née McCarthy). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relatives | George Eugene "Joey" Palmer (brother-in-law) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname | Prince of wicket-keepers, Black Jack | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting style | Right-hand | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | - | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Wicket-keeper | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1874–1895 | Victoria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: , 11 March 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
John McCarthy Blackham (11 May 1854 – 28 December 1932) was a Test cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia.
A specialist wicket-keeper, Blackham played in the first Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877 and the famous Ashes Test match of 1882. Such was his skill in the position that he revolutionised the art of wicket-keeping and was known as the "prince of wicket-keepers". Late in his career, he captained the Australian team.
Blackham was born in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy North, the son of newsagent Frederick Kane Blackham and his wife Lucinda (née McCarthy). Blackham became a bank clerk, and held a position in the Colonial Bank of Australasia for many years. It is said that his thick dark beard, perceived then as a sign of an equable and reliable nature, reassured his customers. His brother-in-law was George Eugene "Joey" Palmer.
Blackham was included in the first eleven of the Carlton Cricket Club as a batsman at the age of sixteen. He first appeared for the Victorian team in 1874, and remained an automatic selection as the team's wicket-keeper for over twenty years. He was a member of the first eight Australian cricket teams to visit England.
He was one of the first wicket-keepers to stand up close to the stumps, even to the fastest bowlers, wearing gloves that Jack Pollard describes as "little more than gardening gloves". He eliminated the need for a long-stop, and Pollard says that "... in England on one of his trips there a group of clergymen complained that he was a danger to the wellbeing of cricket, encouraging as he did the abolition of long-stop, the clergy's traditional fielding spot in village teams."
Blackham was selected for the very first Test match, held at Melbourne in March 1876/77. Australia's leading bowler Fred Spofforth refused to play in the match, because Blackham was preferred to Spofforth's New South Wales team-mate Billy Murdoch. In the Test match, Blackham took three catches and made the first Test-Match stumping, when he dismissed Alfred Shaw off the bowling of Tom Kendall in England's second innings. In 1878, he represented his country for the first time overseas, as a member of the inaugural Australian cricket team to tour England and North America.
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