Paupers and Promininent Citizens

Introduction Background Feisty Publicans

Rule Book From 1871 Listing Begbie and
Trutch as Members of the VCC

The colonial authorities in Britain wished to see Vancouver Island become a model English settlement, hierarchically organized and stable. However, when gold was discovered on the mainland, first on the Fraser River and then in the Cariboo, the hopes of the Colonial Office were dashed. As thousands of Americans streamed into Victoria on their way to the interior goldfields, it seemed to many Victorians as though chaos had descended upon the city. Victoria, during the 1860's, was a city in flux. Social distinctions were both broken down and entrenched, as long-time residents, newcomers and transients fought for identity.

At least one scholar has posited that cricket in early Victoria was "strictly an upper-class pursuit."¹ However, archival research proves that some of the men that played the noble game in Victoria during the 1860's were not of the upper-classes. A quick review of the tax assessment rolls and city directories from 1860's Victoria reveals that few of the players listed in the Colonist either owned land or stayed in town for very long. While some of the people that played, organized and supported the game were members of the colonial elite, as the names listed on the 1871 VCC rulebook (reproduced at left suggest) the great majority were transients with no property and few connections. Possibly, this explains cricket's attraction as the game allowed people who were not members of the so-called upper classes to identify themselves with the symbols of the colonial elite. In Victoria, cricket had the backing of certain members of the colonial elite, like Judge Begbie. However, articles from the Colonist indicate that when matches between a Victoria side and several San Francisco teams were organized in 1869, some of the Victoria players could not afford to pay their own way down California to attend the matches.² Luckily, for the Vctoria side, a local businessman, the owner of a steamship line, stepped in and offered free passage to the entire team.³ While this may have been merely a publicity stunt for the steamship operator, it more than likely adressed a real need on the part of Victoria's cricket side. As well, as this example indicates, cricket offered an opportunity for community building as Victorians rallied around their teams for matches with sides from Nanaimo, New Westminister and even San Francisco. While it is true that cricket had connotations of elite involvement, it is not possible to say that only the elite had access to the sport in Victoria during the 1860's.

Were Victoria's pioneer cricketers conscious of the important social role that their sport played? It is hard to say. Surely though, games that pitted "Old Residents" against "Newcomers" were designed to aid in the identification process.⁴ Interestingly, for the purposes of the Newcomers challenge matches, an Old Resident was anyone that had been in town for longer than three months. This indicates something of the social reality in 1860's Victoria. Far from being simply the result of "novel efforts to create team names," monikers like those mentioned above would have been very important in creating and perpetuating identity.⁵ While many people came to Victoria only for a short time, others settled down, opened businesses and became fixtures of the local scene. John T. Howard was one such man. You can find out more about Howard in the next section, Feisty Publicans.

Cricket was an important, though somewhat informal, symbol of the British Empire in 1860's Victoria. The sections of this site that speak on the role of cricket within the Empire indicate the extent to which the noble game helped transplant British values to far-flung regions of the globe. In many of Britain's colonial holdings, cricket was used as an indicator of inclusion within the dominant social group. In Victoria, it is important to note that the noble game was not open to players of First Nations or Asian descent. While cricket helped to delineate the distinctions that drove the British Empire in an informal way, Victoria also played host to more formal imperial institutions. The presence of the Royal Navy at Esquimalt ensured that Victoria's townsfolk always had a possible source of competition on the cricket pitch. Ironically, the navy was a stabilizing force. Although individual ships came and went, the institution of the navy itself remained a concrete reminder of the Empire's influence. The arrival of a new ship in Esquimalt, always led to a match between the fleet and the citizens of Victoria. While it is difficult to track the impact that informal emblems of empire, like cricket, would have had on 1860's Victoria, it is possible to see that at least as far as the navy went, Empire and the noble game went hand in hand.