Tom Wills portrait

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Tom Wills portrait
National Sports Museum
, Melbourne

In 1870,

Irish Australian artist William Handcock completed a portrait of Tom Wills, Australia's pre-eminent cricketer of the mid-19th century and one of the key founders of Australian rules football. It is unknown who commissioned the work or where it was kept after completion, but in 1923 it was acquired by the Melbourne Cricket Club through its then-secretary, Test cricket great Hugh Trumble
.

The Handcock portrait is the best-known painting of Wills and is currently on display in the

National Sports Museum
.

Background

Victoria to repeated victories in intercolonial matches.[4] In 1858 he called for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.[5] The following year, he assisted in drawing up the laws from which Australian rules football evolved.[3] He is regarded as one of the more complex and intriguing figures in Australian history, given his lifelong engagement with Indigenous Australians and the nature of his downfall.[6]

Wills posed for the portrait before the end of 1870. The artist, William Handcock, was born in Ireland and lived for a period in New Zealand before relocating to

tongue cancer soon after the portrait's completion.[7]

There is no recorded evidence of the portrait until 1923, when

The Australasian reported that Test cricket great Hugh Trumble, then secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), purchased the painting (from whom is not stated) and donated it to the MCC.[8][7]

Description

The portrait is full-length, measuring 42 cm by 32 cm and done in

cricket oval, Wills is shown in his white flannels and the colours of the MCC on his belt and cap.[7] Appearing stately like a "pasha of the East", he holds a cricket bat in the manner of a walking cane.[9] According to biographer Greg de Moore, "he does not look like an athlete, more like a middle-aged lawyer with a liking for a nobbler".[7] Wills' "pendulous paunch" is suggestive of the early stages of physical decline, and his coarsely reddened nose and cheeks allude to years of alcohol abuse.[10] Historian Geoffrey Blainey detects "a slight air of weariness" in his blank expression.[11]

Legacy

The portrait is the most recognisable image of Wills and the most public symbol of his link to the MCC. It has been reproduced as souvenirs, including Christmas cards.[12]

The portrait serves as the cover image of the 1987 book Glorious Innings: Treasures from the Melbourne Cricket Club Collection.

The Call (1998)—a semi-fictional account of Wills' life—journalist Martin Flanagan opens the final chapter with an imagining into Handcock's encounter with Wills and the circumstances under which the portrait was painted.[9] In 2003, the Melbourne Cricket Ground celebrated its 150th anniversary by commissioning illustrator Robert Ingpen to create a woven tapestry depicting a chronological history of the ground. The figure of Wills—the second to appear, after the MCC's inaugural president—is based on Handcock's portrait. Wills appears two more times: as umpire of the first recorded Australian rules football match in 1858, and as coach of the 1866–67 Aboriginal cricket team, the first Australian team to tour England
.

See also

References

  1. ^ Hay 2009, pp. 28–29.
  2. ^ de Moore 2008, p. i.
  3. ^ a b Mandle 1976.
  4. ^ a b de Moore 2008, p. 2.
  5. ^ de Moore 2011, p. 87.
  6. ^ Gorman 2011, pp. 128–135.
  7. ^ a b c d e f de Moore 2011, p. 226.
  8. The Australasian
    .
  9. ^ a b Flanagan 2006, pp. 139–144.
  10. ^ de Moore 2008, p. 205, 218.
  11. ^ Blainey 2003, pp. 209–210.
  12. ^ de Moore 2008, p. 29, 218.
  13. ^ Bouwman 1987, p. cover.

Bibliography

Books

Theses

Webpages

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