Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football, Golf & Sporting Memorabilia
To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
4th, 5th & 6th July 2025
Lot 1149
Estimate: £200/300
William Lloyd ‘Billy’ Murdoch. New South Wales, Sussex, London County & Australia 1875-1904. Splendid sepia cabinet card photograph of Murdoch, head and shoulders, wearing three piece suit, shirt and cricket tie, topped off with an Australia tour boater. Very nicely signed, ‘Sincerely yours’, in black ink by Murdoch to lower photographer’s border. The cabinet card photograph by J. Chaffin & Sons of Taunton. The card, measuring 4.25”x6.5”, sadly is split across the centre, otherwise in good/very good condition. A very rare and sought after signed card of this early Australia Test player.
Billy Murdoch is listed as player/cap number thirteen in the list of Australian Test players and he played his first Test match for Australia, in the second Test ever played, against England at Melbourne in March/April 1877. He captained Australia in sixteen Tests from 1880 to 1890, this included four tours to England one of which, in 1882, gave rise to The Ashes. He played in nineteen Test matches overall for Australia and was a right hand batsman and occasional wicket keeper. Murdoch scored both the first double century in Test cricket (211 against England in 1884) and the first triple century in Australian domestic cricket (321 against Victoria in 1882). In later years, he settled in England, playing county cricket for Sussex (1893 to 1899, as captain) and London County (1900 to 1904). In 1892, he toured South Africa with England and played in one Test match, making him one of the few cricketers to represent more than one international team. Murdoch’s final first-class match came at the age of 49, in August 1904. He died in Melbourne in 1911, aged only 56.