Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

M.C.C. Tour of Australia 1903/04. Early, large and impressive official menu to the victorious M.C.C. team who returned home with the ‘Ashes’ having won the series by three Tests to two. The Dinner was held at The Trocadero, London on 22nd April 1904. The large (originally folding) menu, with elaborate cover design by G. Hillyard Swinstead, depicts Warner and his team wearing tour blazers and caps and carrying cricket bags, each player named, with two of the players (Warner and Foster) carrying a large kit bag in which is a dead kangaroo, and two other players (Rhodes and Hirst) holding aloft a large banner with an image of an English lion with cricket bat being held like a lute while sitting on an Australian kangaroo. Scenes in the background depict the team setting sail ‘Outward Bound’ in September 1903 and the Australian coast over which the Southern Cross is depicted with stars bearing Australian cricketers’ names of Trumper, Duff, Noble and Hill. The elaborate border is adorned with flags and medals bearing the names of various former England Captains, and the banner to the top border is titled ‘Dinner to the M.C.C. Australian Team, April 22 1904. Lord Alverstone, President of the M.C.C. in the chair’. Printed signature of Swinstead and date ‘1904’ to bottom left hand corner. An excellent image. The blank inside front cover has been signed in pencil by twenty two attendees including all fourteen original playing members of the touring party, namely Warner (Captain), Hirst, Tyldesley, Bosanquet, Rhodes, Hayward, Strudwick, Fielder, Foster, Lilley, Knight, Arnold, Braund and Relf, also John A. Murdoch, Assistant Secretary of the M.C.C., who accompanied the side. Other signatures are of the artist Swinstead, F.E. Lacey (Secretary of the M.C.C.), A.E. Stoddart, H.D.G. Leveson-Gower, A.J. Webbe, F.G.J. Ford, and one other unidentified, possibly an M.C.C. committee member. The facing inside page features the printed Toasts and Programme for the evening, and to the back cover the menu and wines. The menu, measuring approx. 12”x9.5”, has been neatly split at the fold and shows signs of having been framed with ‘light’ marks to the edges. Minor age toning and staining, light creasing, small loss to lower corner of the front page, otherwise in good condition. A copy of this rare and highly desirable item has been sold previously by Knights, but not in this signed form.