Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
31st October, 1st & 2nd November 2025

Frederick Robert Spofforth. New South Wales, Victoria & Australia 1874-1888. Excellent three page handwritten folding letter dated 29th September 1904 from Spofforth to F.S. Ashley-Cooper. Writing from an address in London, Spofforth is replying to an enquiry about a match in which he played. ‘As far as I remember it was played in Dec 1881 on a sheep [farm] and I don’t think it was ever published in any paper except the bare fact that I had taken all the wickets. I may say that with the exception of the writer there was no one of any class that played and most had never played cricket before so there is not the slightest merit in the performance, in fact I hardly think it should be called a cricket match at all. I cannot tell you even who this match was between.’ Nicely signed ‘Yours Sincerely, Fred R Spofforth’. No record of the match can be found. Very slight fading to the signature. Light folds, two small adhesive tape pieces applied, not affecting the content, otherwise in very good condition. A very rare letter from an Australian legend.
Spofforth, the ‘Demon Bowler’ was arguably the Australian cricket team’s finest pace bowler of the nineteenth century and was the first bowler to take 50 Test wickets and the first to take a test hat-trick in 1879. He played in Test Matches for Australia between 1877 and 1887 taking ninety four wickets at an average of 18.41. In 1888 at the end of his first-class career he settled in England, married an Englishwoman and played for Derbyshire (not first class) from 1889 to 1891. In England he went into business as a tea-merchant and became the managing director of the Star Tea Company which belonged to his wife’s father and was very successful. He revisited Australia on more than one occasion and retained his interest in the game to the end. Spofforth died on the eve of the 1926 Ashes series from chronic colitis at the age of 72. He left a fortune of £164,000.

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