George Lohmann was born on 2nd June 1865 in Kensington. In the warm morning sunshine, the Surrey Colts were enjoying their pre-match net practice, and George was eagerly bowling to his friend who was to play in the game starting shortly. After a few overs George was granted the courtesy to bat, and, even though concentrating on the job at hand, he could not help but wonder that he was using the same nets that current Surrey stars, W. W. Read and A. P. Lucas, batted in for their practice.
This reverie was shattered when John Newton, the head groundsman at The Oval, ordered him gruffly out of the net as he was not playing in the match, and had no right to be there. Despondently, the lad did as he was told, but other eyes had been watching eyes that recognized outstanding ability in one so young. Walking away, he was met by Dick Humphrey, a prominent Surrey player of the seventies, who asked if it was he who had just been batting.
Tentatively, George replied that it was, and, as if he were dreaming, he heard the old professional say, “Will you bat again as the Hon. Robert Grimston would like to have another look at you?” This gentleman is a pioneer of the Surrey Colts and net practice for young potentials. He was astounded at the lad’s technique to hit the ball fluently and his variation of length and pace when bowling. C. W. Alcock was quietly amused to see this stocky lad rub the ball in the dust and wet his fingers before bowling—tricks used by seasoned professionals.
The watching Surrey committee members had no hesitation in asking George to play in the first Colts match the following season in April 1884. After a successful debut, he accepted the invitation to join the full Surrey staff and played for the County XI within a month, at 19. George Lohmann left school in 1879 grafted for two years to earn a living and played his early cricket on Wandsworth Common for the Church Institute Club.
For three successive years from 1876, he won the club’s prizes of cricket bats and balls for heading both the batting and bowling averages. In 1881, George moved on to the Alma Club. George Lohmann was qualified to play for three Counties, for he had been born in Middlesex, resided in Hampshire, and his father had lived in Surrey. As a lad, George Lohmann saved his, pennies to watch his idols at The Oval, and when the offer came along to join the Surrey staff, he jumped at it.
George Lohmann Early Career
His first season with Surrey proved quiet with few bowling chances, but he batted with much promise. Around the middle of the season, he was dropped from the side, but soon returned, and in the last match against Sussex, he took nine wickets for 58 runs, enabling Surrey to win. George had now “arrived” on the cricket scene and would become the finest all-rounder ever to play for Surrey. He was always in the game by making quick runs, particularly when wanted, and taking half chances when offered to second slip, or cover-slip, as it was then known. He virtually created this new position and was to become the game’s number one exponent of it.
W.G. Grace remarked how he covered more ground at slip than anyone he could remember, but towards the end of a rather short career, George would fall full length to stop the easy ones. Sir Pelman Warner thought him good enough to be able to show off like this in front of his many fans. When George Lohmann first played cricket, he wasn’t particularly bothered about fielding until he noticed how good the keenest cricketers were.
He was unsurpassed at second slip and cricket followers marveled at his cat-like movements, but cricket, being the great leveler it is, found him wanting on one occasion when he was brought on as a substitute in a Gents. v Players match at Scarborough. Immediately put in his specialist position at slip, he dropped a ‘sitter’ off the first ball. It was as a bowler that cricket enthusiasts flocked to see him, whenever possible.
This good-looking, splendidly built athlete moved with the utmost ease and caused all sorts of problems for the leading Test batsmen of this era. Standing 5 ft. 11 in. and weighing 12 stones 12 pounds, his fair, wavy hair accentuated his Anglo-Saxon features. With a high, graceful action, he bowled right-arm medium pace from either round or over the wicket. He used such variation in length and pace that he never seemed to bowl two balls alike. His stock ball was the off-cutter, but often he would mix in a leg-cutter or the dangerous one that kept straight on. George Lohmann was a great example of practicing making perfect and carried a cricket ball in his pocket to wrap his fingers around to spin and manipulate. In 1885, he was chosen to play in the North vs. South game at The Oval.
Test Debut:
In the summer of 1886, George Lohmann made his test debut, against the visiting Australians. So in less than two seasons, he had graduated from Club to Test cricket. In the first two Tests he had little success, but when bowling on his home pitch at The Oval in the third match, he was unplayable. Having match figures of 12 for 104 (7 for 36 and 5 for 68) enabled England to win by an innings and 217 runs.
Career
In the winter of ‘1886, he toured Australia under the leadership of Walter Read and Arthur Shrewsbury. It wasn’t long before the Australian press was giving superb write-ups about his prowess, attributed to guile and hard work. It was a clear case of him being over bowled, because, after countless overs, he took 153 wickets on the tour. Only two Tests were played, with England winning both, and in the first innings of the Second Test, George Lohmann took 8 for 35; he was the leading wicket-taker in the Test Matches with 16.
The year 1887 was a good one for George with the bat. After useful knocks for Surrey, he ended the season with an average of 28.9 runs. He was off to Australia again that winter in a team managed by Arthur Shrewsbury and skippered by C. Aubrey-Smith. Another team from England was touring down under at the same time, and a side was selected from the two parties to play a Test Match in Sydney on February 10th. England won by 126 runs, with Bobby Peel and George Lohmann taking nine wickets each.
Most critics assessed 1888 as George’s peak year because, apart from batting well, he bowled with tremendous zest and stamina. With the Australians here again, England’s run of seven Test wins was broken when Australia took the Lord’s game by 61 runs-England winning the next two Tests. The Oval Test saw George snap up two miraculous catches in the first inning to dismiss both Australian openers Alec Bannerman and Percy McDonnell: the former talked about little else for the rest of the day.
England built a useful lead after George Lohmann had scored an impressive and unbeaten 62 and won by an inning. That season, he took a record 45 catches. At Manchester, England won the game quite easily in a day and a half, so George typically in character, agreed to play for a local side on the Saturday. On a terrible wicket, he bowled with his usual skill until the local rival fast bowler started to hit him to all parts of the ground.
Everything the batsman tried was successful and George, for once in his career, was taken apart. Eager for revenge, George batted early in the order but was bowled first ball by his rival and, with the bowler boasting loudly of his accomplishment, the Surrey star quickly packed his bag and departed. The crowd voiced its opinion that he must have been a fraud; it wasn’t the real George Lohmann.
During the ‘1880’s and ‘1890, W. G. Grace and George Lohmann were recognized as the greatest match winners in the game. Surrey shared a triple tie for the Championship in 1889 due mainly to a great victory over Nottinghamshire in August. This was the year of the new declaration law and John Shuter, the Surrey captain, risked a quick closure, hoping George would oblige with quick wickets. After 35 overs, including 26 maidens, he took 6 for 22, and Notts were all out for 84 with 40 minutes to go. When Surrey played Essex earlier, George scored 105 and, with Sharpe, put on 149 for the last wicket. Australia visited again in 1890, and three Tests were to be played. One was abandoned because of bad weather, but England won the remaining two, with George taking 9 wickets.
This summer he broke his record with 49 catches. It was generally agreed that Australia’s batting had not been particularly strong over the last few years, but this did not detract anything from George’s wonderful achievements, for he was producing the same results against our top-class batsmen in the county and representative games.
JB Fry reckoned George Lohmann to be the most difficult medium-paced bowler he ever played against on a good wicket. That great scholar and athlete were heard to say, “It took a first-rate batsman to know what an honor it was to be bowled at by Lohmann.” W. G. Grace rated him as the best all-rounder he encountered during his 35 years of first-class cricket. For most years George Lohmann had averaged about 20 with the bat, but in 1891 he raised it to 23.
The winter of 1891/92 saw him leaving for Australia, again under the leadership of W. G. Grace. George was the powerhouse of a very strong party, but still, Australia ran out winners by two tests to one. In the first innings of the second Test, he helped bowl out the opposition for 144, taking 8 for 58, but with England collapsing in their second innings, Australia still managed victory by 72 runs.
On five occasions during his career, George Lohmann bowled unchanged through an innings, and his appetite for bowling was nicely illustrated on this tour when W.G. Grace suggested he should change the bowling at George’s end. The bowler agreed and immediately set his field to bowl from the other end! The Doctor, in retrospect, pointed out that it was not done in selfishness, but because he was so keen, and knew his ability to take a wicket at any time.
To bowl on good, Australian wickets George maintained that the secret was variation of pace and thoughtful field placing, and the fact that his Surrey colleague, Tom Richardson, could move the ball off the wickets made him, in George’s opinion, the ‘King’ in such conditions. George Lohmann was a cricketer’s cricketer. His fellow players held him in great esteem for he was a perfectionist in his art. Every movement, whether batting, bowling, or fielding, was made with consummate ease, and in George’s eyes, that was the only way to play the game.
It was said he helped to make cricket an attractive game to watch. Albert Knight, the old Leicester professional, recalls the day when George Lohmann was bowled neck and cropped by a young bowler using intimidating methods. Passing the grinning victor, George surveyed him in utter disdain, and said in a cutting tone, “Call that bowling? I call it Bruce strength.”.
Willing workhorse
It was obvious in 1892 that George Lohmann was less effective, and was attributed to so many summers and winters of continuous hard work. With such a willing workhorse, it was inevitable that he would be over bowled. It was thought that a winter’s rest would revitalize him—he was now 27 years old but unfortunately, this was not, because soon after the season’s end he collapsed.
Through the generosity of the Surrey County Club, he, together with his great friend Maurice Read for company, sailed from Southampton on Christmas Eve for South Africa, where he stayed in the Ceres Sanitorium, 90 miles from Cape Town.
To recuperate, George and Maurice were invited to the home of cricket enthusiast J. D. Logan, which was ideally situated high in the mountains at Matjesfontein, the air being dry and crystal clear. With George having made such good progress and seeming to be much better, Maurice Read returned to England in mid-March to prepare for the start of the English season.
Hopes were raised when a friend received a letter from George saying that his weight had returned to 12 stones, and he was taking daily cricket practice. About mid-June he landed at Southampton, but, in trying to get back too soon, sadly he had a relapse. Again, through arrangements by Surrey, he returned to Mr. Logan’s home in the Orange Free State and stayed for the rest of 1893 and 1894.
In the late 1880s, Surrey was on the good side but, with George Lohmann quickly reaching his prime, the side sparked greatness. J. Shuter, the successful Surrey skipper, rated him the greatest cricketer of his time. When George Lohmann stopped playing in 1893, Surrey dropped from the top to fifth in the table. His absence from the cricket field was telling, but English hopes were lifted when, in 1895, a letter from him of his being on the way to complete recovery.
He had played for the Cape Town club in a two-day fixture and had taken 8 for 70 with no ill effects. Leaving Cape Town on the 8th of June, George was practicing at Lord’s just three weeks after this last game. George Lohmann played in the Gents. v Players game at The Oval on July 11th and, although not outstanding, his form is encouraging. With Lockwood out of form, George partnered with Tom Richardson to produce Surrey’s spearhead, and their success was measured in the first-class bowling averages, with Tom in first position and George third.
A letter from George Lohmann to William Attewell before the end of the season suggested, however, that he was not as fit as at first thought. In the winter of 1895/96, Lord Hawke took George Lohmann to South Africa as player-manager of his touring team, and what a tour the latter had. England beat South Africa in all three Tests, due almost certainly to George taking 35 wickets at 3.8 runs each, including the hat trick.
In the last Test, he passed 100 wickets in his 16th Test Match, which remains a record. Against an XVIII at Port Elizabeth, George Lohmann bowled unchanged to take 15 for 38 and 11 for 44 in the match. In all games, he took 157 wickets. Sir Pelham Warner was a young player of the team, he recalls with pleasure his many enjoyable chats with George Lohmann.
Plum Warner tells of George’s intelligent conversation and nice manners, and how he saved his pocket money as a youngster to watch George play at The Oval. He remembered the occasion when he saw George and Maurice Read each make 66 runs on a sticky Oval wicket against the might of Lancashire, with Barlow, Briggs, and Mold at their best. The Australians, under Harry Trott, visited us in 1896, and when Tom Richardson and George bowled them out for 53 in the first Test at Lord’s, W. G. Grace rated Lohmann as the best all-rounder he had ever seen during his 35 years of first-class cricket. England won comfortably by six wickets.
With Australia winning the Second Test by the margin of three wickets, the teams went to The Oval all square. England team announced five of the professionals went on ‘strike’, demanding £20 as opposed to £10 normally paid for Test matches. The ‘strikers’ were Bobby Abel, Tom Richardson, Tom Haywood, George Lohmann all of Surrey, and Billy Gunn of Notts. The Surrey club refused the demands, although it was considered that the principal was right, but the method was ill-advised. After discussions Abel, Haywood and Richardson withdrew their requests and played, but, although George apologized, it was too late for him to take part. England won the Test by 66 runs.
George’s action reflected badly as he had just received a benefit in the game with Yorkshire, which brought him a larger pavilion subscription list than any other Surrey player had ever received before. He wrote a touching letter, and Surrey selected him for the rest of the games that season. Although taking 93 wickets and averaging 22 with the bat, his critics remained unhappy about his performance. In the 2nd Test at Johannesburg in 1896, George Lohmann took the unbelievable figure of 9 for 28 and rattled South Africa an inning and 197 runs. In the second innings, he also grabbed 3 for 43.
George Lohmann: 34 wickets in South Africa
At the end of the 1896 season, he returned to South Africa, but intended to come back in time to practice for the coming season with Surrey: it was announced in December that he had booked his passage. Regrettably, this was not the case, as he had accepted a winter business position, and was playing as an amateur for Western Province in the Currie Cup. Needless to add, they won the competition, with George taking 34 wickets at 12.26 runs each in just three test matches. In the final, Western Province triumphed over Transvaal and he had match figures of 10 for 157.
April 1897 brought another confrontation between George Lohmann and Surrey, for he wanted to play here in the summer and return to South Africa for the winter. He asked Surrey for £100 to cover the travel, but they offered to pay only half his expenses. George refused this gesture and it was announced on May 6th that he had terminated his association with the club. Sadly, this was the end of his competitive cricket.
George Lohmann Stats
He had played in 18 Tests and had taken 10 or more wickets five times, including a hat-trick. His 112 wickets at 10.75 runs each in so few Tests is still unique. From 1884 to 1896/97, he took 1841 wickets in first-class cricket at 13.73 runs, including five wickets in an inning 176 times, and 10 wickets in a match 57 times. He also scored 7,247 runs for an average of 18.67 with a top score of 115, including 3 hundred, 29 fifties, and 337 catches. George Lohmann took a keen interest in South African cricket and was a coach with the Wanderers Club in Johannesburg. He was keen and quite gifted at spotting young talent; perhaps he was often reminded of that warm, sunny morning at The Oval Nets. George Lohmann surely deserves a spot among the all-time great Test bowlers based only on statistics.
Later Career
In 1901 George came to England as manager of the touring South Africans but, for his old acquaintances, he was a pitiful sight as he had deteriorated so much. Still only 36 years old and still a bachelor, he returned home to South Africa, where, on December 1st, he tragically died from consumption. In the Matjesfontein Cemetery, an impressive headstone carried this inscription:
This monument was erected by the Surrey County Cricket Club and friends in South Africa in memory of one of the greatest all-round cricketers the world has ever seen. A bowler of infinite variety, a splendid field, and a resolute batsman. George Lohmann did a brilliant service for Surrey from 1884–1896, as well as for the Players and England. His whole heart was in cricket, and he played the game from start to finish. His deteriorating health alone compelled him to retire from the cricket field while still in his prime.
Death:
George Alfred Lohmann died on 1 December 1901 at the age of 36.
