In this final installment of my chat with historian Richard Tomlinson, author of Amazing Grace - The Man Who Was W.G. (2015), we discuss Grace's love of sports outside of cricket, particularly lawn bowls and golf, his colossal statistics with both bat and ball, and his legacy today.

ABOUT RICHARD TOMLINSON:

Richard Tomlinson is a British historian and journalist whose biography of W.G. Grace was published in 2015 on the 100th anniversary of the great cricketer’s death. In Amazing Grace – The Man who was W.G., Richard set Grace’s on-field achievements in the context of his life and times as arguably the most famous celebrity in the English-speaking world.

Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford

DONATE: You can buy Tom Ford a coffee! Every donation helps with production and inspires Tom to keep the podcast going. You can donate from a little as $5. Visit: buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket

All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.

Part 2 of the episode dedicated to the latter stages of the life and career of the most famous cricketer of all time – W. G. Grace. In this episode, biographer Richard Tomlinson discusses Grace’s relationship with his cricket-playing daughter Bessie, his disastrous final Test match in 1899, and his move from the Gloucestershire County Cricket Club to the newly formed London County Cricket Club.

ABOUT RICHARD TOMLINSON:

Richard Tomlinson is a British historian and journalist whose biography of W.G. Grace was published in 2015 on the 100th anniversary of the great cricketer’s death. In Amazing Grace – The Man who was W.G., Richard set Grace’s on-field achievements in the context of his life and times as arguably the most famous celebrity in the English-speaking world.

Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford

DONATE: You can buy Tom Ford a coffee! Every donation helps with production and inspires Tom to keep the podcast going. You can donate from a little as $5. Visit: buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket

All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.

W. G. Grace, quite simply, was cricket in the 19th century. So large was the figure of Grace - both physically and figuratively - that he was known throughout the British Empire simply by his initials, W.G., and it’s believed at one point he was even more famous than Queen Victoria. With his large, domineering physique and his idiosyncratic beard, WG Grace dominated the sport of cricket like no one before or since - including Donald Bradman - and was central to transforming the sport from a leisurely British pastime to an international spectacle. In Part 1, we look at existing Grace literature, his expanded waistline, the infamous tour of Australia in 1891-92 and the tragic life of his oldest son, W. G. Grace, Jnr.

ABOUT RICHARD TOMLINSON:

Richard Tomlinson is a British historian and journalist whose biography of W.G. Grace was published in 2015 on the 100th anniversary of the great cricketer’s death. In Amazing Grace – The Man who was W.G., Richard set Grace’s on-field achievements in the context of his life and times as arguably the most famous celebrity in the English-speaking world.

Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford

DONATE: You can buy Tom Ford a coffee! Every donation helps with production and inspires Tom to keep the podcast going. You can donate from a little as $5. Visit: buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket

All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.