ALBERT HORNBY - A Victorian Sporting Great

By Margaret Brecknell

Albert Neilson Hornby was born 175 years ago in Blackburn, on 10th February 1847. His father, William Henry Hornby, was a successful local businessman, who owned a cotton mill in nearby Brookhouse and would later serve as the town’s first Mayor and its MP. Albert would go on to enjoy even greater fame as one of the Victorian era’s bestknown sportsmen.

The first hint of young Albert’s future sporting success came during his time at Harrow School, when he played twice for the school in the annual cricket fixture against Eton at Lord’s Cricket Ground. He was so diminutive in stature at the time that he was called “the Little Cricket Wonder”. His schoolmates came up with a slightly less complimentary sobriquet, calling him “Monkey” because of his lack of height and seemingly limitless energy. The latter nickname would continue to be used on occasion throughout Hornby’s long sporting career.

In 1861 the Hornby family moved to Shrewbridge Hall, which was situated close to Nantwich in Cheshire. The talented young Hornby began to make regular appearances for the Cheshire cricket team from 1862 onwards, as well as playing in the town of his birth for the then recently formed Blackburn Alexandra Cricket Club. Later, in 1892, this club, under the name of the East Lancashire Cricket Club, became one of the founder members of the Lancashire League and is still going strong today. 

Hornby was undoubtedly an asset on the field for the Blackburn club. In one innings in 1870 he scored a spectacular 213 not out. However, his behaviour off the field was occasionally not to his opponents’ liking. During one fixture, in 1872, against their East Lancashire rivals, Burnley, the locals took exception to what they viewed as Hornby’s excessively aristocratic manner. When Hornby was asked by the umpire to stop practising near to the scorer’s tent, he apparently refused in such a forceful manner that one local paper accused him of attempting “to assume the position of an autocrat”, adding that “he must respectfully understand that such conduct will not be tolerated by the cricketers upon the banks of the Brun, in this latter portion of the nineteenth century”. Soon afterwards Hornby left to play his club cricket with Nantwich.

By the time of this incident Hornby was also already playing cricket regularly for Lancashire County Cricket Club. He had first come to Lancashire’s attention when playing for a Gentlemen of Cheshire side against them in 1866. He made his debut for Lancashire the following year in a game with a unique claim to fame, as it was the first ever official Roses Match against Yorkshire at Whalley.

At a time when cricket was beginning to evolve into the game we know today, Hornby would go on to become a powerful influence in the Lancashire dressing room, both on and off the field. He was a stalwart of the side every season from 1869 to 1891, serving as county captain for much of the time, and then, after a break of six years, returned, aged 50, to captain the county for two more seasons in 1897 and 1898. In later life Hornby served as the county club’s President, only eventually retiring from the role in 1916 not long before his 70th birthday.

For much of his county career Hornby opened the batting with Richard “Dick” Barlow. Lightningquick between the wickets, Hornby was described in one newspaper article as “a terror in running short runs”, meaning that there were occasions when “he or his partner had to pay the penalty of his daring”. However, notwithstanding the occasional run-out, the pair formed an extremely successful opening partnership, with Barlow’s careful defence making the ideal foil to Hornby’s more flamboyant and attacking style of play. Preston-born writer, Francis Thompson, was so moved by having seen the pair opening the batting against the legendary WG Grace’s Gloucestershire side in 1878 that nearly three decades later he immortalised the occasion in the poem, At Lord’s, recalling wistfully, “O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago”.

Hornby also played cricket for England, although he did not enjoy the same level of success that he achieved at county level. He was not present for the first officially recognised Test Match between England and Australia, which took place at Melbourne Cricket Ground

in March 1877, but he was asked to join the next tour of Australia during the winter of 1878/79. In the days before the advent of air travel, the journey to the Southern Hemisphere by boat was prolonged and arduous and England only played one official Test Match there, which Australia won comfortably. This tour was also notable for an incident in Sydney when a game had to be abandoned because of rioting spectators. The trouble started when a home batsman was controversially given out by one of the umpires and spectators invaded the pitch in protest. Hornby’s response to the rioters appears to have been typically robust. He is reported to have grabbed a stump, before single-handedly catching one of the ringleaders and dragging him off the field, at which point he handed him over to the police.  LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 197

When an Australian side toured England in 1882, Hornby was asked to captain the England team in that summer’s only Test Match, which was played at The Oval in late August. This game is notorious in cricket history for being the first occasion on which England lost a Test Match on home soil. The defeat led to the first use of the phrase, “The Ashes”, in connection with English and Australian sporting rivalry, when, soon after England’s unexpected defeat, the following mock obituary appeared in The Sporting Times,

“In affectionate remembrance of English cricket, which died at The Oval on 29th August, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. NB The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”

Remarkably, cricket is not the only sport in which Hornby captained his country during 1882.

During the 1860s Hornby had played a form of football for Brookhouse, a club whose players were mostly drawn from men working in the Hornby family’s own cotton mill. At the time rugby and association football had not yet been properly established as distinct sports with their own sets of rules, but the Brookhouse club seems to have played a version of what later would become association football. On subsequently playing rugby for the first time, Hornby is reported to have been confused as to the difference in rules between the two games, but he clearly adapted quickly.

He played club rugby for Preston Grasshoppers and, later, Manchester Rugby Club to such a high standard that, in 1877, he was selected to play for the England national side against Ireland in the first ever 15-a-side international match. He played for England again in 1878, but was compelled to miss the following season when his cricket commitments took him overseas.

He did, however, subsequently return to the England rugby team, playing the last of his nine international matches in March 1882 when he captained the side against Scotland. The Blackburn-born man remains one of only two men to have captained England at both cricket and rugby union, the other being another notable 19th-century all-round sportsman called Andrew Stoddart.

Hornby’s main passion in life was undoubtedly sport. As a young man, he seems to have shown only limited interest in joining the family business. Following his time at Harrow, Hornby went to study at Oxford University, but only lasted a few weeks there before deciding the academic life wasn’t for him. He was extremely fortunate in coming from a privileged background which meant that he was able to focus entirely on his sporting career, but he certainly made the most of the opportunities which were presented to him.

As well as his success at cricket and rugby, Hornby also played football for his hometown club, Blackburn Rovers, on several occasions. In the club’s early days Rovers played their home fixtures at Pleasington Cricket Club, before, in early 1878, deciding to move to Alexandra Meadows. Hornby was well-acquainted with the new ground, as this is where he had played cricket with Blackburn Alexandra, and he made his debut for Rovers in the first game at Alexandra Meadows, a friendly against Scottish side, Partick Thistle.

Hornby was also a fine all-round athlete, accomplished horseman and more than useful boxer. He is reported to have sparred with one of the most famous professional world heavyweight champions of the era, Jem Mace.

Hornby’s recent appearance as a character in the 2020 Netflix drama series, The English Game, has brought his name back into the public consciousness. Written by Julian Fellowes, the story centres around the birth of modern football in the late Victorian era. Sadly, no mention is made in the series of Hornby’s successful cricket career or his other sporting achievements, so, as the 175th anniversary of his birth approaches, it seems only right to recall the many accomplishments of this great sporting all-rounder from Lancashire. 

Below: Ashes Urn on display at Lord’s Photo credit: Daniel Greef/CC BY 2.0