Richard Wilson Wardill (3 November 1840 – 17 August 1873) was an Australian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

er who played in ten

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

matches, eight of which were for

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Family

The son of the stockbroker Joseph Wilson Wardill (1796-1866), and Mary Wardill (1815-1878), née Briddon, Richard Wilson Wardill was born at Everton,

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

, England on 3 November 1840. He was the brother of Benjamin Johnston Wardill (1842-1917). He married Eliza Helena Lovett Cameron (1848-1943), later Mrs. Edward Thomas Tatham, on 18 May 1871. Their son, Richard Cameron Wardill (1872-1929) was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

on 5 July 1872.

Cricket

He was the first cricketer to score a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial ...

in Australian first-class cricket, when he made 110 and 45

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

in Victoria's victory over New South Wales in 1867-68. Wardill was also an influential player and administrator in the early years of Australian rules football. On Boxing Day 1866 he captained the

Melbourne Cricket Club The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) is a sports club based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1838 and is one of the oldest sports clubs in Australia. The MCC is responsible for management and development of the Melbourne Cricket Ground ...

against the Western District Aboriginal cricket team, led by

Tom Wills Thomas Wentworth Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was an Australian sportsman who is credited with being Australia's first cricketer of significance and a founder of Australian rules football. Born in the British penal colony of Ne ...

. Cricket writer

Gideon Haigh Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist and non-fiction author who writes about sport (especially cricket), business and crime in Australia. He was born in London, was raised in Ge ...

published an article on Wardill in 1992 titled "The Drowned

Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman, (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has b ...

Football

In between 1859 and 1861 he played a number of games of Australian Rules Football with (pre-VFL) Melbourne, Richmond, and St Kilda.

Death

Wardill committed suicide by drowning himself in the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, ( Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower ...

on 17 August 1873. ::"In 1872-73 Wardill had serious personal problems probably because of speculation in mining shares; he embezzled £7000 from his employers, the Victoria Sugar Co. On 17 August 1873, aged 38, he committed suicide by jumping into the Yarra River…" — ''Australian Dictionary of Biography.''The Inquest on R.W. Wardill, ''The Argus'', (Saturday, 6 September 1873), p.7.
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Notes

References

* Haigh, Gideon, "The drowned Bradman", ''Independent Monthly'', (December 1991-January 1992), pp.23-24.

External links

Richard Wardill, at ''Demonwiki''.
1835 births 1873 deaths 1870s suicides Australian cricketers Victoria cricketers Suicides by drowning in Australia Melbourne Cricket Club cricketers Suicides in Victoria (state) Melbourne Football Club (pre-VFA) players English emigrants to colonial Australia Cricketers from Liverpool {{Australia-cricket-bio-1830s-stub