Richard Driver (junior) (16 September 1829 – 8 July 1880) was a Sydney solicitor, politician and cricket administrator. Driver was born in Cabramatta,

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, son of Richard Driver, hotel-keeper, and his wife Elizabeth, née Powell. In 1859, he became a solicitor for the Sydney City Council and also carried out a practice in the Sydney police court. Driver unsuccessfully contested three seats in the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House ...

in 1858 and was defeated again for East Sydney in 1859, but won West Macquarie in 1860 and held it to 1869. He was the member for Carcoar from 1869 to 1872 and Windsor from 1872 to his death in 1880. He generally supported

Henry Parkes Sir Henry Parkes, (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was a colonial Australian politician and longest non-consecutive Premier of the Colony of New South Wales, the present-day state of New South Wales in the Commonwealth of Australia. He has ...

, but turned down an offer of to be made minister of mines in 1872. He became Secretary for Lands in Parkes' 1877 government and as a

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 ...

lover he provided £700 for improvements to the

Sydney Cricket Ground The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in Sydney, Australia. It is used for Test, One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, as well as, Australian rules football and occasionally for rugby league, rugby union and association fo ...

and vested the ground in trustees in 1879, including himself as the representative of the

New South Wales Cricket Association Cricket NSW (officially known as the ''New South Wales Cricket Association'') is an Australian sporting association that administers cricket in New South Wales. It is based at the Sydney Olympic Park. The New South Wales Blues, the New South Wa ...

. Driver played in New South Wales' first

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 ...

match against Victoria 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 ...

in 1856. He travelled with the team as the scorer, but when one of the selected team failed to turn up, he played instead. Batting at No. 11, he made 18 in the first innings, helping to take the score from 9 for 40 to 76 all out. New South Wales won narrowly, and Driver was the match's equal highest scorer. It was his only match for New South Wales. He umpired four of New South Wales' first-class matches between 1857 and 1877. From 1860 to 1880 he was an important organiser of visits by English cricket teams and intercolonial matches. He was president of the New South Wales Cricket Association from 1870 to 1880.''The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket'', Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, p. 149. In 1871 Driver married Elizabeth Margaret Marlow. He died in the Sydney suburb of Randwick and is buried at

Waverley Cemetery The Waverley Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery on top of the cliffs at Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Opened in 1877 and built by R. Watkins (cemetery lodge, 1878) and P. Beddie (cemetery office, 1915 ...

. A road built in the 1890s outside the Sydney Cricket Ground is named Driver Avenue in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Driver, Richard 1829 births 1880 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Burials at Waverley Cemetery 19th-century Australian politicians Australian cricketers New South Wales cricketers Pre-Federation Australian cricket administrators

See also

References