Harry Boyle — Spofforth's Partner, 1878-1888

Boyle was born in Sydney in December 1847 and moved to Bendigo as a teenager. He played for Victoria from the early 1870s, often in the same XI as Midwinter and Allan.

On the 1878 tour Boyle was the steady partner to Spofforth's hostile fast-medium. The opening day at Lord's saw the pair bowl unchanged through both MCC innings.

Boyle was 30 in May 1878, a Bendigo native who had emerged in Victorian intercolonial cricket in the early 1870s. He was a slow-medium right-armer with a famously accurate length, who positioned himself short and square at silly mid-on for his own bowling — the position that became known to a later generation as 'Boyle's mid-on' and is the ancestor of the modern silly point. At Lord's on 27 May 1878 he took 3/14 and 6/3, the latter analysis among the great match-deciding spells of the decade. He toured England in 1878, 1880, 1882, 1884, 1888 and managed the 1890 side. Across 12 Tests he took 32 wickets at 20.03. His finest hour was at the Oval in August 1882, when he caught Peate at silly mid-on off Spofforth to win the famous 'Ashes' Test for Australia by 7 runs.

“Boyle, more than anyone else except Spofforth and Blackham, made the fame of the first Australian eleven in England.”

Boyle retired from international cricket after the 1888 tour and managed the 1890 side. He was a successful Bendigo businessman, a leading figure in country Victorian cricket, and died in Bendigo on 21 November 1907.