Greatest Cricket Moments

Melbourne Cricket Club Founded — Victoria, 15 November 1838

1838-11-15Melbourne Cricket ClubFounding meeting of the Melbourne Cricket Club, 15 November 18381 min readSeverity: Mild

Summary

The Melbourne Cricket Club — destined to become one of the most powerful institutions in Australian and world cricket — was founded at a meeting on 15 November 1838, only three years after the city itself had been established. The MCC would in time own and operate the Melbourne Cricket Ground, host the first Test match (1877), and shape every major decision in Australian cricket for the next 150 years.

What Happened

Melbourne was founded in 1835. By late 1838 the European population was around 3,000. A group of officers and merchants met on 15 November to constitute a cricket club. The first ground was on the south bank of the Yarra; the club moved to Yarra Park (the present MCG site) in 1853. The MCC's first inter-colonial match came in 1851. By the time of the 1877 Test it was the senior cricket institution in the southern hemisphere.

Timeline

1835

Melbourne founded

15 Nov 1838

Melbourne Cricket Club founded

1853

Club moves to Yarra Park (future MCG)

1877

MCG hosts the first Test match

⚖️ The Verdict

The founding moment of what would become the most important cricket institution outside Lord's.

Legacy & Impact

The Melbourne Cricket Club shaped Australian cricket politics, owned the MCG, and remained one of the two anchor institutions (alongside MCC London) of nineteenth-century world cricket.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Melbourne CC older than the MCG?▾
Yes. The club was founded in 1838; the present MCG site was occupied by the club only from 1853.

Tags

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#melbourne-cricket-club#australia#victoria#club-foundation#1838#iconic-moment

Related Incidents

⭐Mild

Middlesex County Cricket Club Founded — Cricket Comes Home to Lord's, 1864

Middlesex cricket establishment

1864-02-02

Middlesex County Cricket Club was founded on 2 February 1864 at a meeting in London, the same year in which the MCC legalised overarm bowling and John Wisden published his first Almanack. It was one of several county clubs formally constituted in the busy years of 1863–65 as English cricket reorganised itself around a county structure that would eventually evolve into a formal championship.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s
⭐Mild

Lancashire County Cricket Club Founded — Manchester's Game Gets Organised, 1864

Lancashire cricket establishment

1864-01-12

Lancashire County Cricket Club was formally constituted at a meeting in Manchester on 12 January 1864, giving England's most cricket-passionate industrial county a formal organisational structure to match the grassroots enthusiasm that had been filling grounds at Old Trafford and elsewhere for decades. Lancashire, alongside Yorkshire, represented the great northern cricket public that William Clarke's All-England Eleven had first mobilised commercially in the 1840s.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s
⭐Mild

V.E. Walker Takes All Ten — Every Wicket at Lord's, Middlesex v Lancashire, 1865

Middlesex vs Lancashire

1865-07-26

Vyell Edward Walker of Middlesex took all ten wickets in a Lancashire innings at Lord's on 26 July 1865 — one of the earliest documented instances of a bowler taking all ten in a first-class match. Walker, a medium-pace round-arm bowler who also captained Middlesex, achieved the feat without assistance from any other bowler, delivering one of the most complete individual bowling performances of the Victorian era.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s