The Death of W.G. Grace — October 1915

Grace had played for Gloucestershire and England, captained both, scored 54,000 first-class runs and taken nearly 3,000 wickets. He played his last Test in 1899 at the age of 50.

Grace had been in declining health through 1915. The first German airship raid on London came on 31 May 1915; further raids continued through the summer and autumn.

Grace's last competitive innings had been in 1914, for Eltham against Grove Park, at the age of 66. By 1915 his health was failing. Family lore — repeated by his nephew and by writers including A.A. Thomson — held that the Zeppelin raids over south London in September and October 1915 distressed Grace enormously; he was said to have shaken his fist at the sky and shouted at the German airships. Whether or not the raids hastened his end, he suffered a stroke on 9 October and a second, fatal one on 23 October at his home, Fairmount, in Mottingham. He was buried at Beckenham Cemetery on 26 October. Wisden's obituary the following spring ran to many thousands of words. With Trumper having died in June and the Test cricketing world otherwise consumed by the war, Grace's passing felt like the closing of an era. He had been the dominant figure in cricket since 1865; almost no one playing in 1915 could remember a time before him.

“He revolutionised cricket. He turned it from an accomplishment into a science.”

Tributes came from every cricketing nation despite the war. The MCC held a memorial service at St Paul's. A statue was eventually erected at Lord's; the Grace Gates at the ground bear his name.