Trailblazers Celebrated

Before Eddie there was Albert.

While pioneering Indigenous fast bowler Eddie Gilbert is widely known as an established and influential figure in the history of Australian cricket for his feats during the 1930s, he was not the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander to play cricket for Queensland.

Albert ‘-Alec-’ Henry is widely considered to be the first Indigenous cricketer to represent Queensland, and was among a handful of early Aboriginal trailblazers to achieve selection in first class matches in Australia.

He made his first-class debut in 1901-02, and had a short but impactful career, claiming 21 wickets at 32.04, with his best figures of 5-40. 

His career fell in the period when Queensland was not included in the Sheffield Shield and was restricted to one-off games against the other States and touring teams which meant that his seven first-class matches were spread across four seasons.

Like Gilbert, he was a right-arm fast bowler and had to overcome suspicions surrounding the legality of his bowling action during his career.

A published account in the Australian Dictionary of Biography details that Henry’s parents were from the Jagera or Jukambe (Yugambeh) people. Records show he was born in Lowood in 1880. 

At the age of 18 he moved from Nanango, in the Kingaroy district, to the Deebing Creek reserve, near Ipswich. He played for the Deebing Creek Aboriginal cricket team (pictured below is their 1865-66 trophy, which was contested three years before the historic 1868 tour of England) and then club cricket for Bundamba and South Brisbane Electorate Club.

A tall, athletic figure, he was noted as an outstanding runner and impressed on the rugby union field.

His debut for Queensland on 29 March 1902 against NSW was an historic instance and the subject of much media attention in Australia, as it was the first time that two Aboriginal Australians had played in opposing teams at first-class level.

The New South Wales team also included Jack Marsh, also a fast bowler and pioneering Indigenous player.

Reports at the time indicated that as part of the promotion of the game at the Gabba, Henry travelled to Ipswich rail station to meet Marsh who was travelling with the NSW team on the interstate train. Marsh was reported in the media as having said "Say old man, toss me up a soft one so I can get a smack at you". 

Marsh took 2/64 and 3/67 and Henry took 2/59 and 1/38 in a drawn match. Marsh and Henry each bowled three of their victims. They also dismissed one another once, each being bowled for nine in their respective team's first innings, and neither batted in their team's second innings, creating some neat symmetry in the scorecard.

The pair continued their rivalry the following season, when Queensland and NSW again met at the Gabba, with the Queenslander taking the individual honours with 5-40 in the second innings, despite NSW winning by 77 runs.

His remaining matches also featured an appearance against the touring MCC team where he impressed the visitors with his pace.

Question marks over his bowling action continued to disrupt his playing career. In a widely reported encounter in Brisbane First Grade cricket in 1904, he is said to have confronted the standing umpire after being no-balled for throwing. His argument that the umpire ‘no-balled his good balls, but the balls he threw deliberately were not’ did not win the day for him and he was later suspended for a month. 

Sent back to the Deebing Creek reserve, Henry resumed playing for Ipswich and competed in professional sprint races there and in Brisbane. He was omitted from the Queensland cricket team's southern tour to Melbourne and Sydney but was recalled in April 1905 for what proved to be his last match for the State.

He was not selected in the 1906 season as Queensland debuted new players after several lean seasons.

Later disputes with the authorities at Deebing Creek saw him removed to the settlements of Barambah (later known as Cherbourg) and then to Yarrabah in Far North Queensland. It was there that he died in 1909 of tuberculosis at the age of 29 and was buried at the old mission cemetery at Ambrym Point on Gunggandji country.

National Reconciliation Week started yesterday and runs through until next Tuesday.