W.G. Grace – A Footnote to History

Martin Chandler | 9:20am GMT 21 January 2024

Published: 1994
Pages: 8
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3.5 stars

It would have been a surprise if, in the course of his researches into the more obscure aspects of cricket history, Irving Rosenwater’s attentions hadn’t focused on WG Grace, and this monograph is the first of the two that did.

The second Grace monograph, which appeared three years later, focused directly on WG’s performances on the field. For this one however the link with WG’s cricket is rather more tenuous.

For a man who made such a large amount of money over his lifetime it is notable that WG did not own his long time home at Mottingham in south-east London. The home was a substantial one, but was leased with the term of the lease due to end a year after he died. WG was by no means a pauper at his death, his gross estate being worth in excess of £7,200, a sum worth a little under £900,000 today, but perhaps not what might have been expected.

In the usual way WG’s will was admitted to Probate after his death, and thereby became a public document at that stage. There is nothing unusual about the contents of the will, although Rosenwater patiently transcribes it anyway. What was inevitably be more interesting to know would be exactly what treasures did or did not make up the gross value of WG’s estate.

The inventory that was prepared in respect of WG’s estate, and which formed the basis for his executors’ discussions with the Inland Revenue was not a public document at the time, but 75 years on, so in 1992, it became one and the bulk of the monograph concerns what Rosenwater discovered from the Inland Revenue’s file. Overall he was probably disappointed, but the results of his research are interesting nonetheless.

There are fifty copies of W.G. Grace – A Footnote to History, so not the rarest albeit, as it is on the subject of a man who is of so much interest to so many, not the easiest of Rosenwater’s monographs to find.