Australian Cricket Team 1921 Tour Personal Photograph Album

Tour of the Fifteenth Australian cricket Team in England and South Africa - Season 1921, the personal photographs and annotated album assembled by the team scorer, bill Ferguson. The title page bearing a team photographic postcard (by Bolland) signed in ink by the whole team which included Armstrong, Bardsley, Ryder, Gregory, Mailey, Collins and Macartney. The following 55 pages provide 275 good quality photographs, all neatly annotated by Ferguson which give a remarkable record of the activities of the touring party, the places they went, the people they met, their welcomes and other events. While there is some cricket content, it was clearly Ferguson's intent to record the social and travel experiences. Unique. The album, 26 x 31.5 cm. William Henry Ferguson Bem (1880 ? 1957) is one of the best-known cricket scorers. For 52 years from 1905 until his death, Ferguson acted as the scorer and baggageman for Australia, England, West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand in 43 Tours and 208 test matches. He is often credited with two important innovations in scoring. He developed the radial scoring chart, which shows the directions in which a batsman scored his runs. Originally called 'Ferguson's charts', they are now popularly known as 'Wagon-wheels'. He was one of the first scorers to use a linear system of scoring which, unlike the conventional system, keeps track of the balls faced by a batsman and off a particular bowler. In order to record such details, he designed his own scoring books ? 'Which contain[ed] at least twice as much information as any other in the world' ? and had them printed at his own expense. At the same time he also filled in a conventional scoring book for official use. Australia won the 1921 Ashes series held in England. They won the first three Tests, which meant that they had won eight in succession, an unequalled sequence in Ashes Tests, following the 5-0 drubbing they had administered to England in the 1920-21 season in Australia. The last two matches of the test series were drawn.