Arthur Edward Robert Gilligan (23 December 1894 – 5 September 1976) was an English first-class cricketer who captained the England cricket team nine times in 1924 and 1925, winning four Test matches, losing four and drawing one. In first-class cricket, he played as an amateur, mainly for Cambridge University and Sussex, and captained the latter team between 1922 and 1929. A fast bowler and hard-hitting lower order batsman, Gilligan completed the double in 1923 and was one of Wisdens Cricketers of the Year for 1924. When his playing career ended, he held several important positions in cricket, including that of England selector and president of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). A popular figure within cricket, he was widely regarded as sporting and friendly.
Gilligan played cricket for Dulwich College before the First World War, then for Cambridge, twice winning his blue. He briefly played county cricket for Surrey but moved to Sussex in 1920. Following a slow start to his county career, he rapidly improved and in partnership with Maurice Tate established a formidable bowling reputation. First playing for England in 1922, he was appointed Test captain in 1924. In the latter year, Gilligan was at the height of his form when he suffered a blow to his heart while batting. The strain affected his bowling, which was never again as effective, but he still captained England in Australia during the 1924–25 season. The series was lost, but both he and his team were popular and respected. In following years, he played less frequently; he resigned as Sussex captain in 1929 and retired three years later. He subsequently became a writer, journalist and cricket commentator while maintaining his connections with Sussex.
As a captain, Gilligan was well-liked by players and commentators, although many did not believe he was an effective tactician. Nevertheless, under his leadership, Sussex became an attractive, competitive team. He encouraged the search for young talent, and the players consequently discovered became the backbone of the club into the 1930s. As a fielder, he inspired his teams to become good fielding sides. In addition, as MCC captain of a team which toured India in 1926–27, he encouraged Indians to take responsibility for their own cricket board instead of allowing white Englishmen to run Indian cricket, and lobbied the MCC to bestow Test match status on the Indian team. As MCC president, he played a part in the D'Oliveira affair in 1968.
During his playing days, Gilligan was a member of the British Fascists. He came to the notice of the Australian secret service during the 1924–25 MCC (England) tour, and it is possible he helped to establish small fascist groups in Australia. It is unknown how long he remained a member, but the organisation practically ceased to exist by 1926. Gilligan died in 1976, aged 81.
Early life
Gilligan was born in Denmark Hill, an area of Camberwell in London. He was the second of four children born to Willie Austin Gilligan (1864-1940), a manager for Liebig's Extract of Meat Company, and Alice Eliza, née Kimpton; his brothers Frank and Harold also played high-level cricket. In 1914, he topped the school's batting and bowling averages. Selected to play representative schools cricket at Lord's Cricket Ground in 1914, he took ten wickets in total and scored one fifty in the two matches. By the standards of school cricket, his pace was impressive, and Surrey invited him to play for their second eleven during the school holidays of 1913 and 1914; his father was a member of that county's committee, and Gilligan qualified to play through his London birth.
In 1914, Gilligan entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, but his life at the university was interrupted by the First World War. He fought in France with the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1915, serving as Captain in the 11th battalion. He made a bigger impression when, batting at number eleven in the order, he scored 101 against Sussex and shared a last-wicket partnership of 177 in 65 minutes with John Naumann. At the end of the season, he changed counties; his family connections in the area, and the presence of his brother Harold in the team, led him to register with Sussex.
Gilligan retained his position in the Cambridge team in 1920 and once more played against Oxford. In the University Match, he was ineffective with the ball as the damp conditions did not suit his style of bowling. Personally, Gilligan had his best season to date with bat and ball; he scored 916 runs and took 135 wickets at an average of 18.75.|group=notes Gilligan played in two of the five Tests, the first and last. His Test debut came on 23 December 1922 in a match which England lost. The team were more successful during his second appearance; he took six wickets in the match, and his batting at a crucial stage of the match—he scored 39 not out in the second innings—was vital in a victory which gave the series to England 2–1. In total, Gilligan took nine Test wickets at 22.37, and in all first-class games, captured 26 wickets at an average of 22.03. he established a bowling partnership which proved effective over the following two seasons. Instead, the selectors appointed Gilligan as captain for the 1924 series against South Africa, in an attempt to assess whether he possessed the playing ability to justify his selection in the role. Cricket journalist E. W. Swanton writes that Gilligan was the favoured candidate of the influential Lord Harris, which may have assisted his appointment. Gibson describes Gilligan at the time as "29 years old, an attractive, smiling personality". Gilligan began the season very well. He and Tate, in the weeks approaching the first Test, established a reputation as the best opening bowlers in the world. When South Africa followed-on, he took five for 83, it was obvious that he was hurt, and he was out shortly afterwards. Although the Gentlemen v Players match at the Oval was less prestigious than its Lord's counterpart, and generally mattered less to participants, Gilligan chose to bat the next day despite his injury and scored a century batting at number 10. He had, however, faced some criticism of his captaincy. After being underused in the first Test, Cec Parkin wrote an article highly critical of Gilligan which appeared in the press; Parkin never played for England again. Journalists later revealed that, at some point in the season, the selectors had first asked Frank Mann to captain, but he was unable to accept the invitation.
Tour of Australia
On the field
thumb|upright=1.5|alt=Photograph of England team walking onto the Melbourne Cricket Ground with fans watchingfrom the stands | Gilligan (third from left) is leading the England team onto the [[Melbourne Cricket Ground at the Australian second innings during the fourth Test on 18 February 1925. ]]
Following his injury in 1924, Gilligan could no longer bowl fast and, as a player, had little influence on the 1924–25 tour of Australia; His best bowling figures of four for 12 came in the opening match and his only century came in the second game; he passed fifty just once more on the tour. Other aspects of Gilligan's leadership were less successful; his captaincy lacked tactical sophistication, According to Noble, his sportsmanship, including his grace and cheerfulness in defeat, made him a perfect English gentleman and an "Empire builder". The third Test was much closer, although England were severely hampered by injuries to three bowlers, including Gilligan himself. These injuries may have affected the outcome of the series. Australia won by the small margin of 11 runs, though Gilligan helped to take his team close to victory with a restrained innings of 31. England won the fourth Test, their first victory over Australia since the war Critics judged that the team played well and did not suffer disgrace, despite the result. Gibson judges that most of his wickets were good batsmen, and many bowlers had poor figures in a series that produced a large number of runs, so this record is not as poor as it appears.]]
Political concerns
The MCC tour took place against a background of social disturbance in Australia. There were concerns within Australian society over the growing influence of communism and, according to the historian Andrew Moore, some commentators hoped that the tour would help to ease tension. It was expected that Gilligan's influence and popularity would further assist this process. The primary focus of the organisation was to oppose communism, but MI5 considered its threat serious enough to warrant placing leading members under surveillance. Moore suggests that it is possible that Gilligan and Toone used the tour as an opportunity to establish links in Australia. However, Moore writes that "the British Fascists' Australian operations were small beer indeed" and of little consequence. Moore judges that the article was neither well written nor particularly persuasive, but notes that other writers at the time made the connection between sport, cricket, the ideology of the British Empire and Fascism.
There is no evidence to say how long Gilligan maintained his connection with the British Fascists after the tour, nor if he did so at all. By 1926, the organisation had split and faded from view.
Remaining cricket career
Restricted by injury
A recurrence of the effects of his injury in 1924 restricted Gilligan's cricket in 1925. Playing more games, he scored 1,037 runs at 30.50, the highest seasonal batting average of his career, and took 75 wickets at 20.74. and as a consequence missed some cricket for Sussex. He published a book on that summer's tour by Australia called Collins's Men. the side was not fully representative and did not play Test matches. In first-class games, he scored three fifties and, bowling infrequently, took ten wickets on the tour. Gilligan left most of the day-to-day organisation to his vice-captain, Raleigh Chichester-Constable, and did not take his speech-making duties particularly seriously. He nevertheless had to deal with several issues. One of the team, Jack Parsons, refused for religious reasons to take part in matches that included
Sunday play; Gilligan threatened to send him home but in the end he agreed to play on condition that he could leave early on a Sunday to attend religious services. Parsons was also openly critical of racial and social discrimination that he saw. Gilligan himself intervened at one point when the MCC professionals were excluded from some invitations in Calcutta; he told their hosts that no-one would attend the functions if the professionals were not included. Both the sporting and social programmes for the tour were demanding, and Gilligan chose to attend most functions for fear of offending their hosts. The players were left exhausted, necessitating the use of reinforcements to their number, including the occasional use of English cricketers who were coaching in India and, in several matches, the Maharajah of Patiala, who was a member of the MCC and entitled to play for the team.
The tour was originally conceived to encourage cricket-playing Europeans living in India. But as the team was financed by the Maharajah of Patiala, it played Indian sides, rather than the European sides envisaged by the tour's organisers. Gilligan, in contrast to many Englishmen, was happy to play Indian teams and actively encouraged Indians to organise their own cricket rather than leave it up to white Englishmen. According to the cricket writer Mihir Bose, Gilligan, unlike others, "met Indians on terms of perfect equality". He successfully encouraged the Indians to form their own cricket board and promised to make a case with the Lord's authorities for India to become a Test playing team. He did so, and in 1929 India became a member of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Harold also took over as captain of an MCC team which toured New Zealand in the winter of 1929–30 when Gilligan withdrew owing to illness.
Style and technique
At the peak of his career, Gilligan was a fast bowler. He bowled with his arm quite low, but was very accurate; his usual strategy was to aim at the stumps or to try to induce the batsmen to edge the ball to be caught in the slips. According to his Wisden obituary, he "regarded it as a cardinal sin to bowl short". His Wisden obituary stated: "In two or three seasons by his insistence on fielding and on attacking cricket and by his own superb example he raised Sussex from being nothing in particular to one of the biggest draws in England." Percy Fender believed that Gilligan allowed the team's professionals a greater say in Sussex's affairs than previously permitted. Fender wrote that Gilligan's teams enjoyed playing under him and that he was one of the most popular captains in county cricket. Swanton wrote that "Gilligan was essentially a friendly man, hail-fellow-well-met, and it is hard to think that in the world of sport he ever made an enemy."
Personal life
Gilligan married his first wife, Cecilia Mary Mathews, in April 1921, He married again in 1934; he met his second wife, Katharine Margaret Fox, on a skiing trip. He became one of the first radio cricket commentators, In 1955, he wrote a book, The Urn Returns, about the 1954–55 Ashes series, won by England. In England, he wrote about cricket for the News Chronicle.
When his cricket career ended, Gilligan maintained his connection with Sussex, of which he was later made an Honorary Life Member. He served as chairman, patron and president of the county and assisted many local clubs in the area. Gilligan, in his capacity as MCC president, was aware of this having seen a private letter which communicated the explicit threat from the South African prime minister B. J. Vorster that the forthcoming tour would be cancelled if D'Oliveira were selected. However, he and the others who saw the letter, G. O. B. Allen and Billy Griffith, respectively the MCC treasurer and secretary, kept this information to themselves. When the English selectors met to choose the team, Gilligan, Allen and Griffith were present to represent the MCC. but D'Oliveira's biographer Peter Oborne suggests that Allen carried far more influence at the meeting. He writes of Gilligan's part in the affair: "It would be wrong to make too much of Gilligan's embarrassing past. Given that presidents are appointed for only a year, it was a very strong president indeed who could impose his personality on the permanent MCC secretariat of Griffith and Allen, and Gilligan was not a strong president." Initially D'Oliveira was left out of the team, but when a player withdrew with an injury, the selectors added him as a replacement; the South African government barred D'Oliveira from taking part and the MCC cancelled the tour.
In 1971, a stand named after Gilligan was opened at Hove Cricket Ground, Gilligan died in Pulborough, Sussex, on 5 September 1976, aged 81.