The mighty George Bonnor: the biggest hitter in Australian cricket

With the spring now upon us and football seasons coming to a close, sporting minds across the country are turning their thoughts to cricket. This week, Orange City Life looks back at the colourful career of big-hitting Orange cricket identity George Bonnor for whom the Orange District Cricket Club’s Bonnor Cup is named.

While the annals of Australian cricket are filled with the names of many talented players, there are few in the latter decades of the 19th century whose reputations shine as bright as that of George John Bonnor.

Statisticians looking at the bare numbers of his cricketing career might easily overlook Bonnor, but in real life that was much harder to do. At 6 foot 6 inches, Bonnor was a giant man for his day. By all accounts he was a striking figure, handsome and an extraordinary all-round athlete, and none were quicker to say so than Bonnor himself.

Born in Bathurst in 1855, Bonnor moved to Orange in 1887, where he worked as a produce buyer and storekeeper and was a stalwart of the Orange District Cricket Association.

He had begun playing club cricket in Sydney in the late 1870s and went on to represent both Victoria and NSW at the state level.

Bonnor’s international debut came in England in 1880, and his selection may have had just as much to do with showmanship as his cricketing prowess. His size, handsome features, athleticism and big-hitting ability made him a popular figure with the English cricketing public and earned him nicknames such as ‘The Colonial Hercules’ and ‘Bonnor the Basher’.

“The mighty Bonnor, immensely tall, with golden hair and beard… this superb figure, like a god from another planet,” recalled the essayist and playwright E.V. Lucas in 1925.

Orange’s own famous literary son Banjo Paterson had this to say of ‘The Bathurst Giant’: “A very picturesque personality, a beautifully built man who could run a hundred yards in 10.25 sec. He played a good game of billiards and he could throw a cricket ball 120 yards. Bonnor despised all bowlers and, while he was in, he never scored less than a run a minute off his own bat.”

On paper, Bonnor’s batting career was unremarkable, but as a hitter of the ball, he was legendary.

Famously, in his first appearance at The Oval in 1880, Bonnor hit a ball so high that by the time it was caught on the boundary by G.F. Grace, he had almost completed his third run.

Another time at The Oval, he is said to have hit a ball into the office of the Surrey Cricket Club secretary, knocking keys from his hand and smashing a framed photograph mounted on the wall. Then there is the story of him splintering a sightboard at Plymouth with a succession of hits over the bowler’s head.

At the Sydney Cricket Ground, Bonnor hit a ball over the Members’ Pavilion and into a hansom cab waiting at the rank behind. And in Melbourne, he is remembered for supposedly smashing the pavilion clock and hitting a six out of the ground that was measured at 164 yards.

One of Bonnor’s most spoken of innings came about in 1882 at Scarborough when Australia played the English club, I Zingari. The Englishmen batted first and scored 341. In return, the Australians managed just 146, forcing the follow-on. Bonnor came in to bat and made 122 not out off 156 balls. He made 20 runs off one over in just four balls.

“It was like eleven sheep trying to stop the cannon shots of the batsman,” wrote one of the English players after the match.

In total, Bonnor played  17 test matches for Australia, touring England five times, and was a member of the 1882 side that defeated England at The Oval and gave birth to ‘The Ashes’ cricket series.

Fast on his feet and an active and athletic fielder, Bonnor was regarded as one of the best men in the slips in every Test team he played in. He was particularly noted for his ability to throw a cricket ball over 100 yards and regularly did so. There is an oft-repeated tale of Bonnor winning a £100 wager after throwing a ball just shy of 120 yards.

But of all his admirers, there was no one more enamoured with the prowess of George Bonnor than George Bonnor himself.

Once asked who were the three greatest cricketers in the world, Bonnor is said to have given it some thought before replying, “Well, there’s W.G. Grace, there’s Billy Murdoch, and it’s not for me to say who the other is.”

As another newspaper account recalled: “According to the mighty smiter [Bonnor], he was the best boxer, best runner, best footballer, the biggest hitter, the best singer, and the longest cricket ball thrower ever born in New South Wales.”

There are numerous stories of Bonnor relaying to anyone who would listen the times he had brought himself to tears with his own wonderful singing.

“As he sang on and forgot all about the time, he was surprised to see that the sky had suddenly become black,” wrote one friend, recalling a Bonnor tale. “Fearful of being caught in one of those terrible Orange thunderstorms ‘Bon’ jumped up in alarm, only to discover what he had imagined were black and threatening rain clouds were millions upon millions of birds who had darkened the sky for miles round as they hovered in the air listening spellbound to the sweet songster below.”

On another occasion, during an argument over who was the fastest bowler that ever lived, Bonnor declared that he bowled at least five yards faster than the legendary Australian quick, Fred ‘The Demon Bowler’ Spofforth, whose name had been put forth.

“I was the fastest bowler that ever lived,” Bonnor said, regaling a group of young players with tales of his cricketing feats.

“And so great was my pace that in a match at Orange after sending down one of my fastest deliveries, which I knew would be snicked in the slips, as I bowled for it, I ran down the pitch, chased the ball after it had been played, and caught it at deep slip.

“I could not do it always,” he added modestly, “but that day I could do anything.”

Despite this high opinion of himself and the seemingly endless tall stories, Bonnor was well-liked by his peers.

“Those who knew him best liked him most,” wrote English sports writer and one-time editor of The Athletic News, James Catton.

“They knew at heart he was not a braggart… Bonnor used to talk in this pompous and grandiose style, but he was not 17 stone weight of conceit.

“It was his way, and he never deceived his friends, who just laughed at his self-laudation, which was not founded in vice.”

Indeed, the Orange Leader recalls admiringly an incident in which Bonnor, who had been dismissed in a local match for 25, later refused to accept a toast made to him as the team’s highest scorer of the day.

“I can’t claim that honour, gentlemen, as Mr Durnford has 22 runs to his credit, and was not out,” he said.

Of the many feats attributed to Bonnor, he can lay claim to what was possibly the biggest six ever hit in cricket history.

Opening the batting for Orange against Bathurst at Wade Park one Saturday, Bonnor let the first two balls pass, before sending the third soaring high in the direction of the railway goods shed. A search party failed to locate the ball, so another was found, and the match resumed.

Three days later, on Tuesday morning, Bonnor’s six finally fell to earth when the porter in charge of the goods shed at Bourke removed the tarpaulin from the railway truck that had carried the stowaway ball 500 kilometres from Orange.

George Bonnor died at his brother’s home in east Orange on June 27, 1912, aged 57. He is buried in the Baptist section of the Orange Cemetery.