George Coulthard, Australian cricketer and footballer (b. 1856)
George Coulthard (1 August 1856 – 22 October 1883) was an Australian cricketer and Australian rules footballer.
Born and raised on a farm outside Melbourne, Victoria, Coulthard helped lead the Carlton Football Club to premiership success in the fledgling Victorian Football Association (VFA), and was a key member of the Victorian side that dominated the first intercolonial matches. A fast, versatile and highly skilled footballer, Coulthard was, in the opinion of many of his contemporaries, the greatest player yet seen in the Australian game. However, his football career ended in controversy in 1882 when he received a season-long suspension—then the most severe punishment ever handed down by the VFA—for brawling and using "bad language" during play. Regarded today as the game's "first bona fide superstar", he was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.As a professional cricketer, he played at club level for Melbourne, represented Victoria in five first-class intercolonial matches, and made one Test appearance for Australia, against England in 1882. Coulthard also umpired one of the earliest Tests at age 22, and although he remains the youngest ever Test umpire, he is perhaps best known in cricket for instigating the sport's first international riot when, in 1879 in Sydney, he controversially gave New South Wales batsman Billy Murdoch out against Lord Harris' English XI. Coulthard was co-officiating the match with Edmund Barton, later the first Prime Minister of Australia.
Coulthard's sporting exploits made him a household name throughout Australia. Off the field, he ran a tobacco and sporting goods store in Lygon Street, Carlton, and won additional fame for surviving a shark attack off Shark Island, fighting bare-knuckle boxing champion Jem "The Gypsy" Mace, and being the alleged source of a dream premonition that convinced many Melbourne Cup punters to back a horse with long odds (the horse finished close to last). Coulthard is also known as Australian football's first "man in white" for umpiring an 1880 match in the now-traditional all-white uniform. In 1882, while serving as the England cricket team's umpire on its first quest to regain The Ashes, Coulthard became ill with tuberculosis, from which he died the following year, aged 27.
1883Oct, 22
George Coulthard
Choose Another Date
Events on 1883
- 16Jan
United States Civil Service Commission
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is passed. - 20May
1883 eruption of Krakatoa
Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people. - 17Aug
National Anthem of the Dominican Republic
The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional. - 20Oct
Treaty of Ancón
Peru and Chile sign the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province is ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific. - 3Nov
Black Bart (outlaw)
American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves a clue that eventually leads to his capture.