Melbourne Cricket Club Honour BookPrint Page

The Honour Book contains the names of members of the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) who died in service or were killed in action during World War One.

The Book was produced by Alf Batchelder, BA DipED Melbourne, MCC Library Volunteer, in 1998 for the Melbourne Cricket Club to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War One. 

In 1947, the Committee of the Melbourne Cricket Club approved a proposal to erect bronze plaques bearing the names of Members who had died in the two World Wars but, by 1949, the idea of naming the World War I dead had been abandoned in favour of an “appropriate inscription making reference to those Members who died in the 1914/18 War”. It is possible to discern reasons for this change. While a list of those “Killed in Action, Died of Wounds, &c” was published in the 1918-19 Annual Report, it contained inaccuracies and omitted several names. The nature of the fighting in World War I meant that considerable time passed before the Club became aware of the deaths of some Members. In addition, many whose health had been destroyed in the War, and particularly those affected by gas, did not die immediately from their afflictions. Such cases clearly presented the biggest difficulty in producing a definitive World War I Honour Roll for the MCC. What was the cut-off point for inclusion? Further complications arose from servicemen whose deaths occurred during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. Consequently, it would seem that the symbolic design was chosen because the Club was unwilling to risk omitting any names
Alf  Batchelder. 

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