James Matthew, or J.M, Barrie (1860-1937) is the author of Peter Pan and was very famous during his time. He was in act so famous that he was able to create his own celebrity cricket team, full of famous people from the pre-World War One era. Here, Pitamber Kaushik tells us about Barrie’s team, Allahakbarries.
Sir J.M. Barrie, circa 1895. Source: George Grantham Bain collection, available here.
If I were to ask you if Winnie The Pooh, Peter Pan, Mowgli, Sherlock Holmes, and The Invisible Man share a camaraderie: One beyond the obvious, beyond bookshelves. What would you think of? Disney? Bestselling? Animation?
Can a clique of elite literati get an etymology wrong? A clique so elite that it had multiple Knights, Nobel Nominees, Poet-Laureate Candidates, Statesmen, Royal Academics, and Aristocrats - cumulating 6 would-be knights, 2 Barons, and at least 3 Politicians.
'The Allahakbarries' were an amateur cricket club founded by J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and comprised of like-minded contemporaries, who shared his intellectual niche. The team included literary and artistic bigwigs as Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, AA Milne, PG Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, Walter Raleigh, GK Chesterton, Henry Justice Ford, and many others, including the son of Alfred Tennyson. Wherever the cricket team played would have been perhaps the highest concentration of prestige, scholarly esteem, and literary accomplishment, putting even Oxbridge campuses to shame, and an extraordinary convergence of diverse merits, accolades and qualifications, only matched by a few select award ceremonies and Royal Society Meetings.
The name of the team was derived from the phrase "Allah hu Akbar", and makes a pun on Sir James Barrie’s surname. It arose from a mistaken notion amongst the members, that the Arabic phrase meant "Heaven Help Us" instead of "God is Great". The usage was intended humorously (as with most things that pertain to Barrie), hinting at Barrie's partial realization of his cricketing ineptitude.
The book
Allahakbaries c.c. is a slim book documenting the exploits of this League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Heavily-illustrated with humorous sketches and caricatures, and often mildly self-deprecating, the book was privately published for circulation amongst Barrie’s friends (as would be apparent, he had quite the friend circle, from Ginsberg to Kerouac). This makes the booklet notoriously difficult to get one's hands on, and hence remains highly-prized among collectors. The 40-page booklet, first published in 1890 had its revised edition in 1899, and was reprinted in 1950, with a foreword by legendary cricketer Sir Donald Bradman. Barrie’s salient comical touch is evident all through the book. An introduction by a former junior team-member in the last edition of the book opens it by saying:
“If you had met Barrie, a cricketer was about the last thing that you would have imagined him to be. For he was small, frail and sensitive, rather awkward in his movements, and there was nothing athletic in his appearance.”
Barrie, echoing his character Peter Pan, was physically and behaviorally childlike: he was the second youngest of six siblings, infirm, gaunt, and slight of physique. An elder brother’s death at an early age led to their mother neglecting the infant Barrie, which is suspected to have triggered a growth disorder in him. Psychosocial Short Stature (PSS), a medical condition marked by a lack of growth hormone, resulting in poor constitution is likely attributable to this. Barrie stood at 5’3.5” (161 cm). His having no children of his own lends further strength to the claim of his physical immaturity. Anyway, Barrie was certainly not the athletic type; however, his deficiency was overshadowed by his enthusiasm for the sport of cricket.
The book recalls his most remarkable calamity in the form of being clean-bowled by the famed American Broadway actress Mary de Navarro (nee Anderson) in the 1897 “test” against the village of Broadway. In fact, the book itself is dedicated ′To Our Dear Enemy Mary de Navarro′. The Broadway star who had retired to Worcestershire assembled a team from the community of artists resident in the area, and used to play against the Allahakbaries, often getting their better, much to Barrie’s chagrin.
Illustrations
An illustration from the booklet drawn by the eminent Barnard Partridge, titled “Result of the Test Match, 1808”, depicts Barrie and Mary de Navarro in not the most amiable of terms, a mockingly confrontational moment. In those days, losing to a woman in a physical pursuit was a subject of embarrassment, derision, and mockery. The characteristic postures, smug expression, and the difference in stature are all too noticeable. Barrie frequently made himself or his team the frivolous laughing stock in the work - which, considering how well the team performed, was often more truthful narration than selective emphasis.
The illustrator of the book is the same Barnard Partridge, who was once famously instructed by Barrie (the team’s self-appointed Captain) as, “Partridge, when bowling, keep your eye on square leg. Square-leg, when Partridge is bowling, keep your eye on him!”
As an assertive and tactical captain, Barrie forbade his team from practicing on an opponent's ground before a match, as 'this can only give them confidence'.
Barrie’s team choice was based on persona over play. In his own words: "With regard to the married men, it was because I liked their wives, with the regard to the single men, it was for the oddity of their personal appearance." His wish was fulfilled with the admission of naturalist Joseph Thomson, who swapped cricket whites for pajamas on the ground.
To say that Barrie was the weak link of his team’s batting order would have been an understatement. This was in spite of the general lack of talent in the team. Augustine Birrell had to be explained the rules of the game including ‘which side of the bat to wave at the ball’ and ‘what to do when the umpire says “over”’, en route to the field. Author Birrell would go on to be the First Secretary for Ireland during the Easter Rising. Some of his teammates had never held a bat before.
Asked to describe his bowling, Barrie replied that after delivering the ball he would go and sit on the turf at mid-off and wait for it to reach the other end which ‘it sometimes did’. The team played for the sheer passion of the game, rather than the results, and Barrie was generous in his praise for his teammates and opposition alike. For instance, he lauded a fellow teammate’s batting performance as, “You scored a good single in the first innings but were not so successful in the second.”
His sole noteworthy achievement was that he had once bowled out Douglas Haig, later the commander of British Expeditionary Force in World War One.
A joke?
However, as Peter Pan’s First XI, a 2011 book on the subject suggests, some of Barrie’s tales should not be taken at face value, if not with a grain of salt. Circumstances cited are scarce, and most tales seem woven in the fabric of Barrie’s typical fantasizing. Barrie was ever the taleteller, and is likely to have traded authenticity for anecdotal hilarity. He was someone who would rather have you believe his life was eventful, than glorious.
The Allahakbarries were essentially a long-running joke of Barrie’s. The book is full of jests and witticisms about his team′s abject lack of talent. It seems as if most players found it difficult to bat, bowl and or field. Able Players were occasionally (as and when required) recruited to bolster the ranks. A certain player was described as ‘breaks everything except the ball’, while Barrie had to issue explicit directives to his players that "Should you hit the ball, run at once. Do not stop to cheer." One French player thought that when the umpire called “over,” the game was literally finished.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the only face-saver in the team: adept, reliable, consistent, and experienced. Doyle was a seasoned cricketer. Enlistment into the team stressed more on celebrity status than sporting merit: Doyle possessed both. His “seasoned” credentials included getting hit by a fast delivery that kindled a box of matches in his pocket and set his trousers ablaze. His sporting repertoire was quite the handful: A good goalkeeper in soccer, an adroit golfer and a first-class cricket player for the prestigious Marylebone Cricket Club. Doyle was described by Barrie as "A grand bowler. Knows a batsman's weakness by the colour of the mud on his shoes." Conan Doyle proved to be the exception as a fabulous batsman and fearsome bowler. The six-footer was vigorous and formidable in sports from golf to alpine skiing. Carr describes Conan Doyle as Barrie’s ‘chief tower of strength’. Holmes however, described Barrie as being no novice and delivering impressive lobs: his ‘insidious good-length lefthand ball’ from leg, was always likely to take wickets. However, in retrospect, it seems that the erstwhile emphasis on off-side batting blocked out his prospects. Leg-side batting was seen as unruly and poor conduct. As for Barrie, when not disparaging his demerits, he took pride in his deceptively slow ball and sought solace in being ‘the slowest baller of all”. ‘My better class of bowling is “slow” ’, he confessed in his writing.
Celebrity cricket
The team can be regarded as the origin of ‘Celebrity Cricket’, and attracted considerable attention. It comprised Edwardian England’s crème de la crème intelligentsia. Barrie, ever-the kid-at-heart, dwelt in fantasy and fables. His imaginative, adventurous self had a fondness towards explorers and navigators.
His team included two famed explorers, Hesketh-Hesketh Prichard and Robert Falcon Scott, and travellers in Africa, Joseph Thomson and Paul du Chaillu. The latter he referred as (being) “of Gorilla fame”, citing his being one of the few white men of that time, to have seen the ape. It were also these two who would answer a fellow team member’s query of how the phrase ‘Heaven Help Us’ would be said in ‘African’ as ‘Allahakbar’. The naming alludes to the prevalent fascination with the exoticism and esotericism of the Orient, that characterized many Victorian learned people. None of the explorers in his team “had ever handled a bat before, and there was widespread confusion as to how it should be employed.”
The team played regularly until 1913, when the First World War brought it to an abrupt end. The gleeful, flamboyant team had a rather lackluster and gloomy decline, penned in Barrie’s diary as: “The Last Cricket Match. One or two days before war declared – my anxiety and premonition – boys gaily playing cricket at Auch, seen from my window. I know they're to suffer. I see them dropping out one by one, fewer and fewer.”
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You can read Pitamber’s first article for the site on the pioneering Soviet espionage device known as ‘The Thing’ here.
