by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (July 8^th 2010)[1]

Editor’s Note

The issue of racism in sport remains pertinent. We have covered this and other issues for several years. The story of Aboriginal cricket is important and still relevant especially with the 74^th Ashes series looming.

The Editor

The Withdrawal of Privilege and Jack Marsh’s Descent

The end of his sporting career corresponded with the loss of privilege. As a great sport star Jack Marsh was allowed to mix with white people and live with them. His was a privileged existence for an Aboriginal – he was an ‘honorary white man’. Marsh had come from humble origins and through his sporting prowess enjoyed over a decade of privilege.

He joined Alexander’s Hippodrome Sideshow, earning a living by trading on his sporting fame. However, the work soon dried up and Marsh’s final decade are sketchy on detail. Rejected by a white society that tolerated him while his sports skills were at their peak, Marsh had become just another Aboriginal then with no privileges.

Philip Derriman quotes the sports historian and authority on Marsh, Max Bonnell¹: “Jack’s sporting career was over. And as soon as it ended, the privileges that he had been allowed for more than 10 years were immediately withdrawn. He had no job, no income, no lodgings and, worst of all, no respect. As a runner and cricketer, Jack had been permitted to live among white men, almost like a white man, and his talents were admired and appreciated. As an ex-sportsman, he was just another Aboriginal.”²

Alcoholism and Death

Marsh survived as best he could and took solace in alcohol. In 1909 a drunken brawl resulted in fourteen days in jail in Melbourne. He blamed alcohol for his problems, but an obituary blamed him for his own murder, labelling him a ‘a darky troubled with manners which white brothers found impossible to tolerate.’

Not even death could spare Marsh the insults of a racist society.

On May 26^th 1916 while camping with fellow itinerant workers in Orange, New South Wales, Marsh got into an argument with two white colleagues outside the pool room of the Royal Hotel. They brutally kicked him to death, but just as Marsh found no justice from the governing body of athletics and again in cricket, Australian society would not give him justice even in death. The former world record holder paid the ultimate price for failing to outrun them. They were not even charged with murder for what was a cowardly attack by two men against one. Charged with manslaughter, the two white men were acquitted due to the behaviour of Judge David Bevan, who ruled that Marsh’s drunken behaviour had provoked them and that Marsh might have deserved it anyway. A more shameful example of victim-blaming is hard to find.

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[1] This article was first published in the Magazine in 2009. We publish it again as the issues that it raises remain pertinent.