1908 - 1981

John ‘Jack’ Fingleton, OBE played 18 Test matches during the 1930s and went on to be a successful and respected journalist, commentator and author.

He was born in Waverley in 1908 and attended Christian Brothers’ College, Waverley, where he developed a great love of literature, and when he was 15, he started working as a ‘copy boy’ for the Sydney newspaper The Daily Guardian.

He was a member of the Waverley Cricket Club and made his debut for New South Wales in 1929. Following his maiden century for that side against the visiting South Africa side in the 1931–32 season, he was selected for the Test series as 12th man against that team. He debuted internationally in Melbourne in the fifth and final Test and scored the second-highest number of runs – 40 – in Australia’s victory.

A right-hand opening batsman who was renowned for his courage and tenacity, Jack confronted the barrages of the ‘bodyline’ tactic the England team applied during the 1932–33 Ashes series.

After scoring 119 not out for New South Wales against England, Jack was selected to play for Australia and managed 26 and 40 runs during the first Test, in Sydney. In the first innings of the second Test, in Melbourne, he scored 83 runs in almost four hours, in Australia’s only win of the series.

On the 1935–36 tour to South Africa, he scored centuries during the last three Tests. Then, in the first Test of the 1936–37 Ashes series, he scored another century in Brisbane and became the first batsman ever to score four successive Test centuries.

Jack retired from cricket in 1940 and successfully transitioned into journalism. He joined the Canberra Press Gallery in 1944 and worked as political correspondent for Radio Australia and as Australian correspondent for several English, Indian and South African newspapers. He published 10 books, including, in 1946, Cricket Crisis, an account of the ‘bodyline’ series. In 1976, he was awarded an OBE for his services to cricket and journalism. He died in 1981 at age 73 and was buried in Waverley Cemetery.

Courtesy the State Library of New South Wales.