Name William Hammersley | Died 1886 | |
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William Josiah Sumner Hammersley (25 September 1826 – 15 November 1886) was an English-born cricketer and sports journalist in Victoria, Australia, and one of the four men credited with setting down the original rules of the Australian rules football.
Life
He was educated at Aldenham School. He was educated privately in Billericay and at Trinity College, Cambridge, though he did not graduate with a degree.
He was a prominent cricketer, having played for Cambridge University Cricket Club, Surrey County Cricket Club and Marylebone Cricket Club.
He married Jane Thirkettle, 23 Sep 1849, in London, England and had four children.
Hammersley migrated to Australia and upon his arrival in Melbourne, he became a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club and worked as a sports journalist for Bell's Life in Victoria and later The Australasian.
He captained the first Victorian XI to visit Sydney for an inter-colonial match in 1857 and was a right arm batter/bowler between 1847 and 1861.
He was a personal friend of fellow Cambridge cricketer Thomas Wentworth Wills and helped to give momentum to Wills calls to form a football club.
In 1859 he became a founding member of the Melbourne Football Club and involved in popularising the club's football code.
Hammersley is also believed by some to have been instrumental in introducing Victorian Rules to Sydney and in the early formation of the New South Wales Football Association.
He died on 15 November 1886 in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria and buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.