Richard Driver

Richard Driver
Jr.
Member of the New South Wales Parliament
for West Macquarie
In office
1860–1869
Preceded byHenry Mort
Succeeded byEdmund Webb
Member of the New South Wales Parliament
for Carcoar
In office
1869–1872
Preceded byBarnard Stimpson
Succeeded byThomas West
Member of the New South Wales Parliament
for Windsor
In office
1872–1880
Preceded byArthur Dight
Succeeded byHenry McQuade

Richard Driver (junior) (16 September 1829 – 8 July 1880) was a Sydney solicitor, politician and cricket administrator.

Driver was born in Cabramatta, New South Wales, son of Richard Driver, hotel-keeper, and his wife Elizabeth, née Powell. In 1859, he became a solicitor for the Sydney City Council and also carried out a practice in the Sydney police court.[1]

Driver unsuccessfully contested three seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1858 and was defeated again for East Sydney in 1859, but won West Macquarie in 1860 and held it to 1869. He was the member for Carcoar from 1869 to 1872 and Windsor from 1872 to his death in 1880.[2] He generally supported Henry Parkes, but turned down an offer of to be made minister of mines in 1872. He became Secretary for Lands in Parkes' 1877 government and as a cricket lover he provided £700 for improvements to the Sydney Cricket Ground and vested the ground in trustees in 1879, including himself as the representative of the New South Wales Cricket Association.[1]

Driver played in New South Wales' first first-class cricket match against Victoria in Melbourne in 1856. He travelled with the team as the scorer, but when one of the selected team members failed to turn up, he played instead. Batting at No. 11, he made 18 in the first innings, helping to take the score from 9 for 40 to 76 all out. New South Wales won narrowly, and Driver was the match's equal highest scorer.[3][4] It was his only match for New South Wales. He umpired four of New South Wales' first-class matches between 1857 and 1877.[5] From 1860 to 1880 he was an important organiser of visits by English cricket teams and intercolonial matches. He was president of the New South Wales Cricket Association from 1870 to 1880.[6]

In 1871 Driver married Elizabeth Margaret Marlow. He died in the Sydney suburb of Randwick in July 1880 and is buried at Waverley Cemetery. A road built in the 1890s outside the Sydney Cricket Ground is named Driver Avenue in his honour.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Nairn, Bede (1972). "Driver, Richard (1829-1880)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Mr Richard Driver (junior) (1829-1880)". Former members of the Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  3. ^ Max Bonnell, Swift Underhand: John Kinloch and the Invention of Australian Cricket, Roger Page, Yallambie, 2014, chapter V.
  4. ^ "Victoria v New South Wales, 1855/56". Cricinfo. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  5. ^ "Richard Driver as Umpire in First-Class Matches". CricketArchive. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  6. ^ The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket, Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, p. 149.