Charles Bennett Llewellyn: South Africa's First Black Cricketer

Nationality and national allegiance are complicated in this day and age.

England’s leading batter is South African.

Pakistani spinners Danish Kaneria and Saqlain Mushtaq have each hinted that they may opt for England over the place of their birth.

And when English-born Aussie Darren Pattinson was the surprise choice for the recent second Test, the disgruntled Matthew Hoggard remarked that he thought he was a Kolpak player. Australians don’t qualify as Kolpaks, but we get what Hoggard means.

All this is, of course, not new. Take the example of South African Charles Bennett "Buck" Llewellyn who was born to white and black parents in Pietermaritzburg, Natal in 1876.

An all-rounder, Llewellyn was a left-handed batter, an exceptional fielder—especially at mid-off, and a slow to medium bowler. He was one of the first bowlers in England to perfect the "wrong-un," the leg-spinning delivery that goes the other way.

He made his debut for Natal in April 1895 and first played for South Africa later in the year against England. From 1899 to 1910, he played in England as a professional for Hampshire, performing the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season on five occasions.

He was even included in the England squad for the 1902 Edgbaston Test against Australia, though he wasn’t selected to play and returned that year to South Africa to play in all three Tests against the visiting Aussies.

He was, however, included in an English side captained by Ranjitsinhji that toured America in 1899. Still, any questions of allegiance were settled by playing for South Africa on the tour of Australia in 1910-11 and again in 1912 when the Triangular Tournament was held in England. 

Under British rule and custom, cricket was segregated in South Africa and a number of talented players were denied opportunities to perform at a higher level because of skin colour. However, Llewellyn was able to pass himself off as a white, though this caused some confusion.

In Overthrows, a Book of Cricket, J.M. Kilburn noted that Llewellyn “was dark-eyed and dark-skinned and South Africans called him coloured.”

The Springbok, Herby Taylor, has stated that his father employed Llewellyn as a coloured clerk and paid him accordingly. Some who knew him in the Bolton area in the 1930s when he was playing League cricket, said that he would be taken for an Asian.

It is thought that he chose county cricket because of the racist abuse suffered at the hands of national teammates, in particular Transvaal batter Jimmy Sinclair.

Roland Bowen claims that during the 1910/11 tour of Australia “Llewellyn was tormented by his white fellow tourists to such an extent that he took refuge in the WCs and locked himself in.”

It is also believed that he left Hampshire for the northern leagues in 1926—where he would play until the age of 62—in part because of racist comments from other players and because of being refused accommodation in hotels and boarding houses when the team was playing away.

Skin colour remained a contentious issue and Llewellyn’s daughter refuted the claim that her father was of mixed race, claiming that both grandparents were of pure British descent.

Llewellyn died in 1964. And while the official white Cricket Board found space in its annual in 1955 to recognize the death of Lady Warner, widow of imperialist Pelham, it waited five years before mentioning the passing away of South Africa’s first black cricketer. Even then it was merely noted, including no obituary.

This lack of respect for a past Wisden Cricketer of the Year and leading South African all-rounder was a consequence of the impact of apartheid on cricket’s administrators. It was an admission that they believed Llewellyn was black and shouldn’t have been selected.