page_title: Harold Larwood
section_title: Emigration to Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Harold Larwood / Retirement / Emigration to Australia
caption_attribution_description: Orient Liner
context_page_description: Harold Larwood was a professional cricketer for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team between 1924 and 1938. A right-arm fast bowler who combined unusual speed with great accuracy, he was considered by many commentators to be the finest bowler of his generation. He was the main exponent of the bowling style known as "bodyline", the use of which during the Marylebone Cricket Club tour of Australia in 1932–33 caused a furore that brought about a premature and acrimonious end to his international career.
  A coal miner's son who began working in the mines at the age of 14, Larwood was recommended to Nottinghamshire on the basis of his performances in club cricket, and rapidly acquired a place among the country's leading bowlers. He made his Test debut in 1926, in only his second season in first-class cricket, and was a member of the 1928–29 touring side that retained the Ashes in Australia. The advent of the Australian batsman Don Bradman ended a period of English cricket supremacy; Larwood and other bowlers were completely dominated by Bradman during Australia's victorious tour of 1930.
context_section_description: In the economic austerity of post-war Britain, Larwood's business made little money. He was persuaded, largely by his erstwhile opponent Jack Fingleton, that he would find better prospects and a warm welcome in Australia, and he decided to emigrate there with his family, which by then included five daughters. On 1 April 1950 the Larwoods sailed on SS Orontes, the ship that had carried Jardine's party 18 years previously. On arrival in Australia the welcome was warm and immediate. During their initial weeks in a Sydney hotel, unbeknown to them half their bills were paid by the former prime minister Ben Chifley. Despite a housing shortage, the family was soon settled in a bungalow in the Sydney suburb of Kingsford, and Larwood found steady employment with a soft drinks firm. Fingleton later arranged a meeting between Larwood and Chifley; their respective broad Nottinghamshire and Australian accents meant that neither could understand the other, and Fingleton had to act as an interpreter.
  From time to time Larwood supplemented his wages by commenting on cricket for newspapers and broadcasters. At first he was treated with some suspicion by English touring teams; in 1950–51 when he visited the English dressing room he received a cold reception from the England captain, F.R. Brown. Four years later, according to Larwood, he was kept out of the dressing room by Trevor Bailey, the 1954–55 team's vice captain—though Bailey denied that this ever happened. However, from the early 1960s onwards Larwood was often visited by members of England teams, and he became a regular and welcome guest in English dressing rooms.  He sometimes went to cricket events where he often met Don Bradman; relations between the two, though outwardly cordial, remained essentially cold.
  In 1977 Larwood attended the Centenary Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, along with many survivors of old Ashes battles. As on similar past occasions he had to be persuaded to go; later he would describe it as "one of the best days of my life". His presence created considerable interest among generations of cricket followers to whom the bodyline series was distant history.  Later that year he visited England, and watched England's cricketers play Australia at Trent Bridge, his old home ground; this was one of several trips he made to his home country, the last of which was in 1980. In 1982, the 50th anniversary of the bodyline series was commemorated with much publicity, some of which brought a revival of hate mail and hostility towards Larwood.
caption: SS Orontes, the ship that took Jardine's party to Australia in 1932, and on which Larwood emigrated to Australia in 1950
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