Fowler’s Tour

Martin Chandler | 9:08am BST 12 April 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 16
Author: Musk, Stephen
Publisher: Red Rose Books
Rating: 3.5 stars

Last year Stephen Musk wrote a book on the visit to England by a Canadian side in 1922, and the result was an interesting read on a long forgotten aspect of the history of tours of England by sides from overseas. Musk has followed that up with this, much shorter monograph, on the subject of a return visit the following year.

The 1922 side were bankrolled by a wealthy whisky distiller, Norman Seagram, who was also behind this return visit. Aged 46 by the time the tour took place Seagram has the unusual distinction of having played against the tourists for his club, Toronto, and then for them against a team styled as All Philadelphia.

The tourists were one of England’s oldest wandering clubs, the Free Foresters, a side who right up until the 1960s would play regular First Class matches against Oxford and Cambridge Universities and for whom, from time to time, many Test and First Class cricketers have appeared.

In 1923 the team that visited Canada contained a number of men with First Class experience, but only one of whom, their skipper Robert Fowler, was a First Class cricketer at the time. For all that the Foresters recorded some big wins in Canada and whilst a number of their batsmen struggled on the matting wickets encountered in some of the games a defeat was never in prospect. Predictably Fowler was by far the most successful batsman and bowler.

The bulk of this monograph is, as is only to be expected, taken up with the background to the trip, some brief biographical details of the tourists and accounts of the matches. There were ten altogether, eight in Canada and the two in Philadelphia. Before the Great War the Philadelphians would have expected to beat a modest team like the Foresters, and it is indicative of how far the game in Philadelphia had declined in just a few years that the Foresters comfortably one the first game, and were in complete control of the second when time ran out.

And for some writers that would be that, but Musk finds the time for one digression, on the subject of Fowler and just how good an all-round cricketer he was. An Irishman Fowler was largely lost to the game by virtue of his military career, but his remarkable performance as a 19 year old in the 1910 Eton v Harrow fixture at Lord’s* followed by other decent performances in the limited First Class opportunities available to him led to an invitation to captain MCC in West Indies in 1924/25. In the event the tour was postponed for a year and by the time it did take place Fowler had, at just 34, died of leukaemia.

Both author and publisher are well aware that Fowler’s Tour is not going to be a bestseller, which is no doubt why it has been published in a limited edition of just 30 signed and numbered copies, but it is nonetheless an interesting account of a tour few will have heard of, let alone know anything of.

*In the annual two day fixture Harrow won the toss, chose to bat and amassed a total of 232, with Fowler’s off breaks taking 4-90. In reply Eton were shot out for 67 and in the follow on collapsed again before Fowler and the tail took them as far as 219, Fowler scoring 21 and 64. Despite their modest victory target of 55 the Harrovians were all out for 45 second time round, Fowler taking 8-23.