THIS year’s Mullagh Medal has been on display for the past few days at the Hamilton Gallery before it goes to Melbourne in preparation for the Boxing Day Test between Australia and England.

The medal recognises indigenous pioneer, Johnny Mullagh, and the first All-Aboriginal team that toured in England in 1868 – it was the first ever foreign tour.

Last year was the inaugural year of the medal presentation and it was awarded to the Man of the Match, India’s Ajinkya Rahane.

The 2021 medal sat at the Harrow Discovery Centre since the start of this year but manager, Josie Sangster, brought it to sit in the Hamilton Gallery for a few days before she takes it to Melbourne this evening.

The medal can be viewed in a wonderful display, which also includes the original scorebook that was used on the All-Aboriginal team cricket tour to England in 1868.

The original scorebook at the gallery was also used back home in Harrow for local games once they returned from touring overseas with some pages containing names of former Harrow locals.

Hamilton Gallery artistic director, Josh White said he was pleased that Hamilton could share in the rich history of the region through displaying the medal and scorebook.

“It’s great that it (the medal) is making its journey from Harrow back to the ‘G to be given out, it’s really good and we are very lucky to have it for three days,” he said.

“It will be good to see at the end of the five days (test match) how the medal presentation goes, it’s nice to have the medal here because it’s pretty impressive (and) it has got a lot of history.”

White spoke about the display that the medal is currently part of and the great historical significance the other pieces held in relation to the story of Johnny Mullagh and the Aboriginal cricket team.

“Jane Clark curated this exhibition, she is the curator from Mona, Tasmania, she used the Australian collection, Rew Hanks who’s got Tom Wills (coach of the Aborginal XI), the medal, art from Vicki Couzens who is a descendant and the original cricket scorebook,” he said.

“All these works are part of our collection; we have actively collected them in relation to our local region.

“It’s like our collection of objects are entrenched in that cricket team story and the medal is making its way to be a part of history really … from our perspective, (our goal) is to further that story.”

White and the Hamilton Gallery as a whole hoped that further developments could be made in its relationship with the Harrow Discovery Centre.

This included the strong possibility of turning the process of displaying the medal in Hamilton into a yearly event.

 “Yeah, it would be good if we do it as an annual thing, but I think we could probably develop something further with the Harrow Discovery Centre as well, because we have the cricket book and they’ve got the story and plenty of other things,” White said.

“Come here and visit these works and then one day go to the Harrow Discovery Centre too and learn that story, they are an incredible team, Josie has been great to work with.”

Sangster said it was wonderful to be able to bring the medal to Hamilton and said it really complemented the original scorebook that sits alongside it.

“It’s incredible (to have it on display with the book), the photograph and with artwork from descendants, this is a beautifully created display,” she said.

While the tour overseas was the thing that had gained the most recognition, a Hamilton link made the medals’ trip to town much more significant.

Two years earlier, the all-aboriginal team made the ‘journey to the G’ to play a match against Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), stopping in Hamilton to play a game before they went to the city.

“Johnny Mullagh was part of the team that went to Hamilton in 1866 before the Boxing Day game,” she said

“Tom Wills played for the Melbourne Cricket Club in the first XI, so he came down to the district, coached the aboriginal players and picked a team to go to Melbourne to play his club … which was the MCC.

“This is the scorebook, December 26 and 27, 1866, the Melbourne Cricket Club XI vs the Aboriginal XI, they didn’t do too well but Mullagh was still the top-scorer.

“We’d love to have it (the medal stop) in Hamilton as part of the journey to the ‘G, the Mullagh Medal has been in Harrow and now it’s time to begin its journey to the ‘G (stopping in Hamilton) like the team did.”