Summary

Membership Badge, Melbourne Cricket Club, Victoria, Australia, 1923 - 24

Physical Description

A voided gilt and enamel membership badge with loop at top. The obverse features at the centre on a white shield the monogram MCC; above on blue background 1923 1924; below on red background, MELBOURNE CRICKET; and on white background, CLUB. The reverse is stamped with the member's number, 543 and the makers details, G. BENTLEY

Obverse Description

At the centre on a white shield the monogram MCC; above on blue background 1923 1924; below on red background, MELBOURNE CRICKET; and on white background, CLUB.

Reverse Description

Stamped with the member's number, 543 and the makers details, G. BENTLEY

Significance

The period of Walter Baldwin Spencer's presidency of the VFL was a tumultuous one in football. During the First World War, internal divisions over whether to continue the game for the duration had caused significant drops in numbers of players, teams and spectator attendance, as well as a leadership vacuum. Charles Brownlow stepped into the breach until a permanent new president could be found. Spencer took up the position at a time when football was only just beginning to recover from the effects of war, and was therefore in the role of president during its reestablishment as the most popular and important winter sport in Melbourne. The period from which the badge dates (1923-1924), which also saw the establishment of the Brownlow, can therefore be seen to be a culmination or turning point in firmly establishing and institutionalising the sport for posterity, and the beginning of its next phase.

The badge was created by C. Bentley, a Melbourne-based jeweller/badge-maker who was responsible for the creation of Melbourne Cricket Club badges from at least 1911 onwards (and continuing into the 1930s as Bentley & Son). This piece combines the VFL President badge with a Melbourne Cricket Club badge. Bentley also created other badges, such as a Melbourne Eight Hours Committee badge (1915) and a WWI period Patriots Pledge enamelled badge bearing the words "Never again will I buy German goods".

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