That’s where it all started on July 15, 1876 at a meeting to raise funds to secure a visit from an All England Eleven.
This month’s dinner is restricted to life members, honorary members, presidents and chairmen and some of Otago cricket’s most notable players, so I’m missing out, but that hasn’t stopped me delving into the story of the luminaries who became the association’s first leaders.
He and his brother established Puketoi Station in Maniototo in the 1850s and he had a stint as an MP before becoming a leading light in Dunedin.
He played three first-class matches for Otago in the mid-1860s but, more importantly, by 1876 he was editing the Otago Daily Times which ensured publicity for fundraising.
They needed £300 ($60,000 today) and the target was hit.
Murison had given up playing cricket about 1866 owing to ill-health and died at 40 in December 1877, just over a year after the association was formed.
Vice-president William Meares was a wicketkeeper for the Dunedin club and had two games for Otago. He was Australian-born and in the early 1870s was the New Zealand manager for the Victoria Insurance Company based in Dunedin.
He moved to Christchurch to manage insurance companies and died there in 1923 at 78.
The other vice-president was John Rattray who established J Rattray and Co, a dominant player in the grocery industry.
Born in Scotland in 1827, Rattray arrived in Dunedin in 1860, was heavily involved in commerce and had been a shareholder in the Otago Daily Times so his presence on the cricket association was due to his business acumen rather than cricketing ability.
He was president of the Dunedin Cricket Club and in 1874 on his departure for a trip to England the club presented him with a cricket bat on which was a silver plate with an inscription.
He was later associated with Carisbrook Cricket Club which, when he died in 1903, noted his enthusiasm for the game.
John Eva, originally from Cornwall, was secretary, having already arranged a preliminary meeting at the Shamrock Hotel in April about forming an association.
Eva was manager of the thriving New Zealand Hardware Company and prominent in musical circles.
Although just a club cricketer he was a first rate organiser.
He met a tragic end by drowning in 1881 when he was heading to Melbourne to see his mother who was ill.
His ship the Tararua sank off the Catlins and only 20 of the 151 people on board survived.
A survivor told of telling Eva he couldn’t swim and receiving the reply ‘‘I can swim a little. It’s a very good thing to learn.’’
‘‘He was as cool and quiet as if engaged in doing business on shore,’’ the man recalled.
Eva was only 39.
William Lathbury, born in Staffordshire, was chief brewer of Tooth and Co, in Sydney, before setting up Dunedin’s Albion Brewery in 1875.
He played one game for Otago in 1875-76 and impressed as a batsman but his move to Tasmania in 1877 ended his Otago career.
Sadly, while in Dunedin his wife Louisa-May, the daughter of Sir Willian Drake one-time colonial treasurer in Western Australia, had died at the age of 37 in May 1876 a few days after giving birth to a son, Charles.
William took the boy to Australia but he died at five months old.
Lathbury died in Queensland in 1884 at the age of 40 while still working as a brewer.
Henry Godby from Kent played twice for Otago from 1874 to 1876 and captained the team.
His brother Michael also played for Otago.
The brothers sold their Burton Brewery near the Leith to William Lathbury in 1877.
Henry died in Australia in 1911.
Edward Collinson was born in Derby in 1849 and in Dunedin was a solicitor for Haggitt Brothers and Brent.
He played 16 first-class matches for Otago between 1868 and 1886 and died at Melbourne in 1920, aged 70.
William Tait, ‘‘a fair change bowler’’, played three times for Otago and may have been Australian as the Evening Star described him as ‘‘the Victorian duffer’’.
Charles Kettle was born in Dunedin in 1850 and played four games for Otago.
He was a solicitor who later served as a magistrate in the North Island and regarded as the first New Zealand-born judge.
He died in Auckland in 1918 at the age of 68.
That first committee of the Otago Cricket Association were an interesting and talented bunch, much like the present office holders enjoying their celebrations 150 years later.
• Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
