Sam Loxton

Sam Loxton

Samuel John Everett Loxton OBE was an Australian cricketer, footballer and politician. He played in 12 Tests for Australia from 1948 to 1951. Up until 1946, he also played in the Victorian Football League for St Kilda as a forward. He served as an administrator after his playing days were over and spent 24 years as a Liberal Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

About Sam Loxton in brief

Summary Sam LoxtonSamuel John Everett Loxton OBE was an Australian cricketer, footballer and politician. He played in 12 Tests for Australia from 1948 to 1951. A right-handed all-rounder, Loxton was part of Don Bradman’s Invincibles, who went through the 1948 tour of England undefeated. Up until 1946, he also played in the Victorian Football League for St Kilda as a forward. He served as an administrator after his playing days were over and spent 24 years as a Liberal Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. Loxton served in a tank division during World War II and made his first-class cricket debut in 1946–47. He scored 232 not out, which remains a record for any Australian player on his first class debut. He was also a state selector for over two decades, and served at national level for ten years, starting in 1970–71. He also served as the team manager for Australia’s tour of the subcontinent in 1959–60, overseeing a successful campaign despite a spate of serious illnesses to personnel. He retired from cricket administration in 1981 following the underarm incident. The family moved to Armadale, Victoria, and he attended Wesley College, an elite boys school. His parents were a stalwarts of the local transport club, Yarra Park State School, where he learned to bat, using a pine tree in the schoolyard as the stumps. His father was an electrician who played second grade cricket for Collingwood.

The younger Sam started his education at Yarra park State School and later went on to play cricket for Victoria in domestic competition until retiring at the end of the 1957–58 season. His mother was the mother of future Australia Test captain Lindsay Hassett and former team-mate Ian Johnson. He died in 2011 at the age of 94, and is survived by his wife and three children. He is buried in Armadales, Victoria. He had a son, Sam Jr, who played cricket for Prahran in the state’s third grade team, and a daughter, Sarah, who plays for Victoria’s second grade team. He has a brother, Sam III, who also played cricket and was a member of Victoria’s state cricket team in the 1950s and 1960s. His son was also the father of Victoria Test captain Ross Hassett, who later played for Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. He died in a car crash in 2011, aged 83, and was buried in a suburb of Melbourne. He and his wife are survived by their three children and two step-granddaughters, Sarah and Sarah, and their three-year-old step-great-grandson, Sam J. Linnett. The couple also have a son and a step-son, who was born in Melbourne in 1961. He later became a doctor and served in the Royal Australian Air Force in the 1960s and 1970s. In the VFL, he played 41 games in the 1940s and ’50s as aforward. He placed second in the club’s goal-kicking aggregate with 52 goals.