In 1879 on 5th April at seventeen years and eight months the youngest player to represent England until that point and, indeed, until the arrival of Wayne Rooney on the international scene against Australia in 2003 took the field. It was at the Oval in London and the opposition was Scotland. His name was James Princep, described as,
"..always cool, very strong on his legs, and combining plenty of strength with great accuracy; kicks splendidly and with judgement; seldom makes a mistake", also "can kick the ball in any position, and passes it admirably to his forwards"
However behind that event and the name itself are hidden not secrets but firstly an anomaly and secondly a far greater contribution to the game in general than from what would ultimately be just a single cap.
The anomaly is that of Prinsep himself or at least his origins. His full name was James Frederick McLeod Prinsep. He was born on 27th July 1861. His father was James Hunter Prinsep of the Indian Civil Service. His mother was born Christina Louisa White. He went to attend Charterhouse School from the ages of about thirteen to seventeen, playing for the school in his final year there. But in 1879 he was turning out at half-back not just for Old Carthusians, the school former-pupils team, but also for Clapham Rovers and Surrey as he attended Sandhurst Military Academy. It was with Clapham that just a week earlier he had played and lost a first FA Cup Final, beaten by Old Etonians 1-0. Again he set the record for the youngest player to take part in that competition's finale, one that would once more not be broken, and then only partially, for a century and a quarter, when Curtis Weston came on for Millwall as an 89th minute substitute in 2004.
The 1879 Cup Final, the eighth, was described at the time as the dullest so far. The international was far from it. England had not beaten Scotland for five years. It wouldn't again for another decade and even in this game, although Billy Mosforth, certainly the first non-gent to play for the national team, his father was a publican, perhaps the first professional, scored in five minutes, Scotland was 1-4 up at half-time and seemingly comfortable. However, in the second half it all changed. A goal was pulled back in 48th minute, a further one in the 60th, a Scotland goal was disallowed for offside, the final decision taken by Lord Arthur Kinnaird, ex. Scottish international but English FA Treasurer, Robert Parlane palmed in an English throw-in, which, if he had left it, would not have counted and the deciding goal in a final 5-4 scoreline was netted in the eighty-third minute.
And it was in that period from 1878, until he was commissioned in 1882 into the Essex Regiment, that James Prinsep continued to play. He was in the Old Carthusian team, which in 1881 gained for him some revenge. In that year's Cup Final it easily defeated Old Etonians, 3-0, once more at The Oval. The first goal came in half an hour, a long-throw from Prinsep deflected into the net. The two others were in the second half, the second from a through pass again from Prinsep, the shot from which was punched to be slotted home. He was clearly a major talent and would be selected again for England in 1880 against Wales, and against both Wales and England once more in 1882, withdrawing, it is said, through injury on all three occasions. However, the question remains as to whether there were other reasons. The fact is that he had no choice but to play for England. He had after all been born in India, in Alligarh, baptised in Simla and according the then rules Empire was England. He was, however, not English certainly on his mother's side and in part on his father's too. His great-grandfather, the son of an Oxfordshire vicar, had become an East Indian merchant. James Prinsep, the orientalist, after whom he was named, was his great uncle. He came from a family with by then deep, Indian roots but his father's mother had been Scots just as his own mother was. In fact she and his father were married in Edinburgh and the family retained strong connections, particularly with Nairn. His brother was born there but sadly not show the same talent for football, his sister lived and died there and he, also with a house there, would visit, ultimately fatally.
At some point between 1882 and 1884 James Prinsep was posted abroad. He took part in the Sudan campaign , the Mahdist War of 1884-85 then in 1885, it is said, as a Lieutenant he was seconded to the Egyptian Army, rising to Captain, transferring in 1890 to the Egyptian Coastguard Service, based in Alexandria, and there becoming Sub-Inspector General. He even received two Royal Humane Society awards whilst a soldier for rescuing men from the Nile. On 23 December 1884, Lieut. Prinsep saved a Private Wheeler from drowning and then almost a year later also saved a Sudanese sailor.
And that seemed to be that. Princep clearly returned to Britain, to London, in early 1891. He was not there at the time of that year's census but certainly was, giving his address as 46, Thurloe Place when on 27th July at St. Stephen's Church in Kensington he married Evelyn Elizabeth Campbell. She was the daughter of Charles Campbell, living at 64, Cromwell Road but born in Ceres in Fife, and Evelyn Stuart of Bute, born in Newton Stewart. Her father had also been an Indian Civil Servant and she too had been born in India. And on married the couple seemed to have returned to Egypt. Their first child, a daughter also Evelyn, was born there in Alexandria in 1892, as was their son Caradoc, the following year, although a second son was born in 1895 and back London. And there was a reason. The Prinseps had clearly returned in 1894 and James, on a year's leave of absence, travelled north. He went to Nairn, after "the shooting season" and there on 22nd November at the age of just thirty-four he died. Causes of death were blood poisoning and kidney failure after seven weeks of pneumonia, which developed after a cold he suffered and was worsened by playing golf on the Nairn Links. His funeral took place still in Nairn on 26th November, he was buried there too, his wife already pregnant.
Except that after his footballing career in England and indeed his marriage James Prinsep seems to have had a wholly unknown episode in his life and something of adventure. In 1893 he is reported as playing a season of football in Newcastle, not Northumberland but northern New South Wales, with the Adamstown Rosebuds, Adamstown then a town outwith and now a suburb. It is perfectly possible. He could have taken leave from the Coastguard Service and from Egypt he could easily have picked up a ship southwards, with family, avoiding the summer months on the Suez Canal by spending them in the Southern Hemisphere winter. The birth of his second child at the beginning of March 1893 fits in well. In fact it seems as if he might have done it firstly annually for three years and secondly his time in Australia was something of a tour-de-force. The previous year, 1892, with the birth of his first child also fitting in well, he is said to have been at Canterbury, not in New Zealand but the Sydney suburb, and the following Australian season, 1894, in Brisbane. In fact his first two children might well have been conceived in Australia and he must have returned to London and Scotland more of less directly from there. Moreover, particularly at the Rosebuds, he appears to have made quite an impression with his dribbling, ball-control and shooting. Crowds of 1,000 would pay just to see him play, and not just Buds supporters, whilst he would also leave a legacy, possibly twofold. The first part was the advice to train regularly and to develop players from a young age, which is precisely what the Rosebuds have done since. The second was the encouragement of one and perhaps two of his teammates, two brothers, to try to make it in the by then professional game in Britain. Both Alex and
Jimmy Jackson would return to Scotland, Jimmy said to have been already on his way in 1893, aged eighteen, Alex probably at much the same time.
And there they would both seem to stay, at least for a while. Alex would marry in Rutherglen and return in 1913, to Sydney, where his Scottish-born footballing and cricketing son, Archie, would grow up. He with Donald Bradman would effectively win the Ashes for Australia in England with a then record stand of 249 in the fifth and last Test in 1930. Jimmy would by 1913 be coming to the end of a successful footballing career that had seen him play at wing-half and left-back for ten clubs, including Rangers twice and one hundred and eighty-three appearances for Arsenal, then still at Woolwich. And two of his sons also played. The older one, Newcastle-born
James, also a full-back, played 67 times for Aberdeen with unrelated
Alex and Wattie Jackson, and for Liverpool. There he was captain, known as The Parson, and from there after more than two hundred appearances he became a Presbyterian minister. Meanwhile, the younger one, also
Archie, played for twelve clubs, starting at Rutherglen Glencairn, including Sunderland and, whilst his brother was north of the Mersey at Anfield, across the water at Tranmere.