Harrow Discovery Centre is working with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in the United Kingdom to secure the 12 artefacts – including spears, boomerangs and fire sticks – for the town’s Johnny Mullagh Memorial Championship Cricket Match in 2018.

Mullagh lived, worked and died in Harrow, and is widely regarded the best all-rounder of the Aboriginal team.

Discovery centre administration manager Kristy McDonald said the group was shocked and delighted when the relics were discovered.

She said the only known remaining artefact in the UK from the tour was a club used by Wotjobaluk man Jungunjinuke, also known as Dick-a-Dick. He was a member of the cricket team.

“To have the rest of the artefacts recovered is just unbelievable,” Ms McDonald said.

“The museum was reworking its foreign exhibits last year, and they requested British Museum’s Oceania curator Gaye Sculthorpe to help them. 

“She was going through a room out the back and came across a box with W.R. Hayman – 1868 on the top.

“He was the Aboriginal team’s manager when they toured England. Gaye knew the team’s story and exactly what the artefacts were.

“Given the museum’s reputation, we expect someone would have had the research and what the artefacts were related to.

“But there is the potential they could have been overlooked and their significance not completely realised.”

Ms McDonald said the museum was keen to lend the items to Harrow for the town’s 150th anniversary celebrations of the England tour.

Harrow commemorates the Aboriginal cricket team’s tour of England at the Johnny Mullagh cricket match on the March Labor Day long weekend each year.

“We have had a really positive response from the museum’s ethnography curator Tony Eccles,” Ms McDonald said.

“He said it was great timing, and that they were really pleased to have these items and to acknowledge the story behind them.

“They are willing to work with us as much as possible to get these items here when we celebrate the 150th anniversary.”

Ms McDonald said the timing was also perfect for Harrow.

”This comes in such an important period for Harrow and the Wimmera,” she said.

“This year marks the 125th anniversary of Johnny Mullagh’s death, so for this discovery to happen now in the lead-up to that is so exciting.”

Ms McDonald said the discovery centre team was now in the process of sourcing money to make their dream of securing the artefacts a reality.

“They are museum-quality artefacts and have to be treated with absolute respect,” she said.

“We are trying to work out how to get funding together. 

“There are import fees that will need to be paid, and we will also have to have climate-controlled storage for the artefacts.

“It will be a massive fundraising drive to get the money together for this.

“We urge anyone who has a philanthropic nature and could help to get in touch.”

Ms McDonald said the artefacts were a shared history between Australia and the United Kingdom.

“The point has been raised with us, when we’ve told people about our plans to loan the items from the museum, that the artefacts should belong here anyway,” she said.

“But this story is as much a part of English history as it is ours. 

“In 1868 very few people would have laid eyes on an Aboriginal Australian overseas.

“So to have an international team – and an Aboriginal team at that – touring England is a big part of their history.

“It was a first for both countries.”

The 1868 Aboriginal team is recognised in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as Australia’s first international touring team.