Lebrun Samuel Constantine : Local Cricketer who made history by becoming the first West Indian to score a century (113 runs) against an English team

By the late Angelo Bissessarsingh. 
​The first organized cricket club in the island was formed in the late 1870s by a group of English colonial officers and planters. The Sovereign Cricket club membership eventually formed what was the genesis of the still-existing Queen’s Park Cricket Club (QPCC) in 1891. Five years later, the QPCC acquired the lease on lands which were to become the Queen’s Park Oval which is today one of the best cricketing arenas in the Caribbean. The ethnic composition of the QPCC came under fire in the 1890s. This was an era characterized by anti-colonial sentiments and heightened by the presence of several influential and vocal coloured men who spoke out against old and racially biased stratification of colonial society. One of these agitators in particular, Edgar Maresse-Smith, was pivotal in having Lebrun Constantine accepted into the QPCC as its first non-white member.
Lebrun Constantine was born in Maraval , a district barely a mile outside Trinidad’s capital city of Port-of-Spain on a cocoa plantation where his parents were workers. He worked on a cocoa estate as well in his youth and played cricket in matches held at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port-of-Spain where he quickly established a reputation for being a good batsman. At that time Cricket in Trinidad had not as yet taken on an organized front although one of the most distinguished icons of the game was born in the island.
Lebrun made history as well as being a regular on the Trinidad cricket team from as early as 1893-94. Inter-colonial cricket matches between Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica were then popular and Lebrun was a player in almost every meet after 1899. The first three tournaments were fielded with all-white teams. In 1894, Robert Slade made the first tour of the West Indies with an English cricket team, followed two years later by a team under Arthur Priestly. In the latter tour, the English side came up against an all-West Indian contingent that included Lebrun Constantine and lost. In 1900, R.S.A Warner (brother of Sir Pelham Warner) led the first West Indian touring team to England.
Although not accorded first class status, the West Indians played well. Once again, the lineup included Lebrun Constantine as a batsman and wicket keeper. His batting averages were second in the West Indies team, being 30 for 610. During this tour as well, Constantine made history by becoming the first West Indian to score a century (113 runs) against an English team. In 1906 another tour to England took place of which he was a member. This time he managed to be third in the batting averages. Of his performance in the 1906 tour, the following commentary was given;
"another of the brigade who proved himself very strong on the left side and can bat with power. He fields in the slips and can bowl right arm medium pace if required".
Aside from his prowess as a batsman and wicket keeper, Lebrun was also a fielder of note with his energy and accuracy coming in for high praise. Lebrun Constantine’s last match of his professional career was in a 1923 inter-colonial match against Barbados. This was a landmark event since also in the batting lineup was Lebrun’s son – Learie Nicholas Constantine (21 September 1901 – 1 July 1971) - who rose to become one of the greatest cricketers in history and was later knighted and in 1969 became the first black peer in the House of Lords as Baron Constantine of Maraval in Trinidad and the County Palatine in Lancaster. Another son, Elias (22 May 1912 – 22 May 2003) also became a cricketer of renown, and who played for the West Indies in test matches in the 1930s. Despite his pioneering career he was largely low-profile in his own homeland. Whilst touring with the first West Indian teams, he supported himself as a coachman in the employ of Madame Poleska de Boissiere. Lebrun occasionally made public statements on cricket in the local press but remained mostly private until he died in 1942. 
(Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's Vitrual Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, September 21, 2023) 

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