The son of Frederick John Baring (1857–1917),[1] and Annie Baring (−1935), née Riley,[2] Frederick Albert Baring was born in North Melbourne (then known as "East Hotham") on 15 December 1890.
He married Minnie Sybil Horne (−1940) in 1916,[3] and Edith Lillian Ackary in February 1944.[4]
Football
A four-times premiership player with Essendon (1911, 1912, 1923, 1924), Baring started his career as a ruckman and ended it as a fullback.
In 1913 he won the Essendon Best and Fairest award. He was a VFL interstate representative at the 1911 Adelaide Carnival. During his career Baring played under the pseudonym "Adamson", when he was unable to get approved leave to play in the VFL from his employer.[6]
Cricket
Baring was also a successful cricketer and played Sheffield Shield matches for Victoria.[7][8] A right-handed batsman, he managed a total of 30 first-class matches between 1911–12 and 1928–29, scoring 1846 runs at 32.96.
Following the death of Victor Trumper, Baring was recognised, as the best batsman in Australia on poor pitches.[9] He made his highest score of 131 opening the batting for Victoria against New South Wales in December 1918.[10]
He was on the verge of playing Test cricket for Australia after being selected for their squad to tour South Africa in 1914–15;[11][12][13] however, the series was canceled due to World War I.[14][9]
Death
Baring died in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster on 10 December 1961.[15]
Champions of Essendon
In 2002, an Essendon panel ranked Baring at 24 in their Champions of Essendon list of the 25 greatest players ever to have played for Essendon.[16]
^Maplestone (1996), p. 368 (he was unavailable for the second, third, and fourth matches of the season through injury, and for the last three matches of the season through illness (ibid., p. 459)).
^Rodgers, Stephen (1996). 100 Years of AFL players – Volume 1. Melbourne: East-Side Printing. p. 2. ISBN0646300164.
Atkinson, G. (1982) Everything you ever wanted to know about Australian rules football but couldn't be bothered asking, The Five Mile Press: Melbourne. ISBN0 86788 009 0.
Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN0-9591740-2-8
Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN0-670-86814-0
External links
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