Bill Lawry
Lawry was born in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. He was given the names William Morris after the early Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes. His father Alfred played amateur cricket until the age of 51. Bill never saw his father play, who was aged 47 when Bill was born. Aged nine, he played competitive cricket for the first time with the Thornbury Presbyterian Church team. He spent three years there, as well as playing for Preston Technical School. When he was twelve, he entered Melbourne's district competition playing for Northcote's fourth team, working his way up to the First XI by the age of sixteen. At the time, he was apprenticed as a plumber and attending Preston Technical College. Lawry was selected for Victoria's Second XI at the age of seventeen. He made a duck against the South Australians and did not see any further action for the Seconds for the rest of the summer of 1954–55. The following season, Lawry was recalled to the Seconds and scored 183 against South Australia.
Bill O'Reilly (cricketer)
In January 1908, shortly after Bill had turned two, the family moved to Murringo, after Ernest was appointed the headmaster. O'Reilly said in his autobiography "Tiger" that the move played no vital part in his cricket education. The area had much more vegetation than the desolate White Cliffs, and an Irish Australian majority. O'Reilly later described the period as the happiest of his life. There the children played tennis on a court on their property and took up cricket. During this time, O'Reilly's mother gave birth to another son and two more daughters. In 1917, at the age of 12, the family moved to the town of Wingello. Ernest made the decision because there were no high schools near Murringo and his older children were about to finish primary school. Nevertheless, there was no high school in Wingello where Ernest had been appointed headmaster, so O'Reilly had to catch a train to Goulburn—50 km away—to study at the local public secondary school, where his elder brother Tom had been awarded a scholarship. Wingello was a cricket town and "everyone was a cricket crank" according to O'Reilly. It was here that he developed a passion for the game. O'Reilly played in the town's team and also won the regional tennis championships. O'Reilly bowled with an action reminiscent of the windmill that his family erected in the town. However, school life was difficult, especially in the winter, as the Southern Tablelands were harsh and cold. The O'Reilly children had to leave Wingello at 7.45 am by rail and caught a slow goods train that delivered them home at 7 pm; these vehicles did not provide protection against the weather, and the boys did not participate in any school sport as the only train home left after the end of classes.