Formed in Adelaide in 1880 by Ernest Ayers, a younger son of South Australian premier Sir Henry Ayers the Wanderers was an itinerant cricket club without a home ground but played matches on those of its opponents or neutral venues. It was an Establishment club with its core members drawn from the exclusive Adelaide Club and its representatives otherwise coming from friends and business associates who had attended Adelaide’s two main private schools – St Peter’s and Prince Alfred colleges. While competitive, the social nature of the cricket was also important and the Wanderers made regular trips to SA’s Mid-North and South-East and Western Victoria where they were richly entertained by prominent pastoralists and town mayors who organised concerts and dances in addition to cricketing activities.