Australian curator Dr Gaye Sculthorpe made the discovery in Exeter in Devon, in England's south-west, last week. On a research visit she spotted the artefacts, from Victoria.

The 'Eureka' moment came when she saw the name of the donor – WR Hayman, the manager of the Aboriginal cricket team that toured England from May to October in 1868.

Until then the museum had not known the objects were associated with the cricket tour.

A well as playing cricket the tourists demonstrated traditional skills such as boomerang and spear throwing – they also dodged cricket balls thrown at them before and after the cricket matches.

At the end of their 47-match tour they had a brief holiday in Devon, where Hayman was born, and held a demonstration at a sports meeting in Plymouth.

Until now, the only Aboriginal artefact known to have survived from the tour was an Aboriginal club in the MCC Museum at Lord's – currently on loan to the British Museum for an exhibition on indigenous Australia curated by Dr Sculthorpe.

The artefacts in Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum include a boomerang, several clubs, two spear-throwers, two spears, two 'parrying sticks' and firesticks.

"The 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England is a key moment in Australian history," Dr Sculthorpe, curator and section head of Oceania at the British Museum, said.

"These artefacts (are) of great significance as tangible evidence of this historic tour, the first Australian cricket tour to England."

Tony Eccles, curator of World Cultures at the RAMM, said "it is wonderful that this piece of important Aboriginal history in Exeter has now been recognised".