When Tendulkar got his Yorkshire contract, somehow a rumour surfaced that he was the first cricketer born outside the country to play for them (McDermott would have been the first had he not got injured).
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I now know better, thanks to the internet.

I found (using a semi-manual search) several cricketers born outside Yorkshire but played for them before Tendulkar. I am sure that this is not an exhaustive list.

Of these, four were born outside England:
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Robert Clayton (Caernarvonshire, Wales)
Geoffrey Keighley (Nice, France)
William Oates (County Wicklow, Ireland)
John Usher (Tipperary, Ireland)

All these people played First-Class cricket for Yorkshire.
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When Yorkshire toured North America in 1964-65, they hired the services of a West Indian for four matches, all in Bermuda.

He scored 198 runs at 49.50 and took 16 wickets at 6.12 (no typo), but none of these matches were given First-Class status.

Garry Sobers.