CHAP. V.
THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY.
Before this century was one year old, David Harris, Harry Walker, Purchase, Aylward, and Lumpy had left the stage, and John Small, instead of hitting bad balls whose stitches would not last a match, had learnt to make commodities so good that Clout’s and Duke’s were mere toy-shop in comparison. Noah Mann was the Caldecourt, or umpire, of the day, and Harry Bentley also, when he did not play. Five years more saw nearly the last of Earl Winchelsea, Sir Horace Mann, Earl Darnley, and Lord Yarmouth; still Surrey had a generous friend in Mr. Laurell, Hants in Mr. T. Smith, and Kent in the Honourables H. and J. Tufton. The Pavilion at Lord’s, then and since 1787 on the site of Dorset Square, was attended by Lord Frederick Beauclerk, then a young man of four-and-twenty, the Honourables Colonel Bligh, Colonel Lennox, H. and J. Tufton, and A. Upton. Also, there were usually Messrs. R. Whitehead, G. Leycester, S. Vigne, and F. Ladbroke. These were the great promoters of the matches, and the first of the amateurs. Cricket was one of Lord Byron’s favourite sports, and that in spite of his lame foot: witness the lines,—
“Together join’d in cricket’s manly toil,
Or shared the produce of the river’s spoil.”
Byron mentions in his letters that he played in the eleven of Harrow against Eton in 1805. The score is given in Lillywhite’s Public-School Matches.
The excellent William Wilberforce was fond of cricket, and was laid up by a severe blow on the leg at Rothley while playing with his sons: he says the doctor told him a little more would have broken the bone.
Cricket, we have shown, was originally classed among the games of the lower orders; so we find the yeomen infinitely superior to the gentlemen even before cricket had become by any means so much of a profession as it is now. Tom Walker, Beldham, John Wells, Fennex, Hammond, Robinson, Lambert, Sparkes, H. Bentley, Bennett, Freemantle, were the best professionals of the day. For it was seven or eight years later that Mr. E. H. Budd, and his unequal rival, Mr. Brand, and his sporting friend, Osbaldeston, as also that fine player, E. Parry, Esq., severally appeared; and later still, that Mr. Ward, Howard, Beagley, Thumwood, Caldecourt, Slater, Flavel, Ashby, Searle, and Saunders, successively showed every resource of bias bowling to shorten the scores, and of fine hitting to lengthen them. By the end of these twenty years, all these distinguished players had taught a game in which the batting beat the bowling. “Cricket,” said Mr. Ward, “unlike hunting, shooting, fishing, or even yachting, was a sport that lasted three days;” the wicket had been twice enlarged, once about 1814, and again in 1817; old Lord had tried his third, the present, ground; the Legs had taught the wisdom of playing rather for love than money; slow coaches had given way to fast, long whist to short; and ultimately Lambert, John Wells, Howard, and Powell, handed over the ball to Broadbridge and Lillywhite.
Such is the scene, the characters, and the performance. “Matches in those days were more numerously attended than now,” said Mr. Ward: the old game was more attractive to spectators, because more busy, than the new. Tom Lord’s flag was the well known telegraph that brought him in from three to four thousand sixpences at a match. John Goldham, the octogenarian inspector of Billingsgate, has seen the Duke of York and his adversary, the Honourable Colonel Lennox, in the same game, and had the honour of playing with both, and the Prince Regent, too, in the White Conduit Fields, on which spot Mr. Goldham built his present house. For the Prince was a great lover of the game, and caused the “Prince’s Cricket Ground” to be formed at Brighton. The late Lord Barrymore, killed by the accidental discharge of a blunderbuss in his phaeton, was an enthusiastic cricketer. The Duke of Richmond, when Colonel Lennox, a nobleman whose life and spirits and genial generous nature made him beloved by all, exulted in this as in all athletic sports: the bite of a fox killed him. Then, as you drive through Russell Square, behold the statue of another patron, the noble-born and noble-minded Duke of Bedford; and in Dorset Square, the site of old Lord’s Ground, you may muse and fancy you see, where now is some “modest mansion,” the identical mark called the “Duke’s strike,” which long recorded a hit, 132 yards in the air, from the once famous bat of Alexander, late Duke of Hamilton. Great matches in those days, as in these, cost money. Six guineas if they won and four if they lost, was the player’s fee; or, five and three if they lived in town. So, as every match cost some seventy pounds, over the fire-place at Lord’s you would see a Subscription List for Surrey against England, or for England against Kent, as the case might be, and find notices of each interesting match at Brookes’s and other clubs.
This custom of advertising cricket matches is of very ancient date. For, in the “British Champion” of Sep. 8. 1743, a writer complains that though “noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen may divert themselves as they think fit,” and though he “cannot dispute their privilege to make butchers, cobblers, or tinkers their companions,” he very much doubts “whether they have any right to invite thousands of people to be spectators of their agility.” For, “it draws numbers of people from their employment to the ruin of their families. It is a most notorious breach of the laws—the advertisements most impudently reciting that great sums are laid.” And, in the year following (1744), as we read in the “London Magazine,” Kent beat all England in the Artillery Ground, in the presence of “their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Richmond, Admiral Vernon, and many other persons of distinction.” How pleasing to reflect that those sunny holidays we enjoy at Lord’s have been enjoyed by the people for more than a century past!
But what were the famous cricket Counties in these twenty years? The glory of Kent had for a while departed. Time was when Kent could challenge England man for man; but now, only with such odds as twenty-three to twelve! As to the wide extension of cricket, it advanced but slowly then compared with recent times. A small circle round London would still comprise all the finest players. It was not till 1820 that Norfolk, forgetting its three Elevens beaten by Lord Frederick, again played Marylebone; and, though three gentlemen were given and Fuller Pilch played—then a lad of seventeen years—Norfolk lost by 417 runs, including Mr. Ward’s longest score on record,—278. “But he was missed,” said Mr. Budd, “the easiest possible catch before he had scored thirty.” Still it was a great achievement; and Mr. Morse preserves, as a relic, the identical ball, and the bat which hit that ball about, a trusty friend that served its owner fifty years! Kennington Oval, perhaps, was then all docks and thistles. Surrey still stood first of cricket counties, and Mr. Laurell—Robinson was his keeper; an awful man for poachers, 6 feet 1 inch, and 16 stone, and strong in proportion—most generous of supporters, was not slow to give orders on old Thomas Lord for golden guineas, when a Surrey man, by catch or innings, had elicited applause. Of the same high order were Sir J. Cope of Bramshill Park, and Mr. Barnett, the banker, promoter of the B. matches; the Hon. D. Kinnaird, and, last not least, Mr. W. Ward, who by purchase of a lease saved Lord’s from building ground; an act of generosity in which he imitated the good old Duke of Dorset, who, said Mr. Budd, “gave the ground called the Vine, at Sevenoaks, by a deed of trust, for the use of cricketers for ever.”