The Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826) was also a member of the Hambledon. He introduced four wickets, two inches higher than the standard. “The game is then rendered shorter by easier bowling out,” said the Hampshire Chronicle, but the Earl’s plan is still a dream and a controversy.
The Hon. Mr. Lennox is referred to in a newspaper of the period as “nephew to his grace of Richmond,” and he and Lord Winchilsea are described as the chief performers at White Conduit House.
Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton went through the War of Independence with distinction, and lived with “Perdita” (Mary Robinson) for some years, receiving from her much devotion. He represented Liverpool in Parliament for twenty-two years, and attained the rank of General.
The White Conduit Club, of which these gentlemen were members, has a high importance in the history of cricket, for out of it sprang, in 1787, the Marylebone Cricket Club. “The M.C.C. Club,” says Mr. Andrew Lang in a sketch of cricket history, “may be said to have sprung from the ashes of the White Conduit Club, dissolved in 1787. One Thomas Lord, by the aid of some members of the older association, made a ground in the space which is now Dorset Square. This was the first ‘Lord’s’.” Two removals brought the ground to its present location in St. John’s Wood, where the first recorded match was played, June 22, 1814.
[318] Du Val’s Lane is now represented by Hornsey Road. It seems to have been originally “Devil’s Lane,” but to have been popularly re-named from Claude Duval (1643-70), the highwayman, who, like Dick Turpin, favoured this district. Born at Domfront in Normandy, Du Val came to England in the train of the Duke of Richmond, and took to the road. He was famous for his gallantries to his victims. He was captured on January 17, 1669 or 1670, in the Hole-in-the-Wall Tavern, Chandos Street, and although intercession was made for him by ladies of rank, he was hanged at Tyburn within four days. The exhibition of his body at the Tangier Tavern, St. Giles’s, drew such crowds that it had to be stopped. It is hard to believe that Du Val was accorded a grave in the centre aisle of Covent Garden Church, and that his epitaph began—
Here lies Du Vall: Reader, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart;
but it is so stated in the Memoirs of Monsieur Du Val, 1670. His funeral, we read, “was attended with many flambeaux, and a numerous train of mourners, whereof most were of the beautiful sex.”
[319] Nathaniel Hillier, of Pancras Lane, merchant, died March 1, 1783, aged 76 (Gentleman’s Magazine).
[320] This tea-pot passed into the possession of that eccentric virtuoso, Henry Constantine Noel, of whom Smith gives an account under 1818. Noel had the following extraordinary inscription engraved on it:—