If Kent and Middlesex may be described as the counties of amateurs, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire should be called the counties of famous professionals. Between 1864 and 1889 Nottinghamshire was champion county twelve times Notts. and the county eleven was as a rule composed almost entirely of professional players, among whom have been many of the greatest names in the history of the game. Richard Daft (1835-1900), after playing as an amateur, became a professional in preference to abandoning the game, scorning to resort to any of the pretexts by which cricketers have been known to accept payment for their services while continuing to cling to the status of the amateur. William Oscroft (1843-1905) was one of Nottinghamshire’s early batting heroes, and in Alfred Shaw (b. 1842) and F. Morley (1850-1884) the county possessed an invaluable pair of bowlers. William Gunn (b. 1858), besides being a magnificent fielder “in the country,” was an exceptionally able batsman; but his performances did not equal those of his greater contemporary, Arthur Shrewsbury, who in six years between 1885 and 1892 headed the English batting averages. Shrewsbury’s perfect style combined with inexhaustible patience placed him in the front rank of the “classical” batsmen of English cricket. Of the batsmen nicknamed “stonewallers,” who at one time endangered the popularity of first-class cricket, was W. Scotton (1856-1893); and among the other numerous professionals whose cricket contributed to the renown of Nottinghamshire were Barnes (1852-1899), at times a most formidable bat; Flowers (b. 1856), always useful both with the bat and the ball; W. Attewell (b. 1861), a remarkably steady bowler who bowled an abnormal number of maiden overs; Mordecai Sherwin (b. 1851), an excellent successor to T. Plumb (b. 1833) and F. Wild (1847-1893) as wicket-keeper for the county; and among more recent players, J. Iremonger (b. 1877) and John Gunn, both of whom proved themselves cricketers worthy of the Notts traditions. J. A. Dixon (b. 1861), one of the few amateurs of the Nottinghamshire records, was for some time captain of the county team; and he was succeeded by A. O. Jones (b. 1873), a dashing batsman, who in 1899 was partner with Shrewsbury when the pair scored 391 for the first wicket in a match against Gloucestershire.
The history of Yorkshire cricket is modern in comparison with that of Surrey, Sussex or Kent. The county club only dates from 1861, and for some years the team was composed entirely of professionals. But though Yorkshire attained the Yorkshire. championship three times during the first ten years of the county club’s existence, thirteen years elapsed after 1870 before it again occupied the place of honour. In the ten years 1896-1906 Yorkshire was no less than six times at the head of the list, this position of supremacy being in no small measure due to the captaincy of Lord Hawke (b. 1860), who played continuously for the county from his university days for more than twenty years, and whose influence on Yorkshire cricket was unique. But before his time Yorkshire had already produced some notable cricketers, such as George Ulyett (1857-1898), who headed the batting averages in 1878, and who was also a fine fast bowler; Louis Hall (b. 1852), a patient bat; and another excellent scorer, Ephraim Lockwood (b. 1845). William Bates (1855-1900), too, was effective both as batsman and bowler; and Tom Emmett (1841-1904), long proverbial for bowling “a wide and a wicket,” was deservedly popular. To the earlier period belonged two fast bowlers, George Freeman (1844-1895) and Allan Hill (b. 1845), and the eminent wicket-keeper Pincher (1841-1903), who was succeeded by J. Hunter (1857-1891), and later by his brother Daniel Hunter (b. 1862). The full effect of Lord Hawke’s energetic captaincy was seen in 1900, when Yorkshire played through a programme of twenty-eight fixtures without sustaining a defeat; and the county’s record was but little inferior in both the following years and again in 1905, in each of which years it retained the championship. It was during this period that as notable a group of cricketers wore the Yorkshire colours as ever appeared in county matches. Edmund Peate (1856-1900), one of the finest bowlers in his day, did not survive to take part in the later triumphs of his county; but the period beginning in 1890 saw J. T. Brown, J. Tunnicliffe, R. Peel, W. Rhodes, George Hirst and the Hon. F. S. Jackson in the field. The two first named became famous for their first wicket partnerships. In 1896 in a match against Middlesex at Lord’s these two batsmen scored 139 before being separated in the first innings, and in the second knocked off the 147 required to win the match. In the following year they made 378 for the first wicket against Surrey, and during their careers they scored over a hundred for the first wicket on no less than fifteen occasions, the greatest feat of all being in 1898, when they beat the world’s record by staying together till 554 runs had been compiled. Peel was for many years an untiring bowler, and Yorkshire was fortunate in discovering a successor of even superior skill in Wilfrid Rhodes, who in 1900 took over 200 wickets at a cost of 12 runs each in county matches alone, and was also an excellent bat. Hirst and Jackson were the two finest all-round cricketers in England about 1905. The Hon. F. S. Jackson (b. 1870), like his fellow-Harrovian A. C. MacLaren, had a wonderful record in test matches against Australia; he captained the England eleven in 1905, and his wonderful nerve enabled him to extricate his side when in a difficulty, and to render his best service at an emergency. Hirst (b. 1871) in 1904 and in 1905 scored over 2000 runs and took more than 100 wickets; and in 1906 he surpassed all previous records by scoring over 2000 runs and taking over 200 wickets during the season. A concourse of 78,000 people watched his “benefit” match (Yorkshire against Lancashire) in August 1904. Besides cricketers like these, such fine players were included in the team as Wainwright (b. 1865), Haigh (b. 1871), Denton (b. 1874), and E. Smith (b. 1869); with such material the Yorkshire eleven had no “tail,” and was able to win the championship six times in a decade.
Somersetshire hardly fulfilled the promise held out by the success achieved in the closing decade of the 19th century; this had been largely owing to the captaincy and brilliant batting of H. T. Hewett (b. 1864), who in partnership with L. C. H. Somersetshire. Palairet (b. 1870), famous for his polished style, scored 346 for the first wicket in a match against Yorkshire in 1892. Hewett was succeeded in the command of the county eleven by the Cambridge fast bowler, S. M. J. Woods (b. 1868); and among other members of the eleven the most valuable was L. C. Braund (b. 1876), a professional who excelled as an all-round cricketer.
The counties above referred to are those which have figured most prominently in the history of county cricket. Individual players of the highest excellence are, however, to be found from time to time in all parts of the country. Warwickshire, for Minor counties. example, can boast of having had in A. A. Lilley (b. 1867) the best wicket-keeper of his day, who represented England against Australia in the test matches; while Worcestershire produced one of the best all-round professionals in the country for a number of years in Arnold (b. 1877), and a batsman of extreme brilliancy in R. E. Foster, a member of a cricketing family to whom belongs the credit of raising Worcestershire into a cricketing county of the first class. Derbyshire, similarly, can claim some well-known cricket names, the bowler W. Mycroft (1841-1894), W. Chatterton (b. 1863), and W. Storer (b. 1868), a first-class wicket-keeper. Essex possesses at Leyton one of the best county grounds in the country, and the club was helped over financial difficulties by the munificent support of an old Uppingham and Cambridge cricketer, C. E. Green. It has produced a fair number of excellent players, notably the batsmen P. Perrin, C. MacGahey, and the fast bowler C. J. Kortright; and A. P. Lucas, afterwards a member of the county club, was a famous cricketer who played for England in 1880 in the first Australian test match. Hampshire had a fine batsman in Captain E. G. Wynyard, and its annals are conspicuous for the phenomenal scores made during the single season of 1899 by Major R. M. Poore; these two put together 411 against Somersetshire in that year before being separated. Among the later Hants professionals, Llewellyn was most prominent.
The distribution of cricketing ability in England might be the subject of some interesting speculation. In the first forty years of the annual competition for the championship six counties alone gained the coveted distinction, and three of these, Surrey, Notts and Yorkshire, won it thirty-four times between them. Why, it may be asked, is it that one county excels in the game while another has no place whatever in the history of cricket? How comes it that great names recur continually in the annals of Surrey and Yorkshire, for example, while those of Berkshire and Lincolnshire are entirely barren? No doubt proximity to great centres of population favours the cultivation of the game, but in this respect Kent and Sussex are no better situated than Hertfordshire, nor does it account for Nottinghamshire having so illustrious a record while Staffordshire has none at all, nor for Somersetshire having outclassed Devon. It is strange, moreover, that while the universities are the chief training-grounds for amateur cricketers, neither Oxfordshire nor Cambridgeshire has made any mark among the counties. The influence of individuals and families, such as the Graces in Gloucestershire, the Walkers in Middlesex, and in recent times the Fosters in Worcestershire, has of course been of inestimable benefit to cricket in those counties; but Buckinghamshire and Norfolk and Cheshire send their sons to the public schools and universities no less than Lancashire or Kent. It is difficult, therefore, to understand why county cricket should so persistently confine itself to a small number of counties; but such is the fact.
Cricket has never flourished vigorously in Scotland, Ireland or Wales, a fact that may partly be accounted for by the comparative difficulty of obtaining good grounds in those parts of the kingdom, and by the inferiority, for the purpose of cricket, of their climate. In the south of Scotland, and especially in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, there are clubs which keep the game alive; and Scotland, though it has produced no great cricketers, either amateur or professional, has sent a few players to the English university elevens who have found places in English county teams. In Ireland cricket is fairly popular, especially in those parts of the island where local sides can obtain assistance from soldiers quartered in the neighbourhood. One or two counties play annual matches, that between Kildare and Cork in particular exciting keen rivalry. Trinity College, Dublin, has turned out some excellent players; and the Phoenix and Leinster clubs in Dublin, and the North of Ireland club in Belfast, play a full programme of matches every season. D. N. Trotter, who played for county Meath for many years towards the close of the 19th century, was a batsman who would have found a place in any English county eleven; so also would William Hone, one of several brothers all of whom were keen and skilful cricketers. About the same period Lieutenant Dunn scored so many centuries in Irish cricket that he was played, though without any great success, for his native county of Surrey. More recently L. H. Gwynn (1873-1902) batted in a style and with a success that proved him capable of great things. Sir T. C. O’Brien, though an Irishman, belongs as a cricketer to Middlesex; but T. C. Ross, who was chosen to play for Gentlemen v. Players at Lord’s in 1902, was a bowler who played regularly for county Kildare.
Gentlemen v. Players.—The most important match of the year as far as purely English cricket is concerned is the match between the gentlemen and players (amateurs and professionals) played at Lord’s. For many years a match played between sides similarly composed at the Oval excited equal interest, but latterly county cricket has rather starved this particular game, though it still continues as a popular fixture. Other matches with the same title have been played in London on Prince’s Ground (now built over), and at Brighton, Hastings and Scarborough and elsewhere, but those games in no way rank with the London matches.
The Lord’s fixture was first established in 1806, in which year two matches were played; it became annual in 1819, but in those days the amateurs, being no match for their opponents, generally received odds, while in 1832 they defended wickets 22 in. by 6, and in 1837 the professionals stood in front of wickets of four stumps, measuring in all 36 in. by 12 in. This match was known as “The Barndoor Match” or “Ward’s Folly,” and the professionals won by an innings and 10 runs. Odds were not given after 1838, the gentlemen having then won eight matches and lost thirteen. From 1839 to 1866 the gentlemen only won 7 matches as compared with 21 losses. In 1867 the tide turned, for the brothers Grace, especially Dr W. G. Grace, became a power in the cricket-field, and from 1867 to 1884 the gentlemen, winning fifteen matches, only lost one. From 1885 the balance swung round, and by 1903 the professionals had won eleven matches and lost but four. The gentlemen won on nine successive occasions between 1874 and 1884, a draw intervening; while beginning with 1854 the professionals won eleven matches “off the reel.” The professionals won in 1860 by an innings and no less than 181 runs; in 1900 they only won by two wickets, but to do so had to make, and did make, 501 runs in the last innings of the match. In 1903 the gentlemen, heavily in arrears after each side had played an innings, actually scored 500 in their second innings with only two men out. In 1904 the gentlemen won by two wickets after being 156 runs behind on the first innings, thanks to fine play by K. S. Ranjitsinhji and A. O. Jones. J. H. King had scored a century in each innings, a feat previously only performed by R. E. Foster in 1900. C. B. Fry’s 232 not out in 1903 was the largest innings scored in the match. Dr W. G. Grace, who is credited with eight centuries, is the only cricketer who exceeded the hundred more than twice at Lord’s in the fixture, 164 by J. T. Brown being the highest innings by a professional. There were seven instances before 1864 of two bowlers being unchanged in the match, and the Hon. F. S. Jackson and S. M. J. Woods repeated this in 1894. The Oval match was first played in 1857. The amateurs effected their first win in 1866, and though several games were drawn the professionals did not win again till 1880. As at Lord’s, it was the era of Grace, but from this point the amateurs could only win two matches, and by the narrowest of margins, till 1903, this making their sum of victories up to then thirteen, as opposed to twenty-three. In 1879 the gentlemen won in one innings by 126 runs, the heaviest beating that one side had inflicted on the other. The highest individual score was Robert Abel’s 247, and the next Dr W. G. Grace’s 215. Hayward scored 203 in 1904; A. G. Steel and A. H. Evans bowled unchanged in 1879.
School and Club Cricket.—Cricket is the standing summer game at every English private and public school, where it is taught as carefully and systematically as either classics or mathematics. There are also numbers of amateur clubs which possess no grounds of their own and are connected with no particular locality, but which are in fact mere associations of cricketers who play matches against the universities, schools or local teams, or against each other. Of these the best known, perhaps, is I Zingari (The Wanderers), popularly known as I.Z., whose well-known colours, red, yellow and black stripes, are prized rather as a social than as a cricketing distinction. This club was founded in 1845 by Lorraine Baldwin and Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane. The first rule of the club humorously declares that “the entrance fee shall be nothing, and the annual subscription shall not exceed the entrance fee.” It is a rule of the club that no member shall play on the opposing side. I.Z. has long been connected with the social festivities forming a feature of the “Canterbury Week,” a cricket festival held at Canterbury during the first week in August, of the Scarborough week, and of the Dublin horse-show. Dr W. G. Grace, who almost invariably appeared in the cricket field wearing the red and yellow stripes of the M.C.C., and some other notable amateurs, never belonged to I.Z. or any similar club; but Dr Grace was instrumental in the formation of the London county club, whose ground was at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Other amateur clubs, similar to I Zingari, are the Free Foresters, Incogniti, Etceteras, and in Ireland Na Shuler; while the Eton Ramblers, Harrow Wanderers, Old Wykehamists, and others are clubs whose membership is restricted to “old boys.”
The Oxford and Cambridge universities match was first played in 1827, but was not an annual fixture till 1838. Five matches, those of 1829, 1843, 1846, 1848 and 1850, were played at Oxford, the rest at Lord’s. The “’Varsity match,” and that between the two great public schools, Eton and Harrow, are great “society” events at Lord’s every summer. Up to 1909 Eton won thirty times, and Harrow on thirty-five occasions. D. C. Boles by scoring 183 in 1904 set up a new record for this match, beating the 152 obtained in 1841 by Emilius Bayley (afterwards the Rev. Sir John Robert Laurie); and in 1907 the Harrow captain, M. C. Bird, established a further record by scoring over a hundred runs in each innings. Of the contests between Oxford and Cambridge, the latter (up to 1909) had lost thirty-one and won thirty-five. Oxford’s 503 in 1900 and Cambridge’s 392 in the same match furnished the highest aggregates. The largest individual innings was 172 not out by J. F. Marsh in 1904; but as a feat of batting it was intrinsically inferior to the 171 by R. E. Foster in 1900. Of the thirty centuries scored up to 1909, Oxford was credited with sixteen. Eustace Crawley (b. 1868) made a hundred both in the Eton v. Harrow and Oxford v. Cambridge matches. In the match of 1870 F. C. Cobden (b. 1849) took the last three Oxford wickets with consecutive balls, winning the match for Cambridge by 2 runs.