_1st Innings._ _2nd Innings._
RUNS. RUNS.
Lord Sackville 5 c by Waymark 3 b by Harris.
Long Robin 7 b Newland 9 b Newland.
Mills 0 b Harris 6 c Ditto.
Hadswell 0 b Ditto 5 -- not out.
Cutbush 3 c Green 7 -- not out.
Bartrum 2 b Newland 0 b Newland.
Danes 6 b Ditto 0 c Smith.
Sawyer 0 c Waymark 5 b Newland.
Kips 12 b Harris 10 b Harris.
Mills 7 -- not out 2 b Newland.
Romney 11 b Harris 8 c Harris.
Byes 0 Byes 3
-- --
53 58
Cricket was introduced into Eton early in the last century. Horace
Walpole was sent to Eton in the year 1726. Playing cricket, as well as
thrashing bargemen, was common at that time. For in Walpole’s Letters,
vol. i. p. 4., he says,--
“I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite a school-boy; an expedition
against bargemen, or _a match at cricket_, may be very pretty things
to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very
near as pretty.”
The fourth Earl of Carlisle learnt cricket at Eton at the same time.
The Earl writes to George Selwyn, even from Manheim, that he was up,
playing at cricket, before Selwyn was out of his bed.
And now, the oldest chronicler is Old Nyren, who wrote an account of
the cricketers of his time. The said Old Nyren borrowed the pen of
our kind friend Charles Cowden Clarke, to whom John Keats dedicated
an epistle, and who rejoiced in the friendship of Charles Lamb; and
none but a spirit akin to Elia could have written like “Old Nyren.”
Nyren was a fine old English yeomen, whose chivalry was cricket; and
Mr. Clarke has faithfully recorded his vivid descriptions and animated
recollections. And, with this charming little volume in hand, and
inkhorn at my button, in 1837 I made a tour among the cottages of
William Beldham, and the few surviving worthies of the same generation;
and, having also the advantage of a MS. by the Rev. John Mitford,
taken from many a winter’s evening with Old Fennex, I am happy to
attempt the best account that the lapse of time admits, of cricket in
the olden time.
From a MS. my friend received from the late Mr. William Ward, it
appears that the wickets were placed twenty-two yards apart as long
since as the year 1700; that stumps were then only one foot high, but
two feet wide. The width some persons have doubted; but it is rendered
credible by the auxiliary evidence that there was, in those days,
width enough between the two stumps for cutting the wide blockhole
already mentioned, and also because--whereas now we hear of stumps and
bails--we read formerly of “two stumps with one stump laid across.”
We are informed, also, that putting down the wickets to make a man out
in running, instead of the old custom of popping the ball into the
hole, was adopted on account of severe injuries to the hands, and that
the wicket was changed at the same time--1779-1780--to the dimensions
of twenty-two inches by six, with a third stump added.
Before this alteration the art of defence was almost unknown: balls
often passed over the wicket, and often passed through. At the time of
the alteration Old Nyren truly predicted that the innings would not be
shortened but better played. The long pod and curved form of the bat,
as seen in the old paintings, was made only for hitting, and for ground
balls too. Length balls were then by no means common; neither would
low stumps encourage them: and even upright play was then practised by
very few. Old Nyren relates that one Harry Hall, a gingerbread baker
of Farnham, gave peripatetic lectures to young players, and always
insisted on keeping the left elbow well up; in other words, on straight
play. “Now-a-days,” said Beldham, “all the world knows that; but when I
began there was very little length bowling, very little straight play,
and little defence either.” Fennex, said he, was the first who played
out at balls; before his day, batting was too much about the crease.
Beldham said that his own supposed tempting of Providence consisted
in running in to hit. “You do frighten me there jumping out of your
ground, said our Squire Paulet:” and Fennex used also to relate how,
when he played forward to the pitch of the ball, his father “had never
seen the like in all his days;” the said days extending a long way
back towards the beginning of the century. While speaking of going in
to hit, Beldham said, “My opinion has always been that too little
is attempted in that direction. Judge your ball, and, when the least
over-pitched, go in and hit her away.” In this opinion Mr. C. Taylor’s
practice would have borne Beldham out: and a fine dashing game this
makes; only, it is a game for none but practised players. When you are
perfect in playing in your ground, then, and then only, try how you can
play out of it, as the best means to scatter the enemy and open the
field.
“As to bowling,” continued Beldham, “when I was a boy (about 1780),
nearly all bowling was fast, and all along the ground. In those days
the Hambledon Club could beat all England; but our three parishes
around Farnham at last beat Hambledon.”
It is quite evident that Farnham was the cradle of cricketers.
“Surrey,” in the old scores, means nothing more than the Farnham
parishes. This corner of Surrey, in every match against All England,
was reckoned as part of Hampshire; and, Beldham truly said “you find us
regularly on the Hampshire side in Bentley’s Book.”
“I told you, sir,” said Beldham, “that in my early days all bowling
was what we called fast, or at least a moderate pace. The first lobbing
slow bowler I ever saw was Tom Walker. When, in 1792, England played
Kent, I did feel so ashamed of such baby bowling; but, after all, he
did more than even David Harris himself. Two years after, in 1794,
at Dartford Brent, Tom Walker, with his slow bowling, headed a side
against David Harris, and beat him easily.”
“Kent, in early times, was not equal to our counties. Their great man
was Crawte, and he was taken away from our parish of Alresford by
Mr. Amherst, the gentleman who made the Kent matches. In those days,
except around our parts, Farnham and the Surrey side of Hampshire, a
little play went a long way. Why, no man used to be more talked of than
Yalden; and, when he came among us, we soon made up our minds what the
rest of them must be. If you want to know, sir, the time the Hambledon
Club was formed, I can tell you by this;--when we beat them in 1780, I
heard Mr. Paulet say, ‘Here have I been thirty years raising our club,
and are we to be beaten by a mere parish?’ so, there must have been a
cricket club, that played every week regularly, as long ago as 1750.
We used to go as eagerly to a match as if it were two armies fighting;
we stood at nothing if we were allowed the time. From our parish to
Hambledon is twenty-seven miles, and we used to ride both ways the same
day, early and late. At last, I and John Wells were about building a
cart: you have heard of tax carts, sir; well, the tax was put on then,
and that stopped us. The members of the Hambledon Club had a caravan to
take their eleven about; they used once to play always in velvet caps.
Lord Winchelsea’s eleven used to play in silver laced hats; and always
the dress was knee-breeches and stockings. We never thought of knocks;
and, remember, I played against Browne of Brighton too. Certainly, you
would see a bump heave under the stocking, and even the blood come
through; but I never knew a man killed, now you ask the question, and I
never saw any accident of much consequence, though many an _all but_,
in my long experience. Fancy the old fashion before cricket shoes, when
I saw John Wells tear a finger nail off against his shoe-buckle in
picking up a ball!”
“Your book, sir, says much about old Nyren. This Nyren was fifty years
old when I began to play; he was our general in the Hambledon matches;
but not half a player, as we reckon now. He had a small farm and inn
near Hambledon, and took care of the ground.”
“I remember when many things first came into the game which are common
now. The law for Leg-before-wicket was not passed, nor much wanted,
till Ring, one of our best hitters, was shabby enough to get his leg
in the way, and take advantage of the bowlers; and, when Tom Taylor,
another of our best hitters, did the same, the bowlers found themselves
beaten, and the law was passed to make leg-before-wicket Out. The law
against jerking was owing to the frightful pace Tom Walker put on,
and I believe that he afterwards tried something more like the modern
throwing-bowling, and so caused the words against throwing also. Willes
was not the inventor of that kind of round bowling; he only revived
what was forgotten or new to the young folk.”
“The umpires did not formerly pitch the wickets. David Harris used to
think a great deal of pitching himself a good-wicket, and took much
pains in suiting himself every match day.”
“Lord Stowell was fond of cricket. He employed me to make a ground for
him at Holt Pound.”
In the last century, when the waggon and the packhorse supplied the
place of the penny train, there was little opportunity for those
frequent meetings of men from distant counties that now puzzle us to
remember who is North and who is South, who is Surrey or who is Kent.
The matches then were truly county matches, and had more of the spirit
of hostile tribes and rival clans. “There was no mistaking the Kent
boys,” said Beldham, “when they came staring in to the Green Man. A
few of us had grown used to London, but Kent and Hampshire men had but
to speak, or even show themselves, and you need not ask them which
side they were on.” So the match seemed like Sir Horace Mann and Lord
Winchelsea and their respective tenantry--for when will the feudal
system be quite extinct? and there was no little pride and honour in
the parishes that sent them up, and many a flagon of ale depending in
the farms or the hop grounds they severally represented, as to whether
they should, as the spirit-stirring saying was, “prove themselves the
better men.” “I remember in one match,” said Beldham, “in Kent, Ring
was playing against David Harris. The game was much against him. Sir
Horace Mann was cutting about with his stick among the daisies, and
cheering every run,--you would have thought his whole fortune (and he
would often bet some hundreds) was staked upon the game; and, as a new
man was going in, he went across to Ring, and said, ‘Ring, carry your
bat through and make up all the runs, and I’ll give you 10_l._ a-year
for life.’ Well, Ring was out for sixty runs, and only three to tie,
and four to beat, and the last man made them. It was Sir Horace who
took Aylward away with him out of Hampshire, but the best bat made but
a poor bailiff, we heard.
“Cricket was played in Sussex very early, before my day at least; but,
that there was no good play I know by this, that Richard Newland, of
Slinden in Sussex, as you say, sir, taught old Richard Nyren, and that
no Sussex man could be found to play him. Now, a second-rate player
of our parish beat Newland easily; so you may judge what the rest of
Sussex then were. But before 1780 there were some good players about
Hambledon and the Surrey side of Hampshire. Crawte, the best of the
Kent men, was stolen away from us; so you will not be wrong, sir, in
writing down that Farnham, and thirty miles round, reared all the best
players up to my day, about 1780.”
“There were some who were then called ‘the old players,’”--and here
Fennex’s account quite agreed with Beldham’s,--“including Frame and old
Small. And as to old Small, it is worthy of observation, that Bennett
declared it was part of the creed of the last century, that Small was
the man who ‘found out cricket,’ or brought play to any degree of
perfection. Of the same school was Sueter, the wicket-keeper, who in
those days had very little stumping to do, and Minshull and Colshorn,
all mentioned in Nyren.” “These men played puddling about their crease
and had no freedom. I like to see a player upright and well forward, to
face the ball like a man. The Duke of Dorset made a match at Dartford
Brent between ‘the Old Players and the New.’--You laugh, sir,” said
this tottering silver-haired old man, “but we all were New once;--well,
I played with the Walkers, John Wells, and the rest of our men, and
beat the Old ones very easily.”
Old John Small died, the last, if not the first of the Hambledonians,
in 1826. Isaac Walton, the father of Anglers, lived to the age of
ninety-three. This father of Cricketers was in his ninetieth year. John
Small played in all the great matches till he was turned of seventy. A
fine skater and a good musician. But, how the Duke of Dorset took great
interest in John Small, and how his Grace gave him a fiddle, and how
John, like a modern Orpheus, beguiled a wild bull of its fury in the
middle of a paddock, is it not written in the book of the chronicles
of the playmates of Old Nyren?--In a match of Hambledon against All
England, Small kept up his wicket for three days, and was not out after
all. A pity his score is unknown. We should like to compare it with Mr.
Ward’s.
“Tom Walker was the most tedious fellow to bowl to, and the slowest
runner between wickets I ever saw. Harry was the hitter,--Harry’s
half-hour was as good as Tom’s afternoon. I have seen Noah Mann, who
was as fast as Tom was slow, in running a four, overtake him, pat him
on the back, and say, ‘Good name for you is _Walker_, for you never was
a runner.’ It used to be said that David Harris had once bowled him
170 balls for one run! David was a potter by trade, and in a kind of
skittle alley made between hurdles, he used to practise bowling four
different balls from one end, and then picking them up he would bowl
them back again. His bowling cost him a great deal of practice; but it
proved well worth his while, for no man ever bowled like him, and he
was always first chosen of all the men in England.”--_Nil sine labore_,
remember, young cricketers all.--“‘Lambert’ (not the great player
of that name), said Nyren, ‘had a most deceitful and teasing way of
delivering the ball; he tumbled out the Kent and Surrey men, one after
another, as if picked off by a rifle corps. His perfection is accounted
for by the circumstance that when he was tending his father’s sheep, he
would set up a hurdle or two, and bowl away for hours together.’
“There was some good hitting in those days, though too little defence.
Tom Taylor would cut away in fine style, almost after the manner of
Mr. Budd. Old Small was among the first members of the Hambledon Club.
He began to play about 1750, and Lumpy Stevens at the same time. I
can give you some notion, sir, of what cricket was in those days, for
Lumpy, a very bad bat, as he was well aware, once said to me, ‘Beldham,
what do you think cricket must have been in those days when I was
thought a good batsman?’ But fielding was very good as far back as I
can remember.”--Now, what Beldham called good fielding must have been
good enough. He was himself one of the safest hands at a catch. Mr.
Budd, when past forty, was still one of the quickest men I ever played
with, taking always middle wicket, and often, by swift running, doing
part of long field’s work. Sparks, Fennex, Bennett, and young Small,
and Mr. Parry, were first rate, not to mention Beagley, whose style of
long stopping in the North and South Match of 1836, made Lord Frederick
and Mr. Ward justly proud of so good a representative of the game in
their younger days. Albeit, an old player of seventy, describing the
merits of all these men, said, “put Mr. King at point, Mr. C. Ridding
long-stop, and Mr. W. Pickering cover, and I never saw the man that
could beat either of them.”
“John Wells was a most dangerous man in a single wicket match, being so
dead a shot at a wicket. In one celebrated match, Lord Frederick warned
the Honourable H. Tufton to beware of John; but John Wells found an
opportunity of maintaining his character by shying down, from the side,
little more than the single stump. Tom Sheridan joined some of our
matches, but he was no good but to make people laugh. In our days there
were no padded gloves. I have seen Tom Walker rub his bleeding fingers
in the dust! David used to say he liked to _rind_ him.”
“The matches against twenty-two were not uncommon in the last century.
In 1788 the Hambledon Club played two-and-twenty at Cold Ash Hill.
‘Drawing’ between leg and wicket is not a new invention. Old Small,
(b. 1737, d. 1826,) was famous for the draw, and, to increase his
facility he changed the crooked bat of his day for a straight bat.
There was some fine cutting before Saunders’ day. Harry Walker was the
first, I believe, who brought cutting to perfection. The next genuine
cutter--for they were very scarce (I never called mine cutting, not
like that of Saunders at least)--was Robinson. Walker and Robinson
would wait for the ball till all but past the wicket, and then cut with
great force. Others made good Off-hits, but did not hit late enough
for a good Cut. I would never cut with slow bowling. I believe that
Walker, Fennex, and myself, first opened the old players’ eyes to what
could be done with the bat; Walker by cutting, and Fennex and I by
forward play: but all improvement was owing to David Harris’s bowling.
His bowling rose almost perpendicular: it was once pronounced a jerk;
it was altogether most extraordinary.--For thirteen years I averaged
forty-three a match, though frequently I had only one innings; but I
never could half play unless runs were really wanted.”