More Than A Game: The Story of Cricket's Early Years - John Major

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Chief Justice Pratt, who, it was reported, ‘not understanding the [rules of the] game, or having forgot’, simply ordered the match to be finished from where it left off, and made no order that Stead should be paid the sum due on the wager. There is no record of whether the game was ever completed or the wager settled. Nor do we know if the insolent journalist who doubted the Lord Chief Justice’s competence was fined for contempt.

      But the ruling that the game should be finished had a favourable repercussion for cricket, if not for Stead. When, a week later, in Writtle, Essex, a zealous justice of the peace summoned a constable to disperse a few innocent locals playing the game, a cricket-lover wrote indignantly to the press with the unanswerable question: was it legal to play cricket in Kent at the order of the Lord Chief Justice – but not legal to play in Essex?

      With or without his guineas, Stead played on. In August 1726 the ‘Men of London and Surrey’ faced him for twenty-five guineas at Kennington Common. Two years later his team was matched against the Duke of Richmond for ‘a large sum of money’ at Cox Heath. In the same year Stead and another of cricket’s early patrons, Sir William Gage, played an eleven-aside game for fifty guineas at the Earl of Leicester’s park at Penshurst. Stead’s men won after leading by 52 to 45 on the first innings. The final margin of victory is not recorded. It was the third occasion that summer that the ‘Men of Kent’ had defeated the Sussex team.

      Stead was a graceful loser, and his nonchalance won him powerful friends. In August 1733 his team was matched against one raised by Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II, for a plate valued at £30. The game was played at Moulsey Hurst, Surrey, and the Prince’s men won. The contest was repeated in 1735, when Stead backed a London club against the Prince’s ‘Surrey’ team, and gained a narrow win by one wicket. It was to be the gambler’s last throw: Stead died a month later near Charing Cross, having done much to popularise early cricket.

      One of Stead’s familiar opponents, Sir William Gage, succeeded to a baronetcy in 1713, at the age of eighteen. Nine years later he was elected to the Commons as MP for Seaford, which he retained until his death twenty-two years later. His estate, Firle in East Sussex, was one of the cradles of cricket, and it is likely that he learned to love the game as a boy. Apart from contests against Stead, Gage’s ‘Sussex XI’ were familiar opponents of the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Middlesex, Lord John Sackville and the Prince of Wales. A letter to Richmond written by Gage on 16 July 1725 catches the flavour of the times:

      My Lord Duke,

      I have received this moment Your Grace’s letter and am extremely happy Your Grace intends as the honour of making one [presumably a game, but possibly also a wager] on Tuesday, and will without fail bring a gentleman with me to play against you, one that has played very seldom for these several years. I am in great affliction from being shamefully beaten yesterday, the first match I played this year. However, I will muster up all my courage against Tuesday’s engagement. I will trouble Your Grace with nothing more than I wish you success in everything but ye cricket match.

      The wording of the letter suggests that the approach for either a game or a wager came from Richmond, and may have been for a single-wicket contest. Gage is keen to assure the Duke that he and his partner are in neither good form nor practice, although whether this was really the case or was intended to entice a larger wager is unclear. The fact that Gage tells Richmond he has only just played his first game of the year, with the season so well advanced, suggests, if true, that he may have been engaged on parliamentary duties.

      Other games against Richmond were certainly between teams of eleven a side, for one, at Lewes in August 1730, was postponed because the Duke’s most accomplished player, his groom Thomas Waymark, fell ill. It is likely that Richmond was being cautious as the wager was high. In any event, the match was off.

      Gage’s enthusiasm for cricket is summed up in a letter from John Whaley to Horace Walpole in August 1735, after he had seen Gage’s Sussex team beat the Gentlemen of Kent: ‘They seem as much pleased as if they had got an Election. We have been at Supper with them all and have left them at one o’clock in the morning laying betts about the next match.’ Where bets were concerned, return matches were common courtesy, and later in the month the Earl of Middlesex, supported by his brother Lord John Sackville and nine other gentlemen, defeated Gage and his Sussex colleagues to secure their revenge and – perhaps – recover their money.

      The combination of cricketing rivalry and betting could be combustible. In July 1741 Slindon beat Portslade in a game attended by Gage and the Duke of Newcastle. On 5 August, Gage wrote to Newcastle to report the aftermath:

      … the night of the cricket match after Your Grace left the field there was a bustle occasioned by the cry of ‘Calves head’ being resented by some of Your Grace’s friends and some hearty blows were given … the Western cricketers that had left the hearing of it returned with their cricket batts and dealt some heavy blows which carried the victory … I am glad the cricket match was over before this happened.

      Sometimes the blood flowed during a match. The Old Whig reported on 1 July 1736 that ‘two famous Richmond men’ were playing two London men, Mr Wakeland (a distiller) and Mr Oldner, when one of the Richmond men (who were not named) was badly injured. The ball ‘hit up against the side of his nose, broke his nose, hurt his eye, and bruised his face … he lost a great quantity of blood’. ‘Notwithstanding this accident some Human Brutes who laid [bets] against the Richmond men, insisted he should play … after his nose was set, and his face dressed, and one side tied up, [he] attempted to play again.’ It was gallant but unavailing. The blood flowed again, and the match had to be rescheduled.

      In its long history, cricket talent has often passed from father to son – for example, in recent years the Pollocks, Cowdreys and Stewarts, among others– and this phenomenon was evident with the greatest of the early patrons, the Sackville family. Three Sackvilles were prominent supporters of cricket, and a second wave was to follow. Lionel Sackville was created first Duke of Dorset in 1720, and in his pomp maintained his own ‘cricketing place’ at Knole near Sevenoaks: it was the first ground to be regularly mown, rolled and cosseted in preparation for cricket. There is no record of how often games were played at Knole, but Dorset employed as a gardener Valentine Romney, who according to the Kentish Gazette ‘was held to be the best cricket player in the world’. It was, of course, a ‘world’ still confined to the Home Counties of England, but the Duke’s employment of Romney bore testimony to his enthusiasm, which was inherited by his sons Charles and John.

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