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

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will be as pernicious to poor people as horse races for the contagion spreads.’ Bedford also lost two games at Woburn Park to teams raised by the Earls of Sandwich and Halifax, but he was successful a year later in beating a London side at the Artillery Ground. The following year, 1743, London had their revenge, winning two matches, the latter at the Artillery Ground for five hundred guineas. Nothing daunted, the Duke played on and continued to sponsor games at Woburn Park until at least 1756.

      The Prince of Wales was not the only cricketing enthusiast with royal blood. Charles Lennox, the second Duke of Richmond (1701– 50), a grandson of Charles II and his French mistress Louise de Kérouaille, later Duchess of Portsmouth, was among the most important of the early patrons. Introduced to cricket at an early age, he became a lover of the game, patron of matches, sponsor of players and father and grandfather of significant figures in cricket history. At the age of eighteen, as Lord March, he was married to a thirteen-year-old girl in settlement of a gambling debt. The cynical ceremony over, the bridegroom toured Europe and the child-bride returned to her education. Five years later, on the eve of a formal reunion, they met by chance and were entranced with one another. They enjoyed a long and idyllic marriage before Richmond died at the age of forty-nine; his Duchess, the once child-bride Sarah, survived him by less than a year. His friend Lord Hervey, often the possessor of a wicked tongue, wrote in his Memoirs:

      There never lived a man of more amiable composition; he was kindly, benevolent, generous, honourable and thoroughly noble in his way of acting, talking and thinking; he had constant spirits, was very entertaining and had a great deal of knowledge though, not having had a school education, he was a long while reckoned ignorant by the generality of the world.

      It was a kindly and apt epitaph, and surprising too, from a man once described by Alexander Pope as ‘a painted child of dirt that stinks and stings’. The Duke of Richmond would have been flattered by the tribute, but more pleased, perhaps, that both his sons were able cricketers.

      In his prime the Duke was fastidious about how his team was turned out. In 1726 he paid for ‘waistcoats, breeches and caps’ for his cricketers, and two years later burdened them with ‘yellow velvet caps with silver tassels’. Apart from these sartorial touches he was also meticulous about the rules under which he played, and two games against a Mr Alan Brodrick – one to be played in July 1727 in Surrey, the second in August in Sussex – saw these spelled out in great detail. The pitches were of twenty-three yards; a player falling sick during the match could be replaced; any player voicing an opinion on any point of the game would be turned out, with, of course, the exceptions of the Duke and Mr Brodrick; each side should provide one umpire; batsmen must touch the umpires’ stick for every run or it would not count; and no player could be run out unless the wicket was broken by a fielder with the ball in his hands. From these Articles of Agreement (reproduced in full as Appendix 1, page 399) we see glimpses of how conformity began to be reached in the rules of cricket.

      Richmond was a keen gambler. Some of his wagers were for a comparatively modest twelve guineas a game, but he was apt to take on far larger bets, although accepting only a percentage of them personally: for example, in April 1730 he and four others shared a wager for a hundred guineas on a game in Hyde Park. In August 1731 he sponsored two matches for two hundred guineas a time against a Middlesex XI led by a Mr Chambers (probably Thomas Chambers, a forebear of the great nineteenth-century MCC figure Lord Frederick Beauclerk). Chambers won the first match on 16 August, and was winning the return on the twenty-third when the allotted time elapsed and it was declared drawn. The latter game drew thousands of spectators, including many ‘persons of distinction of both sexes’. It ended with the near-obligatory affray, in which, as Fog’s Weekly Journal reported, ‘The Duke and his cricket players were greatly insulted by the mob at Richmond and some of the men having their shirts tore off their backs: and ’tis said a law suit will commence about the play.’

      Richmond’s love of cricket was lifelong. Ten years later, in 1741, his correspondence is full of cricket chat as he writes about the Sussex County by-election. There was a lot of cricket in Sussex in June of that year. On the tenth he confides to the Duke of Dorset: ‘My steward is now going about the parishes, he has been at a cricket match today.’ Four days later, Richmond writes to the Duke of Newcastle that ‘Sergison [Thomas Sergison, the Tory candidate] was expected last night at Westdean and ’tis believed he will go to a great cricket match in Stansted Parke tomorrow between Slyndon and Portsmouth.’

      Slindon – ‘poor little Slyndon’, as Richmond referred to it – was a favourite side of his, for he wrote again to the Duke of Newcastle apologising that he would be late for a meeting because he wished to see Slindon play ‘the whole County of Surrey’ at Merrow Down. A postscript notes gleefully that ‘wee have beat Surrey almost in one innings’. This correspondence suggests that cricket was not an isolated amusement in Sussex in 1741, but that a series of matches were played, that they were not all sponsored, that they could draw large crowds, and that Richmond was an enthusiast for the game itself, irrespective of whether wagers were involved. Cricket was becoming a settled part of rural life and a proper subject for aristocratic correspondence – even by-election candidates attended games as part of their campaigns.

To 12 gamesters at the Artillery Ground And Moulsey Hurst @ 3 guineas each£37–16s–
To 10 gamesters on Bury Hill, 9th Sept£10–10s–
To Martin of Henfield on ditto£ 2– 2s–
To Adam Newland for going to fetch him10s–
To the scorer10s–6d
To half the bill of expenses paid by Mr Smith£10– 9s–
___________
£61–17s–6d
The above bill to be paid for in the following proportions:
Duke of Richmond 40£24–15s–
Lord Sackville 20£12– 7s–6d
Mr Taaf 20£12– 7s–6d
Duchess of Richmond10 £ 6– 3s–9d
Lord Berkeley 10£ 6– 3s–9d
_________
£61–17s–6d

      Richmond and Lord John Sackville were old allies as patrons, but that did not inhibit Lord John from rebuking the Duke about his team selection: ‘I wish you had let Ridgway play instead of your stopper behind, it might have turned the match in our favour.’

      Two of the other sponsors of the Surrey–Sussex games, ‘Mr Taaf’ and the Duchess of Richmond, merit special mention. Theobald Taafe (c.1708–80) was an Irishman with aristocratic connections and a long purse, having married a wealthy Englishwoman. Sometime MP for Arundel as a Whig, he was a boon companion in ‘riot and gaming’ of the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich. Horace Walpole, that censorious correspondent, wrote to Horace Mann on 22 November 1751:

      He is a gamester, usurer, adventurer, and of late has divided his attentions between the Duke of Newcastle and Madame de Pompadour, travelling with turtles and pineapples in post-chaises to the latter, flying back to the former for Lewes races – and smuggling burgundy at the same time.

      Walpole had a fine disregard of the laws

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