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

      By the middle of the eighteenth century, cricket was poised for changes that would make it the game we know today. It was emerging from its infancy in a small world of contrast and paradox. The fortunate few lived pampered lives. A lady of means would dine in mid-afternoon before going out to the theatre, following which she would play card games at a friend’s house, at which dancing might begin at a late hour with the arrival of the male guests. Her male counterpart could be expected to breakfast late, possibly with friends, and then visit one of London’s two thousand or so coffee houses to gamble, read or discuss business and politics. He might shop before dining in the late afternoon and visit the theatre at around 6 p.m. Wife, mistresses or friends might occupy his evening. From such a society came the patrons of cricket.

      But life was very different for most people. Incomes were dreadfully low. Half of all families in England lived on less than £25 per annum. The ‘nearly poor’ families of tradesmen and builders might have £40 a year with which to keep a large family, but £50 a year turned a family into consumers. Many families bought only secondhand clothing, thus enabling them to dress above their income. Clothes might make up half of a man’s net worth, for few owned houses or possessed material wealth. The limit of ambition for most was sufficient clothes and food, and a rented roof. Twenty people died each week of starvation in London. Life expectancy was under thirty-seven years for the population as a whole, but even less for Londoners, with their unhealthy diet and insanitary and overcrowded homes.

      Against this background of such social inequality, the second wave of cricket patrons carried the game to a wholly new dimension. When their work was done, the great Hambledon teams had earned immortality and the MCC had begun its long domination of the game. These patrons were few in number, but their influence was lasting. Another Sackville, the third Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horace Mann were the fount from which Kentish cricket flourished, while the Earl of Tankerville was a prominent sponsor for Surrey.

      Sir Horace, a Kentish landowner and lifelong devotee of the game, was the most amiable of all the early benefactors. In 1765, at the age of twenty-one, he inherited around £100,000 (about £10 million today) from his father, a clothier who had amassed his fortune from army contracts. Ten years later his wealth was supplemented when his uncle Horace Mann Senior – the long-time recipient of the acid- infused letters of Horace Walpole – made over his estates in return for an annuity. This act of generosity made the young Horace one of the richest landowners in Kent. He married Lucy Noel, a daughter of the Earl of Gainsborough, in April 1765, and rented Bourne Place, a delightful mansion midway between Canterbury and Dover. Among the first summer visitors welcomed by Horace and Lucy were the Mozart family from Austria, including their talented nine-year-old son Wolfgang Amadeus. Young Wolfgang, probably the greatest child prodigy in history, had already toured Europe, met Marie Antoinette, played at the royal Courts in London and Vienna, and composed minuets and symphonies. Upon hearing a pig squeal, his musical ear absorbed the noise and his infant tongue proclaimed, ‘G sharp.’

      The Mozarts must have talked of music and their plans, and Horace, in imparting his own views, may have been lyrical about his preparations to build a cricket pitch in his grounds. At the age of twenty-two Horace founded the Bourne Club, and set the team up to play in Bourne Paddock, in front of his mansion. He laid out an attractive ground, described by John Burnby in 1773 as having ‘smooth grass … laid compleat … a sweet lawn, with shady trees encompass [ed] round’. It was a beautiful setting. Bourne Paddock was to host many famous cricket encounters and inspire great nostalgia among those who knew it. Almost seventy years later, in 1840, the Kentish Telegraph recalled whimsically that ‘In our hot days … this manly game met with great patronage at Bourne Place, and there are yet a few of our contemporaries left, who would give a little to throw away their cares and crutches, and renew those old recollections of Sir Horace and his merry friends.’

      And merry they were, for the open-handed Horace and Lucy Mann entertained with style. Every match day was a great event. A game between teams styled ‘Hampshire’ and ‘All-England’ in August 1772 gives some flavour of the scene. A large ring was formed beyond the boundary, where booths offered food and drink. Seats and benches were set out to enable spectators to enjoy the game in comfort, and grandstands were erected for the elite, who included many prominent figures of the county. It must have been a magical occasion, with fifteen to twenty thousand spectators on the first day. The match lasted two days, each of seven hours’ duration, with ‘England’ winning a hard-fought game by one wicket. One attraction for the crowd was that cricket was developing ‘stars’, and in this game two of the greatest, whom we shall meet later, were in the opposing teams: ‘Lumpy’ Stevens caused astonishment by clean-bowling John Small, which according to the Kentish Gazette ‘had not been done for some years’.

      Not all games were on such a grand scale. Between the opening of the new ground and 1771 the Bourne Club played all over Kent, as far afield as Cranbrook, Wrotham, Leigh, Dartford and Tenterden; that they endured the difficulties of travelling such distances by horse and cart is a tribute to the enthusiasm of the players and the growing popularity of the game. In May 1768 Mann took his team to London for a five-aside game at the Artillery Ground, where they were beaten by Lord John Sackville after a two-day contest. One month later, on 10 June, the Bourne Club travelled to Westerham and lost to a combined Westerham and Caterham team by 14 runs: this game is memorable insofar as it was the first time that the full score of an eleven-a-side game was published in a newspaper, the Kentish Post of 11 June.

      The interest of the press reflected the rising interest of the public. Bourne Paddock was becoming famous. A ‘numerous and genteel company of spectators’ was there on 28 and 29 August 1771 for a game against Middlesex and Surrey. The popular enthusiasm for cricket was so great that a competing event, a benefit for the actress Mrs Dyer, had to be postponed – which, no doubt, caused her intense frustration.

Apart from Mann’s liberality, a further reason for the popularity of games at Bourne Paddock was that, year upon year, he engaged the most eminent cricketers to play in his team. An early acquisition was Richard Miller,* who made his first known appearance against ‘22 of Dover’ in 1771. John Burnby regarded Miller as ‘of England’s cricketers, the best’. He was a batsman, famous for scoring 95 for Kent against Hampshire in 1774, which remained Kent’s record score for nearly fifty years. John Nyren, the most celebrated chronicler of cricket’s early days, remembered him as ‘a beautiful player, and always to be depended upon; there was no flash – no cock-a-whoop about him, but firm he was, and steady as the pyramids’.

      A later arrival was James Aylward, son of a Hampshire farmer, who played for his own county until 1779, and in 1777 batted from 5 p.m. on Wednesday to 3 p.m. on Friday to score 167 against England – at the time the highest score ever made. He is shown on the scorecard as batting at number ten, but in fact he opened the innings: the scorecard is a tribute to social class – gentlemen first, professionals next and rustics last. Aylward was a rustic. He played for Mann for four years from 1780, until he became landlord of the nearby White Horse inn and was awarded catering rights at Bourne Paddock; he continued thereafter as both player and caterer. He also served Mann as bailiff, a post for which he was, Nyren observed, ‘but ill qualified’.

      A few years after Aylward’s arrival, John Ring, one of the best batsmen of the day, was added to Mann’s team’s strength. Ring was short – no more than five feet five inches – thickset, and played in Bourne Paddock for many years before an accident at cricket practice cost him his life. Apparently his brother George was bowling to him when a ball reared and broke his nose. While recuperating he caught a fever and died. Other lesser-known figures