The 1800s

Cricket controversies from 1800 to 1809

15 incidents documented

Thomas Lord Opens His Middle Ground — St John's Wood, May 1809

n/a

1809-05-08

In May 1809 Thomas Lord, frustrated by his landlord Mr Portman's plan to raise the rent on his original Dorset Fields ground, opened a second ground at the North Bank in St John's Wood. The Middle Ground, leased from the Eyre family for eighty years, hosted St John's Wood Cricket Club through 1809-13 but was barely used by the MCC, who continued to play at the Old Ground until the 1810 lease expiry. Requisitioned in 1813 for the cutting of the Regent's Canal, the Middle Ground was abandoned and Lord moved his turf to a third site — the present Lord's — in 1814.

#thomas-lord#middle-ground#st-johns-wood

⭐Mild

Tom Walker 'Old Everlasting' — The Last Hambledon Hand in the 1800s

Hampshire / Surrey / occasional XIs

1808-07-01

Tom Walker, born at Hambledon in 1762 and nicknamed 'Old Everlasting' for the unhurried, immovable defensive batting that once let him face 170 balls from David Harris for one run, was the last Hambledon man still appearing in important cricket through the early 1800s. His attempted 'higher arm' bowling had been ruled foul play by the Hambledon Club committee in 1788 — a forgotten experiment that John Willes would revive in 1807 and that would eventually become roundarm.

#tom-walker#old-everlasting#hambledon

⭐Moderate

John Willes Bowls Roundarm at Penenden Heath — Kent v England, July 1807

Kent XXIII vs All-England XIII

1807-07-29

In July 1807 the Kent farmer John Willes bowled what one newspaper called 'straight arm bowling' for a Kent XXIII against an All-England XIII at Penenden Heath, near Maidstone, in a match for £1,000 a side. It was the first attempt since Tom Walker's experiments in the 1780s to revive the higher-arm action that would become roundarm. The newspaper noted Willes's deliveries were 'an obstacle against getting runs'. The MCC would not formally legalise roundarm bowling for another 21 years.

#john-willes#roundarm#kent

⭐Mild

The First Gentlemen v Players Match — Lord's, July 1806

Gentlemen vs Players

1806-07-07

On 7-9 July 1806 a 'Grand Match' between the Gentlemen and the Players was played at Thomas Lord's first ground at Dorset Square — the inaugural fixture of what would become the longest-running representative match in cricket. The Gentlemen, captained by Lord Frederick Beauclerk and aided by two professional 'given men', William Lambert and Billy Beldham, beat the Players by an innings and 14 runs. The series ran continuously until January 1963 — 156 years.

#gentlemen-vs-players#1806#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

Beauclerk's 170 — Highest Score in Cricket, Homerton v Montpelier, 1806

Homerton vs Montpelier

1806-08-15

Playing as a given man for the Homerton club against Montpelier in 1806, Lord Frederick Beauclerk scored 170 — the highest individual score recorded in any form of cricket up to that point. The innings stood as a benchmark of high scoring for fourteen years, until William Ward's 278 for MCC against Norfolk at Lord's in 1820. Although the match was not in itself first-class, the score was a landmark in the gradual stretching of cricket's batting horizon.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1806#homerton

⭐Mild

Jack Small Junior — Hambledon's Last Hand at the First Gentlemen v Players, 1806

Gentlemen vs Players

1806-07-21

Jack Small junior, son of the great John Small senior who had scored cricket's first known century in 1775, played for the Players in both inaugural Gentlemen v Players matches in July 1806. He was 40, a sound batsman in his father's mould, and one of the last Hambledon hands still active at major level. His presence in the first Gentlemen v Players is the bridge that links the 1770s Hambledon era to the modern Lord's-centred game.

#jack-small#john-small-junior#gentlemen-vs-players

⭐Mild

Lord Frederick Beauclerk's Two Centuries — First Batsman to Score Two in a Season, 1805

Hampshire vs England; England vs Surrey

1805-08-15

In the summer of 1805 the 32-year-old clergyman Lord Frederick Beauclerk became the first batsman known to have scored two centuries in the same season. He made 129 not out for Hampshire against England at Lord's Old Ground in early July and followed it with 102 for England against Surrey in August. In an era when first-class scores over 50 were front-page news, two hundreds in a season was a feat without precedent.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1805#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

The First Eton v Harrow Match — Byron Bats with a Runner, August 1805

Eton vs Harrow

1805-08-02

On Friday 2 August 1805, sixteen schoolboys from Eton and Harrow played the first match between the two schools at Thomas Lord's Old Ground in Dorset Square. Eton won by an innings and two runs. Among the Harrow side was 17-year-old George Gordon Byron, batting with a runner because of his clubbed right foot. The fixture, repeated in 1818 and made annual from 1822, would become the longest-running schools rivalry in cricket and the longest-running fixture at Lord's.

#eton-vs-harrow#1805#lord-byron

⭐Moderate

Death of David Harris — Hambledon's Greatest Bowler Dies at Crookham, May 1803

n/a

1803-05-19

On 19 May 1803, in the village of Crookham in north Hampshire, David Harris died at the age of 48. Hambledon's incomparable underarm bowler — described by John Nyren as 'masculine, erect and appalling' — had not played a major match since 1798, his career destroyed by gout. With his death the last great bowler of the Hambledon era passed into history, just as Lord Frederick Beauclerk and the new MCC generation were taking control of cricket.

#david-harris#hambledon#underarm-bowling

⭐Moderate

Cricket Under the Napoleonic War — The Lean Seasons of 1803-1808

n/a

1803-05-18

Britain's Napoleonic War with France, resumed in May 1803 and continued until Waterloo in 1815, drained investment and manpower from English cricket. Only three major matches were recorded in 1803, six in 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), and the entire period from 1811 to 1813 produced just three. The MCC and a handful of well-organised London clubs kept the game alive through the lean years; without them, cricket might have lost a decade.

#napoleonic-war#cricket-decline#1803

⭐Mild

E.H. Budd's First Match at Lord's — Twenty-Two of Middlesex v Twenty-Two of Surrey, September 1802

Twenty-Two of Middlesex vs Twenty-Two of Surrey

1802-09-13

On 13-16 September 1802 a 16-year-old War Office clerk named Edward Hayward Budd appeared in his first match at Lord's, playing for a Twenty-Two of Middlesex against a Twenty-Two of Surrey. He scored 9 and 5 in an odds match that Arthur Haygarth's Scores and Biographies records as his earliest senior fixture. Budd would become, alongside Beauclerk, the dominant gentleman batter of the next twenty years.

#eh-budd#1802#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

William Lambert's Senior Debut — Surrey v England at Lord's, July 1801

Surrey vs England

1801-07-20

On 20-21 July 1801 a 22-year-old village professional named William Lambert appeared for Surrey against England at Thomas Lord's first ground in Dorset Square. Listed tenth in the order, he scored 0 and 5 in a low-scoring defeat. Within a decade he would be ranked alongside Beauclerk and Beldham as the finest all-rounder in England, and in 1817 he would become the first man to score two centuries in the same major match.

#william-lambert#surrey#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

MCC Republishes the Laws of Cricket — 1801 Revision

n/a

1801-05-15

In 1801 the Marylebone Cricket Club, founded only fourteen years earlier, formally revised and republished the Laws of Cricket in their entirety. The new code clarified the rules on bat dimensions, pitch length, no-balls and the duties of umpires. It established the MCC's authority over the laws of the game — an authority the club has retained without serious challenge for 225 years.

#mcc#laws-of-cricket#1801

⭐Mild

The Hambledon Club Reforms — Village Cricket Restored, 1800

n/a

1800-08-01

Four years after its last grand-club meeting, at which 'no Gentlemen were present', the Hambledon Club reformed in 1800 as a village cricket club. Stripped of the naval officers and London patrons who had made it a national power in the 1770s and 1780s, the rebuilt club played local matches around Broadhalfpenny Down and Windmill Down through the early 1800s. It was the quiet, modest survival of cricket's first great institution after its glory had passed.

#hambledon-club#1800#broadhalfpenny-down

⭐Mild

John Nyren's Boyhood at the Bat and Ball — Future Hambledon Memoirist, 1800s

n/a

1800-06-01

While the Hambledon Club drifted into village obscurity through the 1800s, the boyhood of John Nyren — son of the old captain Richard Nyren, raised at the Bat and Ball Inn opposite Broadhalfpenny Down, taught the game by his uncle Richard Newland of Slindon — was already laying the foundation for the most influential cricket memoir ever written. Three decades later that boyhood would reach print as The Young Cricketer's Tutor (1833).

#john-nyren#hambledon#broadhalfpenny-down