On 1-3 June 1857 the All-England Eleven and the United All-England Eleven met for the first time at Lord's, the boycott of the previous five years lifted by William Clarke's death the previous August. George Parr's AEE beat John Wisden's UAEE; the fixture became the most heavily attended annual match in English cricket and continued every summer until 1869.
The AEE-UAEE split of 1852 had divided the leading professionals of the country. Clarke's refusal to permit a fixture had cost both sides money and limited the appetite for top-level cricket. His death in August 1856 made reconciliation possible at once.
Parr was the natural intermediary: a Nottinghamshire batsman trusted by both factions, he had stayed loyal to Clarke but was on cordial terms with the rebels. Wisden, ten years his senior, agreed to the fixture without preconditions.
William Clarke had refused throughout his life to allow the AEE to play the rival UAEE that Wisden and Dean had founded in 1852. With Clarke's death on 25 August 1856 the obstacle was gone, and George Parr, his Nottinghamshire successor as AEE captain, immediately agreed to a fixture for the following summer. The MCC offered Lord's; the date was set for 1 June 1857. The AEE side included George Parr (captain), Alfred Diver, H.H. Stephenson, Julius Caesar, Cris Tinley, George Anderson, Ned Willsher and John Jackson. The UAEE was led by Wisden and included Jemmy Dean, Jem Grundy, William Caffyn, John Lillywhite, Tom Lockyer, Will Mortlock and Will Martingell. The match was a low-scoring affair on a typically rough Lord's strip; AEE won by five wickets. A second meeting later in the summer, also at Lord's, was likewise won by AEE. The crowds were heavy on each day, exceeding the gates of any other professional fixture in the country, and the financial success of the meeting ensured that the match would be played annually thereafter. Between 1857 and 1869 the two sides met nineteen times, almost always at Lord's; AEE won the bulk of the early fixtures.
25 Aug 1856: Clarke dies; Parr inherits AEE captaincy
Late 1856: Parr lifts the UAEE boycott
Spring 1857: Lord's offered as venue; date set for 1 June
1 Jun 1857: Match begins at Lord's
AEE win the first match by five wickets
Later in 1857: Second meeting at Lord's, also won by AEE
1857-1869: Nineteen further AEE v UAEE matches
1852
UAEE founded; AEE refuses to play it
Aug 1856
Clarke dies; boycott ends
1 Jun 1857
First AEE v UAEE match at Lord's
1857-1869
Annual fixture played 19 times in total
1869
Last AEE v UAEE match
“From 1857 to 1866 the matches between the AEE and the UAEE were perhaps the most important contests of the English season — certainly judged by the quality of the players.”
The fixture became a fixture in every sense. The leading professionals from across the country played in front of the largest crowds of the English season at Lord's each June, and the gate receipts subsidised both organisations through the 1860s. The match also helped to revive Lord's, which had been losing primacy to the Oval through the early 1850s.
The reconciliation match that turned a five-year professional schism into the most lucrative and prestigious annual fixture in mid-Victorian English cricket.
The AEE v UAEE annual fixture was the most prestigious professional match of the 1860s, exceeded only by Gentlemen v Players. Both sides faded as the county clubs grew in the late 1860s; the last AEE v UAEE match was played in 1869. Parr's tactical conciliation in 1857 set a precedent for the way English cricket would handle its disputes for decades.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.