Cambridgeshire — The Quiet County That Produced a Generation of Professionals, 1840s

Cambridgeshire's cricket tradition was rooted in the flat fenland landscape that produced a distinctive style of batsman — patient, technically correct, capable of long innings on slow pitches. Thomas Hayward, one of the great professionals of the mid-Victorian era, was born in Cambridge in 1835 and would begin his county career in the early 1850s, building on earlier local professionals of the 1840s who had played for county and representative sides. The county had no formal club until 1848 but matches under the Cambridgeshire name were played throughout the decade. Fenner's ground in Cambridge, opened in 1848 for the university but used by the county side too, gave Cambridgeshire a respectable venue. The proximity to the All-England Eleven's Norfolk and Lincolnshire circuits meant that good local players regularly appeared on representative sides.