Charles Kortright — The Fastest Bowler of the Era and the Man Who Wouldn't Walk for W.G. Grace, 1890s

Fast bowling in the 1890s was concentrated at Surrey (Lockwood, Richardson, Lohmann) and Lancashire (Mold, Briggs); Essex was a junior county only elevated to the Championship in 1895. Kortright, a Brentwood-bred amateur with private means, was the county's first international-class cricketer.

Grace by 1898 had cultivated a reputation for never walking — pad play, gardening, theatrical complaints to umpires. The Leyton fixture in his 50th-birthday season was the year's most-anticipated club encounter; Kortright was specifically targeting Grace's wicket.

Kortright (1871-1952) was an Essex amateur of independent means, the son of a Brentwood landowner. He played first-class cricket from 1894 to 1907 and bowled fast off a long run-up at a pace contemporaries described as terrifying. Unlike most gentleman amateurs he trained hard; William Gunn of Nottinghamshire, after being bowled in a Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's, said the ball that beat him was a yard quicker than any he had faced. Kortright once claimed to have bowled a bouncer that flew over the batsman, over the wicketkeeper and was still rising when it cleared the boundary.

The Grace incident took place in late May or June 1898 at Leyton, a Gloucestershire fixture against Essex during Grace's 50th-birthday season. Grace, not yet out, had successfully appealed his way past two close LBW shouts and a thin nick which the umpire declined to give. Kortright bowled increasingly faster; eventually a ball pitched on a length, jagged back and uprooted the off and middle stumps. As Grace turned to leave, Kortright is said to have called out: 'Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.' Grace did not speak to Kortright again that season.

Kortright's most extraordinary first-class analysis was 6 wickets for 4 runs against Surrey at Leyton in 1895 — Hayward, Abel and Lohmann among the victims. His 8 for 57 against Yorkshire at Leyton in 1900 was another headline. He took 489 first-class wickets at 21.05; his refusal to consider the long voyages required for an Australian tour prevented him from earning a Test cap.

“Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.”

“A yard faster than any ball I had ever played against.”

Kortright continued playing for Essex until 1907 and lived on into the post-war era, dying in 1952 at the age of 81 — the last of the Victorian fast bowlers. The Grace anecdote, retold by Kortright himself in retirement, became one of cricket's most circulated stories.