Through the 1810s Edward Hayward Budd was the second-most-prominent gentleman amateur in English cricket after Lord Frederick Beauclerk and the strongest hitter at Lord's. A right-handed batsman and occasional medium-pace lob bowler, Budd had first played at Lord's in about 1804 and remained a fixture of MCC cricket until 1831. His career was disrupted by the Napoleonic War like everyone else's, but he returned to senior cricket in 1815 and through the rest of the decade was the most reliable counterweight to Beauclerk's tactical authority.
Budd had been playing club cricket from his teenage years. His debut at Lord's in around 1804 placed him in the third-generation amateur cohort that included Beauclerk, Osbaldeston and Aislabie. The Napoleonic War disrupted his most active years — he was 25 in 1811 — and the wartime contraction of fixtures cost him the senior career he might otherwise have had.
By the spring of 1815 the post-Waterloo recovery had restored a usable fixture list. Budd was 29 and at his physical peak. The 1815-19 period was the strongest stretch of his career.
Budd (23 February 1786 - 29 March 1875) was a London-born gentleman of independent means. He first played at Lord's in around 1804 and by 1807 was a regular member of MCC's senior elevens. Like every cricketer of the period his career was disrupted by the Napoleonic War — there were almost no senior matches for him to play in between 1811 and 1814 — but he returned to MCC cricket in 1815 and was a leading figure through the rest of the 1810s. He scored 2,728 first-class runs in the 73 matches recorded by CricketArchive, with one century and sixteen fifties, took 173 wickets and held 51 catches. His batting was based on hard hitting, particularly to the leg side; contemporaries thought him the most powerful striker of the underarm era. As a bowler he sent down medium-paced lobs and was good enough to take five-wicket hauls in senior cricket. He was, importantly, an independent-minded committeeman at MCC, less under Beauclerk's thumb than most amateurs and the man who tried to mediate Osbaldeston's restoration to the club after the 1818 dispute. The mediation failed, but the attempt marked Budd as a man of personal honour in a cricket world dominated by personal vendettas. He played his last senior match in 1831 at the age of 45 and lived until 1875.
c.1804: First plays at Lord's
1807 onwards: Regular MCC senior eleven member
1811-1814: Career disrupted by Napoleonic War
1815: Returns to senior cricket after Waterloo
1816: Plays in MCC v Middlesex match in which Osbaldeston scores 112
1818: Attempts to mediate Osbaldeston's restoration to MCC; fails
1819: Plays in revived Gentlemen v Players match
1831: Last senior match at age 45
23 Feb 1786
Born in London
c.1804
First plays at Lord's
1811-1814
Career disrupted by Napoleonic War
1815-1819
Strongest period of his cricket career
1818
Attempts to mediate Osbaldeston's restoration to MCC
1831
Last senior match at age 45
29 Mar 1875
Dies in London aged 89
“If there is one thing I can do better than another, it is the last-named.”
Budd lived to 89 and saw the entire transformation of cricket through the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s — the legalisation of roundarm, the rise of Sussex, the founding of the All-England Eleven, the first overseas tours and the legalisation of overarm in 1864. His own playing career, however, ended in 1831; the lob-bowling underarm era he had grown up in was already by then a curiosity.
The most consistent gentleman amateur of the 1810s and the moral counterweight to Beauclerk's dominance. Budd's career was the proof that even in the most concentrated MCC of the Regency, there was room for an amateur of stature who refused to be a faction member.
Budd is one of the underappreciated figures of Regency cricket. His batting power, lob bowling and committee independence made him a fixture of the 1810s and 1820s, but he wrote no memoir and his name is now obscure. His indirect testimony, recorded by friends in old age, is one of the principal sources for the cricket of the early nineteenth century.
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.