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

Eton and Harrow had played each other informally at the schools for some years before 1805 but had never met on neutral ground. Lord's Old Ground at Dorset Fields was the obvious venue: it was Thomas Lord's first ground, where the new MCC had been playing for eighteen years, and it was the prestige cricket field of the day.

Harrow issued the challenge on 20 June. The match was set for 2 August, the last Friday before the schools broke up for the summer. Byron, who had inherited his title in 1798 at the age of ten and was to leave Harrow a few weeks later for Trinity College Cambridge, was the figurehead of the Harrow side and the financier of the venue.

The match arose from a challenge issued by the Harrow boys on 20 June 1805. Lord Byron, then in his last term at Harrow, was probably the chief organiser; he certainly hired the venue, though the schools themselves played no formal role. The Eton side was captained by John Heaton and contained William Carter, the team's leading bowler. Harrow's eleven was led by William Bolton. The match was played on a single day. Harrow batted first and were dismissed for 55, with Carter taking six wickets. Eton replied with 122. Harrow, set 67 to make Eton bat again, collapsed for 65 — losing the game by an innings and two runs. Byron's contribution is the most-disputed score in cricket history. He himself wrote (more than once, in different letters) that he had scored 7 and 2, or 11 and 7. The contemporary scoresheet, recovered in the early twentieth century, credits him with 2 and 2. He batted with a runner because of the congenital deformity of his right foot that caused him a permanent limp; he was almost certainly of little use in the field. After the match the Harrow eleven dined at the Garroway Coffee House in Cornhill; Byron, in his element, drank himself toward incoherence and reportedly threw a bottle at a Harrow boy who praised Eton's batting. Two centuries later the Eton v Harrow match is still played at Lord's, though MCC's 2022 decision to drop it from its automatic fixture list — partly reversed in 2023 — caused a storm of controversy among old members.

“We have played the Eton, and were most confoundedly beat; however, it was some comfort to me that I got 11 notches in the 1st innings and 7 in the 2nd.”

“The fixture's continued regular presence at the Ground would go some way to helping Lord's become the social centre of cricket in the decades to come.”

The schools did not meet again for thirteen years; the next fixture was in 1818. From 1822 the match became annual, with breaks only for 1829-31, 1856 and the world wars. By the late nineteenth century 'Eton v Harrow' was a Society fixture, drawing crowds of 30,000 over two days and a parade of carriages around the boundary.