John Willes Pioneers Roundarm — The Kent Trial Games of the 1810s

Underarm bowling had been the only legal action since the seventeenth century. Tom Walker of Hambledon was said to have experimented with a higher action in the 1790s and been no-balled. By the 1810s, with the new harder pitches at the new Lord's, underarm bowling produced fewer wickets and slower scoring; bowlers naturally sought a more effective action.

Willes had been bowling roundarm in Kent local matches since 1806 or earlier. The death of the Hambledon era and the rise of the new-look MCC under Beauclerk had produced a more rule-conscious cricket administration; Willes's defiance was a pointed challenge to that authority.

John Willes (1778-1852) was a Kent country gentleman of Tonford Manor near Canterbury. He was a useful right-hand batsman and a roundarm bowler at a time when the law required all bowling to be underarm with the hand below the elbow. Haygarth's account in Scores and Biographies records that Willes 'caught the idea from seeing his sister deliver the ball to him in practice when he was unwell'. The story — that Christiana Willes bowled with a higher arm because her wide skirts prevented the underarm action — has been doubted by later historians, John Major among them, who pointed out that hooped skirts were out of fashion during the Napoleonic War. Whatever the source of the action, Willes used it from at least 1807 onwards in club and county cricket. Through the 1810s he played in Kent's senior fixtures with the high-arm action and was no-balled in match after match. Most umpires gave him grudging tolerance for one or two deliveries before calling no-ball; some refused to let him bowl at all. He persisted at Tonford and at Penenden Heath, recruiting a generation of younger Kent bowlers — Jem Broadbridge among them — to copy the style. The MCC's response in 1816 was a tightening of Law 10 to specify that the hand must be below the elbow at delivery, with the umpire required to call no-ball if the arm extended horizontally. The law was aimed squarely at Willes. He continued to defy it through the rest of the decade. The decisive moment came in 1822 when, on 15 July at Lord's in MCC v Kent, Willes was no-balled, threw down the ball, walked off the ground and (it was said) rode home to Tonford on his horse and never played senior cricket again.

“He caught the idea from seeing his sister deliver the ball to him in practice when he was unwell.”

“The hand must be below the elbow at the time of delivery, or the umpire shall call no ball.”

Willes's withdrawal in 1822 did not end the campaign. Broadbridge and William Lillywhite of Sussex took up the action and pushed it through the 1820s. The MCC trial matches of 1827 between Sussex and All-England were specifically designed to test roundarm; Sussex won two out of three. In 1828 the MCC raised the legal arm position to the elbow; in 1835 to the shoulder; in 1864 the law was rewritten to permit any height of delivery.