On Wednesday 22 June 1814, three weeks after the new ground had opened to club practice, Marylebone Cricket Club played Hertfordshire in the first formal match on the third Lord's ground at St John's Wood. MCC won by an innings and 27 runs. The fixture, intended as a low-key inaugural rather than a great public occasion, has since become the recognised birth-date of the modern Lord's and a landmark in the history of the sport.
The new ground at St John's Wood had been ready for play by mid-May 1814 but Thomas Lord and the MCC committee were anxious to test the surface before staging anything ambitious. Hertfordshire, an old MCC opponent, were a convenient choice. The fixture was advertised in the Morning Post a week beforehand at the modest entry price of one shilling.
The previous evening Lord himself walked the ground with his head groundsman, checking the rolling and the boundary markings. Beauclerk arrived from his Hertfordshire parish in his own carriage and was the first MCC player to bat on the new ground.
Hertfordshire, a county of declining cricket strength after the great years of the 1790s, were the chosen opponents largely because their secretary was a friend of Thomas Lord and the geography made it possible to mobilise a side at short notice. MCC fielded a side close to its strongest available — Lord Frederick Beauclerk, E.H. Budd, William Ward and Benjamin Aislabie among them. The match was played over a single day in the modern reckoning but with two-innings completion, the form usual at the time. MCC's first innings of 153 was anchored by Beauclerk and Budd; Hertfordshire replied with 41, helped by some loose underarm bowling, and were forced to follow on. They made 85 in their second innings and lost by an innings and 27 runs. The crowd was small — perhaps a few hundred — and the press coverage modest. The Sporting Magazine carried a brief notice but no full scorecard. The Father Time Wall at Lord's now commemorates the date, and the modern MCC keeps the 22 June 1814 fixture as the foundational match of the ground.
Morning of 22 June 1814: Beauclerk wins the toss and elects to bat
MCC bowled out for 153 in their first innings
Hertfordshire all out 41, forced to follow on
Hertfordshire 85 in their second innings
MCC win by an innings and 27 runs
Crowd estimated at a few hundred
Sporting Magazine carries a brief notice
May 1814
Ground opens for club practice
Early June 1814
Match advertised in the Morning Post
22 Jun 1814
MCC v Hertfordshire — first formal match at new Lord's
June-July 1814
Old v Young MCC follows; ground established as senior venue
“On Wednesday last a match at cricket was played at the new ground in Marylebone, between the Mary-le-bone Club and a Hertfordshire eleven. The former gained the victory by an innings and twenty-seven runs.”
The fixture was followed by a more high-profile match a fortnight later between Old and Young MCC members, attended by a larger crowd. By the end of the 1814 season the new Lord's had hosted six senior matches and was firmly established as the central ground of the sport. Hertfordshire never again played a senior match against MCC of comparable significance.
An ordinary low-scoring fixture between unequal sides that turned, with the passage of two centuries, into one of the most commemorated dates in cricket history.
The MCC v Hertfordshire match of 22 June 1814 is now the official inaugural fixture of the modern Lord's. The date is commemorated on the Father Time Wall at the ground and is cited in every history of cricket as the moment at which the present home of the game began. Hertfordshire — for all that they have not played a Test or first-class match at Lord's in living memory — own a permanent footnote in the sport's history.
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.