Nottinghamshire — Powerhouse of 1860s County Cricket

Trent Bridge had been laid out by William Clarke in 1838 and was the cradle of the All-England touring side. Nottinghamshire's professional culture, with players living within a few miles of the ground and earning a living from cricket year-round, was unmatched anywhere else in the country.

Parr took over the captaincy in 1856 on William Clarke's death. The early 1860s saw the team consolidate around a settled professional core. The 1865 unofficial championship was won on the back of Jackson's pace, Wootton's left-arm spin and Daft's batting.

Nottinghamshire's county club had been in continuous existence since 1841 and was the senior professional outfit in the country by 1860. Its core was a chain of Notts-born professionals living within a few miles of Trent Bridge: George Parr at Radcliffe; Richard Daft, the leading amateur batsman of the decade; John Jackson, the 'Demon Bowler' from Bungay who had emigrated to Notts; George Wootton, the slow-left-arm bowler from Westhope; and from 1865 the new Alfred Shaw of Burton Joyce. Parr captained both county and the All-England Eleven from 1856 to 1870; the bulk of the AEE roster in any season was Notts-based. Nottinghamshire took the unofficial championship of 1865, sharing the title with no county and beating Surrey and Cambridgeshire in a strong field; in 1867 they were undisputed; in 1869 they shared with Yorkshire. John Jackson, regarded as the fastest bowler in England, retired in 1866 with a knee injury; George Wootton, slow left-arm, took five for 25 on debut against Surrey in 1861 and was the county's leading bowler through the late 1860s. Alfred Shaw, who debuted in 1864 aged 21, would dominate the next decade and become Nottinghamshire's most successful bowler ever. The county's grip on English cricket was such that the question of which English players would tour Australia was, at the start of every winter through the 1860s, essentially a question of which Nottinghamshire players were available.

Parr retired in 1870. Daft took over the captaincy and Notts continued to dominate through much of the 1870s, with Shaw, Morley, Selby and Shrewsbury succeeding the older generation. By the launch of the official County Championship in 1890, Nottinghamshire was already established as the most successful county in the unofficial table.