On 20 April 1836 the MCC committee passed the first formal wage scale for professional cricketers playing at Lord's: £5 for a winning match, £4 for a losing match, with travel expenses paid. The scale standardised what had previously been ad-hoc patron payments and is the foundation entry of organised professional cricket pay.
Professional payments before 1836 had varied widely — patrons paid retainers, individual matches set their own purses, and side-betting share-outs added to the totals. The April 1836 MCC resolution standardised payments for matches played at Lord's: £5 winning, £4 losing, plus reasonable travel. The scale was modelled on similar agreements at the Sussex County club. It was widely adopted across major cricket through the late 1830s.
20 Apr 1836
MCC committee passes wage scale
Late 1830s
Scale widely adopted in major cricket
1846
All-England Eleven raises market rates
The £5/£4 scale held broadly until the 1850s when William Clarke's All-England Eleven raised market rates substantially. By the 1860s leading professionals could earn £200+ in a good season.
The foundation document of organised professional cricket wages.
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1831-03-09
On 9 March 1831 Thomas 'Old Everlasting' Walker — the most famous defensive batter of the Hambledon school and one of the last surviving regulars of the great 1780s side — died at Churt, Surrey, in his early seventies. With Beldham still alive but long retired, Walker's death effectively closed the personal lineage of Hambledon cricket as a presence in the contemporary game.
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1831-11-05
On 5 November 1831 George Osbaldeston rode 200 miles on Newmarket Heath in 8 hours 42 minutes, using a string of relay horses, for a wager of 1,000 guineas. The ride was the most celebrated single sporting feat of the Regency era — repeating in equestrian form the 1818 pedestrian feat and confirming Osbaldeston as the most flamboyant amateur sportsman of his generation. He had been an MCC committee member since his 1828 reconciliation with Beauclerk.
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1831-06-25
The earliest documented cricket match at Christ's Hospital School — the historic 'Bluecoat' charity school in central London — was a house fixture played in the summer of 1831. Cricket had been informal at Christ's Hospital from the late eighteenth century; the 1831 match is the earliest preserved with a full account in the school's surviving records.