Although first-class cricket stopped in England between 1915 and 1918, schoolboy cricket — including the Eton-Harrow and Oxford-Cambridge fixtures, where age and conditions allowed — continued in modified form through the war, providing a thread of continuity through four otherwise empty seasons.
The Eton-Harrow match dated to 1805 and had become an annual fixture at Lord's. Oxford-Cambridge had been at Lord's since the mid-nineteenth century.
By summer 1915 most of the regular adult fixtures had been cancelled but the schools committees were determined to continue.
The famous public school fixtures had a complicated war. The Eton-Harrow match at Lord's was suspended for the first three full war seasons (1915, 1916, 1917) but revived in scaled-down form in 1918 once the patterns of attendance and travel had settled. Oxford v Cambridge at Lord's followed a similar pattern — scaled back, sometimes cancelled, sometimes played informally between sides drawn from those who had not yet been called up. School cricket within institutions like Eton, Harrow, Marlborough and Tonbridge continued throughout the war, with masters keeping the games going as much for the morale of the boys as for the cricket. Many of the boys playing were within months of being called up themselves; school memorials at every public school of the era list extraordinary numbers of recent leavers killed in France. The continuity of school cricket is the thread by which the game was kept alive in England through 1915-1918, and from which the 1919 first-class revival drew its first generation of new players.
1915-1917: Eton-Harrow at Lord's suspended
1915-1918: School cricket continues internally at most public schools
1918: Limited resumption of public-school fixtures at Lord's
1919: Full resumption alongside the County Championship
1915
Eton-Harrow at Lord's suspended
1915-18
School cricket continues internally
1918
Some public-school fixtures revived at Lord's
“The school grounds were where the game was kept alive.”
By 1919 the school cricket pipeline had been thinned by deaths but not broken. Several first-class debutants of 1919-20 were boys who had played their last school cricket in 1916 or 1917.
School cricket as the institutional thread that kept the English game continuous through the four lost first-class seasons.
School cricket's wartime continuity is not always remembered, but it is the reason English first-class cricket could resume so quickly in 1919.
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.