Surrey's Champion County Era — The Oval Becomes England's Premier Ground, 1851

Before Surrey's rise the dominant county had been Kent, with Mynn, Pilch and Felix. Kent's decline after 1850 left a vacancy at the top; Surrey filled it almost immediately, aided by The Oval's proximity to a large paying public in south London.

Surrey's rise coincided with a series of improvements to The Oval — lease renewed in 1855 for twenty-one years, the square re-laid, a new pavilion begun — and with the assembly of the best professional staff in the country. F.P. Miller, a Harrow master of independent means, could afford to recruit and pay the leading players; he signed Tom Lockyer as keeper, William Caffyn and William Martingell as the opening bowlers, and supplemented them with Julius Caesar and H.H. Stephenson in the batting order. The result was a side that won the informal Champion County title — decided by press consensus and match results, not a formal competition — in most seasons from 1851 to 1864. The ground itself benefited: the Oval became the standard venue for representative South of England sides and for the annual Gentlemen v Players match when Lord's was unavailable. By the time the MCC granted The Oval its first Test match in 1880, its pre-eminence had been established for thirty years.

Surrey's golden era ended gradually in the mid-1860s as the leading professionals aged and Nottinghamshire — Richard Daft's county — rose to challenge them. The county championship became a formal competition in 1890.