With England needing 10 to beat Australia at The Oval and the Cambridge amateur CT Studd waiting at the non-striker's end, Yorkshire professional Ted Peate took strike at number 11, swung at Harry Boyle and was bowled. Asked in the dressing room why he hadn't simply blocked and given Studd the strike, Peate is supposed to have replied, 'I couldn't trust Mr Studd.' The line — Yorkshire pro on Cambridge amateur — has outlived everyone involved.
Edmund 'Ted' Peate was Yorkshire's leading slow left-armer of the early 1880s. He had taken 214 wickets in the 1882 county season — a record for that era. CT Studd was the Eton-and-Cambridge amateur who had topped the Cambridge averages and made centuries against the Australians for Cambridge that summer. Both were in their mid-twenties; both had outstanding cases for the side.
England were chasing 85. Spofforth and Boyle had ripped through the middle order. By the time Peate walked out, the wicket had fallen to a Boyle delivery and Studd was at the non-striker's end with the score 75/9.
Studd had made a century in each innings against the Australians for Cambridge earlier in the summer and was widely regarded as the best amateur batsman in England. Why captain AN Hornby left him at number 10 and Peate at 11 has never been satisfactorily explained. Some accounts blame nerves: Studd is said to have been wrapped in a blanket in the pavilion shaking with cold and tension. Others put the order down to Hornby's stubbornness or a misjudgement of when wickets would fall.
When Peate walked in, England were 75/9 and needed 10 to win. He took strike to Boyle, swung the first ball to leg for two, played and missed at the second, and was clean bowled by the third. England 77 all out, Australia winners by 7 runs. Studd, padded up, never faced a ball.
In the dressing room, when Peate was admonished for swinging instead of pushing for a single to put Studd on strike, the Yorkshireman is reputed to have said, 'I couldn't trust Mr Studd.' The class subtext was unmistakable: a 25-year-old professional from Holbeck telling his amateur teammates that he'd rather take responsibility himself than rely on a public-school man under pressure.
Peate joins Studd at 75/9 chasing 85.
Ball one: swings, four runs to leg (some accounts) or two (most accounts) — score becomes 77/9.
Ball two: plays and misses.
Ball three: swings again, bowled by Boyle.
England 77 all out, Australia win by 7 runs.
Studd, padded up at the other end, faces no balls in the chase.
Peate's reputed dressing-room reply: 'I couldn't trust Mr Studd.'
29 Aug 1882
Peate walks in at 75/9 with 10 still needed.
Within minutes
Bowled by Boyle for 2; England 77 all out.
Same evening
Peate's reputed reply in the dressing room.
1885
CT Studd sails for China as a missionary.
1887
Peate sacked by Yorkshire after drinking incidents.
1900
Peate dies in Leeds, aged 45.
“I couldn't trust Mr Studd.”
“Its end was Peate.”
Studd's career took a remarkable turn. Within two years he had given up cricket, joined Hudson Taylor's China Inland Mission, and become one of the famous 'Cambridge Seven' missionaries who sailed for China in 1885. He spent the rest of his life as a missionary in China and the Belgian Congo, dying in Africa in 1931. He never played a Test after the 1882-83 tour to Australia.
Peate continued for Yorkshire until 1887 when, after a series of disciplinary clashes, he was sacked over drinking. He died in 1900, aged 45, and lay in an unmarked grave for over a century until a 2018 campaign by Yorkshire CCC funded a headstone.
The most quoted dressing-room line in 19th-century cricket — funny, pointed, and freighted with the class divide that defined the game in 1882.
The Peate-Studd quote is one of the most cited single lines in Victorian cricket. It captures both the comedy of a tail-ender's cheek and the harder reality of class division in English cricket: amateur and professional sat in different dressing rooms, ate at different tables, and entered the field through different gates. Peate's line was the professional's last word.
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