In the three years between 1811 and 1813, with the Napoleonic War at its height and the country bleeding men and money, only three senior cricket matches were played in England — all of them at Lord's Middle Ground in Marylebone. The fixture lists of the previous century shrank to a handful of private challenges between the elevens of Aislabie, Beauclerk, Osbaldeston and Bligh. County cricket effectively ceased to exist; the great clubs of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire scarcely fielded a senior side. Cricket survived only through the obstinacy of a few amateurs at Lord's.
The Napoleonic War had been running since 1803. The Peninsular War (1808-14) drew British military attention abroad; recruiting demands stripped the rural professional class that had filled Hambledon-era teams. Investment money that had funded Lord's matches and county touring elevens was diverted into government war bonds. The fixture list of 1809, the last year of normal play, had already been thinner than the seasons of the previous decade.
Thomas Lord moved his ground from Dorset Square to the Middle Ground in St John's Wood in 1811, anticipating a recovery. Instead the war got worse. By 1812 the United States had also declared war on Britain. Cricket's gentleman patrons concentrated on political life; the professional cricketers scattered.
The Napoleonic War was the longest interruption of senior cricket in the sport's history. By 1811, with the British Army committed in the Peninsula and recruitment running through every county, the game's professional ranks had been thinned and the gentleman-amateurs who funded the great matches had turned their attention to politics and the war effort. Records compiled by Arthur Haygarth and confirmed by later historians show only three senior matches in the period: Benjamin Aislabie's XI v George Osbaldeston's XI at the Middle Ground on 8-9 July 1811; Lord Frederick Beauclerk's XI v Osbaldeston's XI at the Middle Ground on 15-17 June 1812; and Beauclerk's XI v Edward Bligh's XI at the Middle Ground on 7-9 June 1813. James Rice played in all three. The Middle Ground itself, opened by Thomas Lord in 1811 after the lease on the Old Ground at Dorset Square ran out, was already living on borrowed time — Parliament had requisitioned the site for the route of the Regent's Canal, and by 1813 Lord knew he would have to move again. The Nottingham Review wrote in those years that 'the manly and athletic game at cricket... had fallen into disuse, if not disgrace'. The three private matches kept the rule book alive and the Middle Ground in receipts. Without them, MCC might have collapsed altogether.
8-9 July 1811: Aislabie's XI v Osbaldeston's XI at the Middle Ground — the only senior match of the year
15-17 June 1812: Beauclerk's XI v Osbaldeston's XI at the Middle Ground
7-9 June 1813: Beauclerk's XI v Bligh's XI at the Middle Ground
James Rice plays in all three matches
Parliament confirms the Regent's Canal route through the Middle Ground
1813: Lord begins arrangements for a third ground at St John's Wood
1810
Senior cricket already declining
1811
Lord opens the Middle Ground; only one senior match all summer
1812
Single Beauclerk-Osbaldeston match in June
1813
Final Middle Ground match; Regent's Canal route confirmed
1814
Lord moves to St John's Wood; cricket begins to recover
“The manly and athletic game at cricket... had fallen into disuse, if not disgrace.”
The three-year drought ended with the move to the new Lord's at St John's Wood in 1814 and the recovery of regular cricket from 1815. By the 1820s fixture lists were back to pre-war length, and by the 1830s — with William Ward's tenancy of Lord's, the founding of Sussex CCC and the legalisation of roundarm — cricket was expanding faster than ever before. The 1811-13 figures became a benchmark of what the war had cost.
The lowest ebb of senior cricket between the Hambledon era and the cricket boom of the 1830s. The three matches of 1811-13, played by a handful of obstinate amateurs at a doomed ground, kept the sport from being killed by the Napoleonic War.
The three private matches of 1811-13 are the standard answer to the question of whether cricket was ever close to dying. They are cited in every long-form history of the game as the moment at which senior cricket nearly disappeared, and they explain the centrality of MCC and Lord's in the recovery — without the obstinate Marylebone amateurs there would have been no cricket administration to revive.
England
1932-08-12
In August 1932 the MCC selectors confirmed Douglas Jardine as England's captain for the 1932-33 tour of Australia, a decision contested at the highest levels of English cricket and one that — combined with Plum Warner's appointment as tour manager — would set the conditions for the Bodyline series.
England
1934-03-21
On 21 March 1934 Douglas Jardine wrote to The Cricketer that he had 'neither the desire nor the intention' of playing in the upcoming home Ashes series. The announcement, taken as a quiet resignation, removed the architect of Bodyline from the field before Australia returned to England — a precondition Australia's Board had implicitly demanded.
England / Gloucestershire
1937-11-15
In November 1937 Wally Hammond — the leading professional batsman of his era — was accepted by MCC as an amateur, opening the door to the England captaincy he received six months later for the 1938 Ashes. The change crystallised inter-war debates about the amateur-professional divide and the unwritten rule that England's captain be amateur.