William Clarke's Iron Grip on the AEE — Player Grievances and the Coming Rebellion, 1848

Clarke had no competition in the touring market until 1852. Every leading professional needed AEE engagements to supplement county cricket income, and Clarke's willingness to exclude complainers kept dissent muted for several years.

William Clarke was a brilliant organiser and a formidable slow bowler, but his approach to business was entirely proprietary. He had created the All-England Eleven from nothing in 1846 and regarded it as his personal property. Players were paid £4 to £6 per match — a decent daily rate but a fraction of the gate receipts Clarke was banking from packed grounds at Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham. Clarke kept no accounts visible to the players and dismissed any suggestion that the share of gate money should be renegotiated. By 1847 the leading players were grumbling; by 1848 the grumbling had become organised. John Wisden, younger and more independently minded than the senior players, was particularly vocal. James Dean of Sussex and several other prominent professionals shared his view that Clarke's terms were exploitative. Clarke's response was to invoke his absolute power of selection: professionals who complained found themselves not invited for the next fixture. The confrontation simmered for years; the formal breakaway came in 1852 when Wisden and others founded the United All-England Eleven as a competing touring enterprise.

“Clarke kept the gate money in a black bag and nobody was allowed to look inside it.”

Clarke died in August 1856, still managing the AEE. His death left the organisation without a proprietor and it gradually declined. The United All-England Eleven operated until the 1860s, when county cricket and the developing county championship made both touring enterprises less commercially necessary.