#benefit system

Lord Hawke's Winter Pay — How Yorkshire's Captain Reformed the Lot of the Professional Cricketer, 1890s

Lord Hawke captained Yorkshire from 1883 to 1910, taking the side from a hard-drinking ungovernable team to four County Championships in the 1890s. His most enduring change had nothing to do with on-field tactics: he introduced winter pay for professionals (who until then earned only during the summer), made benefit money trustee-managed for long-term security, and dismissed players he felt failed in their conduct. Bobby Peel's 1897 sacking was the most famous case.