#hampshire

6 incidents tagged

Hampshire's Early Championship Seasons 1895-1908 — Last Place and Llewellyn

Hampshire CCC

1908-08-31

Hampshire were promoted to first-class status in 1895, when Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire joined the County Championship. Their early years were grim — last or equal-last in 1900, 1902, 1903, 1904 and 1905 — with a brief 1901 rally led by Charlie Llewellyn, the Natal-born all-rounder who later played five Tests for South Africa.

#hampshire#county-championship#1895

⭐Mild

William 'Silver Billy' Beldham — The Aging Master of Hambledon, 1810s

Hampshire, Surrey, MCC and various private elevens

1817-06-01

By the 1810s William 'Silver Billy' Beldham — born in 1766, the great Hambledon-era batsman whom John Nyren had called 'one of the most beautiful batsmen ever seen' — was the senior figure in English cricket. Already in his fifties, he was still good enough to be picked for senior matches at Lord's and to hold his own against professionals half his age. His final senior match came in 1821 at the age of 55. He lived another forty-one years, dying at Tilford in 1862, and gave to historians the most detailed verbal record of Hambledon cricket through his late conversations with the Reverend James Pycroft.

#william-beldham#silver-billy#hambledon

⭐Mild

Hampshire v Surrey for 500 Guineas — The First Women's County Cricket Match, 1811

Hampshire (women) vs Surrey (women)

1811-10-03

On 3 October 1811 — at the height of the Napoleonic War, when senior men's cricket had nearly dried up — Hampshire and Surrey women's elevens played a three-day match at Balls Pond on Newington Green for a stake of 500 guineas a side. It was the first recorded county-level women's cricket match in the world. Hampshire won by fifteen notches.

#women-s-cricket#hampshire#surrey

⭐Mild

Lord Frederick Beauclerk's Two Centuries — First Batsman to Score Two in a Season, 1805

Hampshire vs England; England vs Surrey

1805-08-15

In the summer of 1805 the 32-year-old clergyman Lord Frederick Beauclerk became the first batsman known to have scored two centuries in the same season. He made 129 not out for Hampshire against England at Lord's Old Ground in early July and followed it with 102 for England against Surrey in August. In an era when first-class scores over 50 were front-page news, two hundreds in a season was a feat without precedent.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1805#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Moderate

Death of David Harris — Hambledon's Greatest Bowler Dies at Crookham, May 1803

n/a

1803-05-19

On 19 May 1803, in the village of Crookham in north Hampshire, David Harris died at the age of 48. Hambledon's incomparable underarm bowler — described by John Nyren as 'masculine, erect and appalling' — had not played a major match since 1798, his career destroyed by gout. With his death the last great bowler of the Hambledon era passed into history, just as Lord Frederick Beauclerk and the new MCC generation were taking control of cricket.

#david-harris#hambledon#underarm-bowling

⭐Mild

The Hambledon Club Reforms — Village Cricket Restored, 1800

n/a

1800-08-01

Four years after its last grand-club meeting, at which 'no Gentlemen were present', the Hambledon Club reformed in 1800 as a village cricket club. Stripped of the naval officers and London patrons who had made it a national power in the 1770s and 1780s, the rebuilt club played local matches around Broadhalfpenny Down and Windmill Down through the early 1800s. It was the quiet, modest survival of cricket's first great institution after its glory had passed.

#hambledon-club#1800#broadhalfpenny-down