#lord frederick beauclerk

12 incidents tagged

Lord Frederick Beauclerk — MCC President as the Old Order Ends, 1826-27

MCC

1826-05-01

Lord Frederick Beauclerk, the autocratic clergyman-cricketer who had dominated English cricket since the 1790s, served as MCC president for 1826-27 — the very years in which the roundarm revolution he had spent his life resisting reached its decisive phase. Still occasionally taking the field in his late fifties, Beauclerk was the embodiment of the old underarm order, and his presidency oversaw the trial matches that would condemn it.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#mcc#1826

⭐Mild

William Ward's 278 — Cricket's First Double-Hundred, MCC v Norfolk, July 1820

MCC vs Norfolk

1820-07-24

On 24-26 July 1820 at Lord's, the MCC banker-amateur William Ward scored 278 against Norfolk — the first double-hundred in important cricket and the highest individual score yet recorded anywhere in the world. Ward batted into the third day for an MCC total of 473, with Lord Frederick Beauclerk supporting him with 82 not out. The score stood as cricket's individual record for 56 years until W.G. Grace passed it in 1876.

#william-ward#278#1820

🥊Serious

George Osbaldeston Banned from MCC — A Squire's Twenty-Year Exile, 1818 onwards

MCC

1820-05-01

After being beaten at single-wicket by Sussex's George Brown in 1818, the all-round sportsman Squire George Osbaldeston resigned his MCC membership in a fury. When he later sought to be reinstated, his application was blocked personally by Lord Frederick Beauclerk; despite intercession by E.H. Budd and others, Osbaldeston was barred from MCC for the rest of his cricket career, an exile that effectively confined him to second-tier matches throughout the 1820s.

#george-osbaldeston#squire-osbaldeston#mcc

⭐Mild

Gentlemen v Players Revived — The Players Win the First Match Back, 1819

Gentlemen of England vs Players of England

1819-07-08

After a thirteen-year gap forced by the Napoleonic War, the Gentlemen v Players match was revived at Lord's on 7-9 July 1819. The amateurs played the professionals on equal terms — eleven a side, no odds — and the Players won by six wickets. Lord Strathavon, a sponsor of the Players, captained them in person, apparently because he had placed a bet on his side and wanted to be sure of his money. The 1819 revival began the unbroken run of the fixture that would last until 1962.

#gentlemen-vs-players#lord-s#1819

🥊Serious

Squire Osbaldeston Resigns From MCC and Is Barred for Life — 1818

MCC committee vs George Osbaldeston

1818-08-01

After losing a single-wicket match to Lord Frederick Beauclerk in 1818 in circumstances that he believed were rigged against him, the Yorkshire squire George Osbaldeston resigned from the Marylebone Cricket Club in a fit of temper. When he tried to rejoin some months later he found the door barred: Beauclerk, on the committee, refused his readmission. E.H. Budd's attempted intercession failed. Osbaldeston, one of the leading all-round sportsmen of the age, never played senior cricket of any standing again.

#george-osbaldeston#lord-frederick-beauclerk#mcc

🚨Explosive

William Lambert Banned From Lord's — Match-Fixing in England v Nottingham, 1817

MCC committee vs William Lambert

1817-07-26

Three weeks after scoring the first two centuries in a single match, William Lambert was banned from Lord's by the MCC committee on a charge of having deliberately underperformed in an earlier England v Nottingham match in which both sides had been suspected of arranging the result. The evidence was gathered by Lord Frederick Beauclerk, his old enemy from the 1810 single-wicket affair. Lambert never played senior cricket again. He was, in effect, the first cricketer banned for match-fixing.

#william-lambert#match-fixing#lord-frederick-beauclerk

⭐Moderate

Lord Frederick Beauclerk's Decade — The Cleric Who Ran Cricket, 1810s

MCC and various private elevens

1815-07-01

By the time of the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Frederick Beauclerk — illegitimate descendant of Charles II, vicar of St Michael's, and tactical ruler of the MCC committee — was the leading amateur cricketer in England and the richest gambler in the game. Through the 1810s, with senior cricket reduced by the Napoleonic War to a handful of fixtures a year, Beauclerk's private elevens carried the sport. He earned an estimated 600 guineas a year in betting, banned his enemies from Lord's, and bowled a slow underarm so accurate that one contemporary called it 'the most dangerous in England'.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#mcc#amateur-cricket

🔥Moderate

Cricket on Life Support — The Three Wartime Matches of 1811-1813

Various private elevens at Lord's Middle Ground

1813-06-09

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.

#napoleonic-wars#lord-frederick-beauclerk#george-osbaldeston

🏏Moderate

MCC Codifies the Wide-Ball Penalty — A Law Born From a Single-Wicket Trick, 1811

n/a

1811-05-01

Stung by William Lambert's 1810 single-wicket trick of bowling deliberate wides at Lord Frederick Beauclerk to make him lose his temper, the MCC committee in 1811 added a penalty for wide deliveries. From that season on the wide added a run to the batting side, transforming the wide from a tactical nuisance into a punishable error and laying the legal foundation for one of cricket's longest-running rules.

#mcc#wide-ball#law-change

🥊Moderate

William Lambert Beats Lord Frederick Beauclerk by Bowling Wides — Single-Wicket, 1810

Lord Frederick Beauclerk / Thomas Howard vs George Osbaldeston / William Lambert

1810-07-01

A two-a-side single-wicket challenge match for fifty guineas a side became one of the most discussed cricket incidents of the early 1810s when Squire Osbaldeston fell ill on the morning of play. His partner William Lambert, the Surrey professional, pleaded for a postponement; Lord Frederick Beauclerk replied with the gambler's formula 'Play or Pay'. Lambert went out alone to face Beauclerk and Thomas Howard, deliberately bowled a string of wide deliveries to fluster Beauclerk, broke the cleric's temper and his concentration, and won the match by fifteen runs. The incident produced the rivalry that would shape Lambert's downfall seven years later.

#william-lambert#lord-frederick-beauclerk#george-osbaldeston

⭐Mild

Beauclerk's 170 — Highest Score in Cricket, Homerton v Montpelier, 1806

Homerton vs Montpelier

1806-08-15

Playing as a given man for the Homerton club against Montpelier in 1806, Lord Frederick Beauclerk scored 170 — the highest individual score recorded in any form of cricket up to that point. The innings stood as a benchmark of high scoring for fourteen years, until William Ward's 278 for MCC against Norfolk at Lord's in 1820. Although the match was not in itself first-class, the score was a landmark in the gradual stretching of cricket's batting horizon.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1806#homerton

⭐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