Controversies in 1881

2 incidents documented

Shaw, Shrewsbury & Lillywhite — The 1880s Private Tour Trio

Private English XI v Australia

1881-09-15

Through the 1880s, three Nottinghamshire and Sussex professionals — Alfred Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury and James Lillywhite — organised three private English tours of Australia (1881-82, 1884-85, 1886-87) outside MCC channels. They paid their own players, kept the gate receipts, and demonstrated that professionals could run international cricket as a business. Their model prefigured Packer's World Series Cricket nearly a century later.

#alfred-shaw#arthur-shrewsbury#james-lillywhite

🔥Serious

The Nottinghamshire Players' Strike of 1881

Nottinghamshire CCC v Captain Henry Holden (committee)

1881-06-01

In the summer of 1881 seven of Nottinghamshire's leading professionals — Alfred Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury, Fred Morley, John Selby, William Barnes, Wilfrid Flowers and (briefly) Mordecai Sherwin — refused to play for the county after a dispute with the secretary, Captain Henry Holden, over fixtures, pay and the right to a guaranteed benefit. The strike crippled Notts' season, was the first major industrial action in English cricket, and laid the groundwork for the formal employment contracts that professionals would gradually win across the next two decades.

#nottinghamshire#strike#professionals