Contents
General
This site is not an electronic book. It doesn’t focus on telling the story of the early history of cricket as a continuous narrative; rather, it seeks to deploy the functionality of the internet to approach the subject in a multi-dimensional way, considering the development of the game though a number of separate but linked thematic avenues – club, grounds, players, laws, techniques, equipment etc, supplemented by the presentation of as wide a range of source material as I can find in terms of paintings, engravings, books, poems and the like.
This section is however something of an exception to this principal, insofar as it attempts to pull the story together by listing key events in date order, as well as tackling key issues. Hopefully, it gives something of a overview to matters with are dealt with in more detail elsewhere:
The general history is dealt with in two ways:
- Detailed timeline of early cricket (timelines also available for general history and cricket to date)
- Brief narrative of the period
Other history topics with on separate pages
Origins of Cricket
This page looks briefly at the vexed question of how the game originated. In truth, it is not an issue which I think is capable of any kind of meaningful resolution.
Evolution of bowling, bat and stumps
The key developments in the eighteenth century were the evolution of bowling, bat and stumps. This page summaries those events in tabular form.
Women’s Cricket
Women’s cricket was not a huge matter in the Eighteenth Century but it did exist and is well worth consideration. Sadly, in Victorian times, it fell-away so need a completely fresh start around 1900.
Cricket outside Britain
A consideration of how much the game had spread overseas by 1800. In truth, not much, North America is the only major exception.
School cricket
Schools were growing in number and accessibility in the Sixteenth Century and this is when cricket appeared. this article briefly looks at what we know of cricket in schools and what influence it may have had on the wider game.
Further reading available on this site
- The Cricket Field – Rev James Pycroft – (1859)
- Cricket and Community in England: 1800 to the Present Day – Peter Davies (Author), Robert Light – Extract relating to Eighteenth Century
- Early History of Cricket – E.D.R. Edgar – from the Barclays World of Cricket
- A History of Cricket – HS Altham and EW Swanton (1925)
- The Early History of Cricket – S.M. Toyne – 1955
- Arlott and Truman on Cricket – edited by Gilbert Phelps – two chapters of Arlott’s history which deal with the game before 1800