Central to the involvement of aristocrats in Eighteenth Century cricket was the concept of The Challenge. One nobleman or at least gentleman, would gather a team together and challenge the teams of another for a set stake, often a substantial sum, maybe as much as £1,000. Frequently the patron was a player himself (or at least thought he was) and would captain the side e.g. Edwin Stead, the Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage. Such teams would often take the name of a district or county, and this was the beginning of County Cricket. The most important patrons are briefly profiled below.
The listing is split is a way favoured by John Major. The first wave consists of various patrons who developed elite cricket in the Weald and London generally. The second wave concentrates mostly on the great clubs of the later part of the Eighteenth Century – Hambledon and MCC.
Contents
First Wave of Patrons
Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond (1672 – 1723)
Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, of Goodwood House near Chichester in Sussex, was the youngest of the seven illegitimate sons of King Charles II, and was that King’s only son by his French-born mistress Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. He was appointed Hereditary Constable of Inverness Castle.
He did much to develop cricket in Sussex. It is almost certain that he was involved with the earliest Important match, which took place in the 1697 season and was the first to be reported by the press, in the Foreign Post of 7 July 1697.
"The middle of last week a great match at cricket was played in Sussex; there were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece".
Richmond also sponsored a team in the 1702 season against an Arundel side. His son Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond inherited his interest in cricket and became the patron of both Sussex teams and Slindon Cricket Club.
Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet (1695 – 1744)
Sir William Gage was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1722 to 1744 and was an early patron of Sussex cricket. In a letter from John Whaley to Horace Walpole in August 1735, it was said that Gage’s team seemed as pleased with a victory ‘…as if they had got an election. We have been at Supper with them all and have left them at one o’clock in the morning laying betts about the next match’.
A game against Edwin Stead’s XI on 28 August 1729 is regarded as the earliest innings victory on record. A contemporary report states that Sussex “got (within three) in one hand, as the former did in two hands, so the Kentish men threw it up”. Sir William was greatly assisted by the outstanding play of Thomas Waymark “who turned the scale of victory”. In August 1733, Sir William’s team challenged one backed by Frederick, Prince of Wales at Moulsey Hurst for “a wager of 100 guineas”. The result of the match is unknown but it featured “11 of the best players in the county on each side”. In September 1734, his Sussex team played a Kent team led by Lord John Philip Sackville in the earliest match recorded at Sevenoaks Vine. This was won by Kent. Apart from one minor fixture a few years later, that is the last record of Sir William in a cricketing context.
Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701 – 1750)

Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, of Goodwood House near Chichester in Sussex, was the son of Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond. Although he had played cricket as a boy, his real involvement began after he succeeded to the dukedom. He captained his own team and his players included some of the earliest known professionals, such as his groom Thomas Waymark. Later, when he became patron of Slindon Cricket Club, Richmond and was associated with the Richard Newland and his brother brothers. His earliest recorded match is the one against Sir William Gage’s XI on 20 July 1725, which is mentioned in a surviving letter from Sir William to the Duke.
Records have survived of four matches played by Richmond’s team in the 1727 season. Two were against Gage’s XI and two against a team raised by the Surrey patron Alan Brodrick. These last two games are highly significant because Richmond and Brodrick drew up Articles of Agreement beforehand to determine the rules that must apply in their contests.
In 1728, Richmond’s Sussex played twice against Edwin Stead’s Kent and lost both matches, In 1730, Richmond’s team played two further matches against Gage’s XI and another match against a Surrey XI backed by a Mr Andrews of Sunbury. Richmond lost to Andrews. The second of his matches against Gage, due to be played at The Dripping Pan, near Lewes, was “put off on account of Waymark, the Duke’s man, being ill”.
In 1731, Richmond was involved in one of the most controversial matches Early Cricket. On 16 August, his Sussex team played a Middlesex XI backed by one Thomas Chambers at an unspecified venue in Chichester. Chambers’ team won this match, which had a prize of 100 guineas, and a return was arranged to take place at Richmond Green on 23 August. The return match was played for 200 guineas and it is notable as the earliest match of which the team scores are known: Richmond’s XI 79, Chambers’ XI 119; Richmond’s XI 72, Chambers’ XI 23–5 (approx.). The game ended promptly at a pre-agreed time although Chambers’ XI with “four or five more to have come in” and needing “about 8 to 10 notches” clearly had the upper hand. The result caused a fracas among the crowd at Richmond Green, who were incensed by the prompt finish because the Duke of Richmond had arrived late and delayed the start of the game. The riot resulted in some of the Sussex players “having the shirts torn off their backs” and it was said “a law suit would commence about the play” In a note about another match involving Chambers’ XI in September, G. B. Buckley has recorded that Richmond may have conceded the result to Chambers, presumably to stop the threat of litigation.
Richmond is not mentioned in cricket sources again for ten years. He may have stepped aside after the 1731 fracas but it is more likely that he terminated his Duke of Richmond’s XI after he broke his leg in 1733 and could no longer play himself. Instead, he channelled his enthusiasm for cricket through a team from the small village of Slindon, which bordered on his Goodwood estate. The rise to fame of Slindon Cricket Club was based on the play of Richard Newland and the patronage of Richmond. On Thursday, 9 July 1741, in a letter to her husband, the Duchess of Richmond mentions a conversation with John Newland regarding a Slindon v. East Dean match at Long Down, near Eartham, a week earlier. This is the earliest recorded mention of any of the Newland family. Then, on 28 July, Richmond sent two letters to the Duke of Newcastle to tell him about a game that day which had resulted in a brawl with “hearty blows” and “broken heads”. The game was at Portslade between Slindon, who won, and unnamed opponents.
On Monday 7 September 1741, Slindon played Surrey at Merrow Down, near Guildford. Richmond, in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle before the game, spoke of “poor little Slyndon against almost your whole county of Surrey”. Next day he wrote again, saying that “wee (sic) have beat Surrey almost in one innings”.
The Duchess wrote to him on Wednesday 9 September and said she “wish’d….. that the Sussex mobb (sic) had thrash’d the Surrey mob”. She had “a grudge to those fellows ever since they mob’d you” (apparently a reference to the Richmond Green fiasco in August 1731). She then said she wished the Duke “had won more of their moneys”. In 1744, Richmond created what is now the world’s oldest known scorecard for the match between London and Slindon at the Artillery Ground on 2 June. Slindon won by 55 runs and the original scorecard is now among Richmond’s papers in the possession of the West Sussex Records Office.
In August 1745, Richmond backed a Sussex XI against Surrey in a match at Berry Hill, near Arundel. It appears that Surrey won the game in view of a comment made by Lord John Philip Sackville in a letter to Richmond dated Saturday 14 September: “I wish you had let Ridgeway play instead of your stopper behind it might have turned the match in our favour”.
When single wicket became an important form of cricket in the late 1740s, Richmond entered a number of teams mostly centred on Stephen Dingate, who was in his employ at the time. For example, a number of matches were played by a “threes” team of Dingate, Joseph Rudd and Pye. Richmond often found himself opposed by his former groom Thomas Waymark, still an important player but now resident in Berkshire.
Richmond died on 8 August 1750. and his death was followed by a slump in the fortunes of Sussex cricket, which featured few matches of significance until the 1790s.
He married in very discreditable circumstances, at the age of eighteen he was obliged to marry a thirteen year old girl in settlement of a gambling debt. The couple separated for five years , but , when reunited formed a strong bond and lived a happy marriage until separated by death. His wife Sarah, Duchess of Richmond was also captivated by cricket and sponsored matches at Slindon herself.
Edwin Stead (1701 – 1735)
He usually captained his teams but nothing is known about his ability as a player. He was born at Harrietsham in Kent and died in London.
Edwin Stead was a patron of Kent teams in the 1720s. He inherited vast estates in his teens but was also a compulsive gambler who, at the age of twenty two, was forced to mortgage some of his lands to pay for his gambling debts. He was also a fan of cricket and ran his own team, frequently under the mane of Men of Kent. Throughout the 1720s he he arranged and played in many high-stake games with mixed fortunes. On one famous occasion in 1724 he went to court to claim his winnings in a match against Chingford which finished early. His teams often used several players from Dartford Cricket Club, which featured William Bedle, and had arguably the best parish team in the game at the time.
Stead was a strong rival to the two noted Sussex patrons, Sir William Gage and the 2nd Duke of Richmond. He was very successful in 1728 when the report of a game in August said of Kent’s latest victory: “the third time this summer that the Kentish men have been too expert for those of Sussex”. But Stead was less successful on 28 August the following year when Gage’s XI defeated Kent at Penshurst Park, apparently by an innings. There was a return match in September, possibly at or near Lewes, but the result is unknown.
Stead was active in single wicket cricket which became popular during his lifetime. He led a Kent team in three four-a-side matches in 1730. The sources record that “a considerable wager” was at stake in the decider and Kent lost.
The last definite mentions of Stead in a cricket context are in the 1730s concerning his presence at certain matches, although Kent remained prominent in the records for the last five years of his life. Stead’s last known involvement in a match was on Saturday, 26 June 1731 when he led a Kent team against Sunbury on Sunbury Common, a game which the home team won.
Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707 – 1751)

Frederick, Prince of Wales was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George II of Great Britain. He predeceased his father and upon the latter’s death in 1760, the throne passed to Frederick’s eldest son, George III. He spent his early life in Hanover and arrived in England in 1728. Perhaps because he wished to anglicise and so fit in with society, Frederick developed an interest in cricket and soon became a genuine enthusiast. He began to make wagers and then to patronise and even play the sport, forming his own team on several occasions. His involvement with the game undoubtedly added to its appeal in fashionable quarters.
The earliest mention of Frederick in cricket annals is in a contemporary report of a match on 28 September 1731 between Surrey and London, played on Kennington Common. No post-match report was found despite advance promotion as “likely to be the best performance of this kind that has been seen for some time”. The records show that “for the convenience of the gamesters, the ground is to be staked and roped out” – a new practice in 1731 and possibly done partly for the benefit of a royal visitor. The advertisement refers to “the whole county of Surrey” as London’s opponents and states that the Prince of Wales is “expected to attend”.
In August 1732, the Whitehall Evening Post reported that Frederick attended “a great cricket match” at Kew on 27 July. By the 1733 season, Frederick was seriously involved in the game, in effect as a county cricketer for Surrey. He was said to have given a guinea to each player in a Surrey vs. Middlesex game at Moulsey Hurst. Then he awarded a silver cup to a combined Surrey and Middlesex team which had just beaten Kent, arguably the best county team at the time, at Moulsey Hurst on 1 August. This is the first reference in cricket history to any kind of trophy (other than hard cash) being contested. On 31 August, the Prince of Wales XI played Sir William Gage’s XI on Moulsey Hurst. The result is unknown but the teams were said to be of county standard, so presumably it was in effect a Surrey vs. Sussex match.
In the years following 1733, there are frequent references to the Prince of Wales as a patron of cricket and as an occasional player. When he died on 31 March 1751, cricket suffered a double blow as his death closely followed that of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, the game’s greatest financial patron at the time. In the past his death has been attributed to a burst lung abscess caused by a blow from a cricket or a real tennis ball, but it is now thought to have been from a pulmonary embolism. He was buried at Westminster Abbey on 13 April 1751.
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford (1710 – 1771)

John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford was a Whig politician. The earliest surviving record of his involvement in cricket comes from 1741 when he hosted Bedfordshire v Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire at Woburn Park. The combined Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire team won. Bedford arranged the match with his friends George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax (Northants) and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (Hunts). A few days later, there was a return match at Cow Meadow, Northampton, and the combined team won again. By 1743, Bedford had developed Woburn Cricket Club into a leading team that was able to compete against London and win a match for a 500 guinea stake. The team was prominent in 1743 and 1744 but, after that, there is no further mention of it.
The Sackvilles – Lionel, Charles, John (1688 – 1765)

Lionel Sackville, the first Duke of Dorset (1688-1765) (pictured) kept his own cricket ground at Knole, near Sevenoaks, later known as The VIne.

His eldest son, Lionel (1711-1769) (also pictured) who was eventually to become the second Duke, was friend of the Prince of Wales and, in 1735 (when he was Lord Middlesex) arranged two matches against the Prince of Wales for stakes of £1,000.
Lionel’s second son, Charles brother, John Sackville (1713 – 1765) even also closely connected with Kent cricket. John was first recorded as a cricketer in 1734 when he and Charles, played for a Kent side against one from Sussex at the Vine ground. In August 1735, Sackville captained Kent to victory against Sir William Gage’s Sussex side on the same ground. He became the main patron of the Kent team and in 1739, he also played for London Cricket Club.
In 1744 John Sackville challenged an England side to play against his Kent team. Kent won, in part thanks to Sackville himself taking a catch to dismiss Richard Newland. The catch was eulogised in Cricket, An Heroic Poem (1745) by James Love. The match details were recorded and preserved in what is now cricket’s second oldest known scorecard.
His life ended in ignominy. An unwanted child resulted in a hasty marriage and disinheritance. In 1746 he was arrested for desertion from the Army and confined to a lunatic asylum. Upon release, he eked his life in comparative poverty.
His son, also called John (1745-1799), inherited both the Dorset title, becoming the third Duke, the family love of gambling and a liking for cricket. He was to become an important second wave cricket patron himself.
Second Wave of Patrons
Rev Charles Powlett (1728 – 1809)
Powlett (sometimes spelled Paulet) was the eldest son, born illegitimately, of Charles Powlett, 3rd Duke of Bolton and Lavinia Fenton, who were not married until 1751 when he was 23. Powlett was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as MA in 1755. Having been ordained, he was Curate of Itchen Abbas from 1763 to 1792; and Rector of St Martin-by-Looe in Cornwall from 1785 to 1790. He has been described as the mainstay, if not the actual founder, of the Hambledon Club. Powlett held an important position in the administration of cricket and was a member of the committee which revised and codified the Laws of Cricket in 1774.
Despite being ordained and a Steward of the club and a member of the Laws of Cricket committee, Powlett was not above gambling on the outcome of matches or of betting against his own team. In 1775, when Hambledon/Hampshire hosted Surrey on Broadhalfpenny Down, the match situation at one point of the Hampshire second innings was such that a Surrey victory seemed certain. Powlett and his associate Philip Dehany, another Hambledon member, decided to bet heavily on Surrey to win. But then John Small was joined at the wicket by his captain Richard Nyren and the two put on a century partnership which turned the game around. Nyren was out for 98 and Small went on to make 136, which is the earliest known century in the history of first-class cricket. Surrey then collapsed and Hampshire won a famous victory. When Nyren was out, he was confronted by Powlett and Dehany who complained that he and Small had cost them their money. Nyren, disgusted with them, retorted: “Another time, don’t bet your money against such men as we are”
Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville (1743 – 1822)

Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville styled Lord Ossulston from 1753 to 1767, was a famous patron of Surrey cricket in the 1770s. Tankerville often played cricket and seems to have been a very good fielder, though he was not especially noted for batting or bowling. He was the employer of Lumpy Stevens, who was a gardener at Tankerville’s Walton-on-Thames estate; and another player, who was his butler.
In 1774, Tankerville sat on the committee that formulated the Laws of Cricket at the Star and Garter.
Tankerville continued in his interest in cricket with Chertsey and Surrey Cricket club until 1781 when went into political office through the House of Lords.
Sir Horatio Mann, 2nd Baronet (1744 – 1814)

Sir Horatio (Horace) Mann, 2nd Baronet (2 February 1744 – 2 April 1814) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1807. He is remembered as a member of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire and a patron of Kent cricket. He was an occasional player but rarely in first-class matches.
Mann had a number of influential friends including John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, with whom he shared a keen cricketing rivalry. He owned Boughton Place in Boughton Malherbe and Linton Park in Linton, both near Maidstone, and later had his family seat at Bourne Park House, near Canterbury. Within its grounds he had his own cricket ground Bourne Paddock which staged many first-class matches in the 1770s and 1780s. He later moved to Dandelion, Kent, near Margate, and established another ground there which was used for some first-class games towards the end of the 18th century.
He was a member of the committee at The Star and Garter and was involved in the 1744 Laws.
John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset (1745 – 1799)

John Sackville was born into a family with a long record of cricket patronage. He was the only son of Lord John Sackville, himself the second son of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset. He succeeded to the dukedom in 1769 on the death of his uncle, Charles, the second Duke. He was the British Ambassador to France from 1784 and returned to England in August 1789 following the escalation of the French Revolution.
Dorset is remembered for his involvement with cricket. He was both a good player and an important patron, but his interest was sharpened by gambling. His other sporting interests included billiards and real tennis.
Sackville was schooled at Westminster, where he first became a noted proponent of cricket. He went on to join Hambledon Cricket Club, and was joined there by Sir Horatio Mann, and Lord Tankerville.
In 1775, a full-scale riot broke out at the Artillery Ground when Dorset’s side was not performing too well. In 1782 the Morning Chronicle noted that “His Grace is one of the few noblemen who endeavor to combine the elegance of modern luxury with the more manly sports of the old English times”.
Dorset’s patronage of cricket was expensive – the Whitehall Evening Post in 1783 noted that the cost to Dorset of maintaining his team, before bets, was £1,000 a year. This was a lot, but less than the amounts some of his contemporaries were spending on racing. The report went on to say that Dorset was unrivalled (among noblemen) “at cricket, tennis and billiards”.
After Dorset became the British ambassador to France, he reportedly tried to promote cricket there amongst the locals and British expatriates with The Times noting that horse racing was losing popularity in France and cricket, on Dorset’s recommendation, was taking its place.[citation needed] In 1786, The Times reported on a cricket match played by some English gentlemen in the Champs-Elysées: “His Grace of Dorset was, as usual, the most distinguished for skill and activity. The French, however, cannot imitate us in such vigorous exertions of the body, so that we seldom see them enter the lists”.
George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752 – 1826)

George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea KG PC FRS (4 November 1752 – 2 August 1826), was an English peer, army officer and cricketer who was an important figure in the history of cricket. His main contributions to the game were patronage and organisation but Winchilsea, an amateur, was also a very keen player. Finch served with the 87th Foot at the time of the American Revolutionary War from its formation in 1779 to its disbanding in 1783, with the temporary ranks of major and lieutenant-colonel. Finch was the first president of the Royal Institution, and it was through his influence that it received the endorsement of King George III.
A. A. Thomson wrote that Winchilsea “would go anywhere for a game of cricket. “He was certainly prolific and is one of the most recorded players of the 18th century, though he was far from being among the best and was already 33 when he was first recorded in a senior match. He is known to have played in at least 128 top-class matches between 1786 and 1804, and records of many other matches have certainly been lost. His level of activity is matched by few of his contemporaries; only Billy Beldham and Tom Walker made a substantially greater number of appearances. Lord Frederick Beauclerk and George Louch were the only amateurs of the time as prolific as Winchilsea, but they were much better players because Winchilsea on the field was something of a liability. His known career batting average was a single figure.
In the 1770, he became president of Hambledon, but he loyalty changed in about 1784, when he was one of the prime movers in the foundation of a new club, supported by Star and Garter members and playing at White Conduit Fields. This was ostensibly an exclusive club that “only gentlemen” might play for, but the club did employ professionals and one of these was the bowler Thomas Lord, a man who was recognised for his business acumen as well as his bowling ability. Winchilsea and Colonel Charles Lennox commissioned Lord to find a new ground and offered him a guarantee against any losses he may suffer in the venture. Lord took a lease from the Portman Estate on some land at Dorset Fields in Marylebone, where Dorset Square is now sited; the ground was prepared and opened in 1787. The first known match began on Monday, 21 May 1787 and was between the White Conduit Club and Middlesex.
Peter Burrell, 1st Baron Gwydyr (1754 – 1820)
Peter Burrell, 1st Baron Gwydyr PC (16 June 1754 – 29 June 1820) featured in English politics at the end of the 18th century, but he was best known for his involvement in cricket, particularly his part in the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1787.
A keen amateur cricketer, Burrell has been called the third most influential member of the White Conduit Club and of the early MCC, after George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond. He played in seven matches which have been awarded first-class cricket status between 1787 and 1790. In a non-first-class match for White Conduit Club against the Gentlemen of Kent at White Conduit Fields in 1785 he scored 97 runs in an innings.
Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond (1764 – 1819)

General Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond, 4th Duke of Lennox, 4th Duke of Aubigny, KG, PC (9 December 1764 – 28 August 1819) was a British peer, soldier, politician and Governor-General of British North America.
Richmond was a keen cricketer. He was an accomplished right-hand bat and a noted wicket-keeper. An amateur, he was a founder member of the Marylebone Cricket Club. In 1786, together with the Earl of Winchilsea, Richmond offered Thomas Lord a guarantee against any losses Lord might suffer on starting a new cricket ground. This led to Lord opening his first cricket ground in 1787. Richmond and Winchilsea’s guarantee provided the genesis of the best-known cricket ground in the world, a ground known as the Home of Cricket. Nearly always listed as the Hon. Colonel Charles Lennox in contemporary scorecards, Richmond had 55 recorded first-class appearances from 1784 to 1800 and played some more games after that.