Contents
Introduction
The importance of the works that make up this volume cannot be overstated. When published in 1907 this book was described as “Being a New Edition of John Nyren’s Young Cricketer’s Tutor, Together With a Collection of Other Matter Drawn From Various Sources, All Bearing Upon the Great Batsmen and Bowlers Before Round-Arm Came”. The volume is a collection of vital texts relating to Hambledon Cricket Club and the history of cricket of that period. This is a good article about the book.
Lucas was a man of great enthusiasm and passion for the cricket. Benny Green describes his reaction when first encountering the scoresheets of Hambledon matches as “could not have been more ecstatic if he been a Talmudic scholar and the score sheets the Dead Sea Scrolls”.
The books within the book
Ballard of Dead Cricketers, by Andrew Lang
An elegiac poem about cricket of the period. Also here.
Ah, where be Beldham now, and Brett,
Barber, and Hogsflesh, where be they?...
Introduction by EV. Lucas
The editors sets out his objectives – “to bring together as many authentic praises of the early cricketers first celebrated by Nyren as I could find—together with a few new facts concerning Nyren himself: the whole to form rather a eulogy of the fathers of the noblest of games than a history of its rise or contribution to the literature of its theory. The reader will find few dates, but many traits and virtues; no well-ordered facts, but much enthusiasm.”
The Young Cricketer’s Tutor, by John Nyren
John Nyren (1764 – 1837) was the son of Richard Nyren, the captain of the first great Hambledon team and the landlord of The Hut next to the ground, now known as the Bat and Ball Inn. In old age, Nyren worked with Cowden Clarke to produce a two-part book published in 1833 – the particular contribution of each in now unknowable. This is first and less important part. Nevertheless, it is vastly important text and provides an insight as to how the game was played in the eighteenth century.
The Cricketers of My Time, by John Nyren
In this work, Nyren looks back on the the cricket he saw in his youth and gives an account of the great days of Hambledon. No work in the history of cricket writing has been more quoted than this. As John Arlott writes “Hambledon cricket club and its great players are seen at a range of forty years and through the rosy glass of nostalgia by an old man who has shared their greatness.” This text created a view of cricket that survives to this day and has informed the lives of many, most of whom have never heard of it. It is the great classic of cricket.
John Nyren, by the Editor
Lucas provides a insight into John and Richard Nyren, largely based on the recollections of John Nyren’s daughter, Miss Mary Nyren.
Review of John Nyren’s Book, by the Rev John Mitford
In two articles published in 1833, Mitford draws upon Nyren’s work to summarise the early history of cricket, adding his own observations to bring it up to date. His main contribution concern his writings about the cricketers of the 1830s.
The Hambledon Club and the Old Players, by the Rev James Pycroft
This section consists of part of a a book called The Cricket Field published in 1851 which dealt with the history of cricket to that date. It draws heavily on Nyren. Lucas omits the first two chapters which can be found in the complete edition of the volume here.
Practical Hints on Cricket, by Old Clarke
Sixteen pages of cricket instruction of cricket instruction by William Clarke, a cricketer of the early Nineteenth Century. He founded, managed and captained the All-England Eleven, a very important figure in cricket history.
Old Clarke by the Editor
Biographical details of William Clarke.
A Conversation with Lord Bessborough, by the Right Rev H H Montgomery
Frederick Ponsonby, 6th Earl of Bessborough (1815 – 1895), was an Anglo-Irish peer who played first-class cricket 1834–56 for Surrey, Cambridge Town Club, Cambridge University and MCC.
Memories of the Old Players, by Arthur Haygarth
Haygarth’s famous and important text (aka Lilywhites) is mostly scorecards but it is interspersed with biographies and other articles. Here, Lucas reprints the biographies of thirty three of the more famous players – i.e.
- Edward Aburrow
- James Aylward
- Willaim Barber
- Silver Billy Beldham
- John Frame
- Richard Francis
- Andrew Freemantle
- John Freemantle
- David Harris
- William Hogsflesh
- William Lambert
- Lamborn
- George Leer
- Lumpy Stevens
- Sir Horace Mann
- Noah Mann
- Joseph Miller
- Minshull
- Richard Purchase
- John Ring
- Robert Robinson
- Thomas Scott
- John Small Senior
- John Small Junior
- Peter Stewart
- Thomas Sueter
- Earl of Tankerton
- Thomas Taylor
- Richard Veck
- Thoms Walker
- John Wells
- Earl of Winchelsea
- William Yalden
Mr Budd and his Friends, by the Editor
Lucas reflects on the career and contemporaries of Edward Budd whose played in the early part of the Nineteenth Century and provided Pycroft with much of his material. Lord Fredrick Beauclerk features heavily in this section.
England Past and Present 1770-1900, by A Cochrane
A short elegiac poem largely about the Hambledon era. Also here.
The book
