to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still retained in
that game.”
The word “cricket” occurs about the year 1550. In Russell’s History of Guildford it appears there was a piece of waste land in the parish of Holy Trinity in that city, which was enclosed by one John Parish, an innholder, some five years before Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. In 35 Elizabeth (1593) evidence was taken before a jury and a verdict returned, ordering the garden to be laid waste again and disinclosed. Amongst other witnesses John Derrick, gent., and one of H.M.’s coroners for Surrey, aetat. fifty-nine, deposed he had known the ground for fifty years or more, and “when he was a scholler in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellowes did runne and play there at crickett and other plaies.” In the original edition of Stow’s Survey of London (1598) the word does not occur, though he says, “The ball is used by noblemen and gentlemen in tennis courts, and by people of the meaner sort in the open fields and streets.”
Some noteworthy references to the game may be cited. In Giovanni Florio’s dictionary A Worlde of Wordes most Copious and Exact, published in Italy in 1595 and in London three years later, squillare is defined as “to make a noise as a cricket, to play cricket-a-wicket and be merry.” Sir William Dugdale states that in his youth Oliver Cromwell, who was born in 1599, threw “himself into a dissolute and disorderly course,” became “famous for football, cricket, cudgelling and wrestling,” and acquired “the name of royster.” In Randle Cotgrave’s Dictionary of French and English, dated 1611, Crosse is translated “crosier or bishop’s staffe wherewith boys play at cricket,” and Crosser “to play at cricket.”
Among the earliest traces of cricket at public schools is an allusion to be found in the Life of Bishop Ken by William Lisle Bowles (1830). Concerning the subject of this biography, who was admitted to Winchester on the 13th of January 1650/1, it is said “on the fifth or sixth day, our junior ... is found for the first time attempting to wield a cricket bat.” In 1688 a “ram and bat” is charged in an Etonian’s school bill, but it is possible this may only refer to a cudgel used for ram-baiting. In The Life of Thomas Wilson, Minister of Maidstone, published anonymously in 1672, Wilson having been born in 1601 and dying in or about 1653, occurs the following passage (p. 40): “Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, crickets, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lord’s Day.” Cricket is found enumerated as one of the games of Gargantua in The Works of Rabelais, translated in 1653 by Sir Thomas Urchard (Urquhart), vol. i. ch. xxii. p. 97. In a poem entitled The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence or the Arts of Wooing and Complimenting (1658), by Edward Phillips, John Milton’s nephew, the mistress of a country bumpkin when she goes to a fair with him says “Would my eyes had been beaten out of my head with a cricket ball.” The St Alban’s Cricket Club was founded in 1661, one of its earliest presidents being James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury (1666–1694).
In 1662 John Davies of Kidwelly issued his translation of Adam Olearius’ work entitled The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors from the Duke of Holstein to the Grand Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia. Begun in the year 1633 and finished in 1639. On page 297 is a description of the exercises indulged in by the Persian grandees in 1637, and the statement is made that “They play there also at a certain game, which the Persians call Kuitskaukan, which is a kind of Mall, or Cricket.” In the Clerkenwell parish book of 1668 the proprietor of the Rum Inn, Smithfield, is found rated for a cricket field.
The chaplain of H.M.S., “Assistance,” Rev. Henry Teonge, states in his diary that during a visit to Antioch on the 6th of May 1676, several of the ship’s company, accompanied by the consul, rode out of the city early and amongst other pastimes indulged in “krickett.” During the first half of the 18th century the popularity of the game increased and is frequently mentioned by writers of the time, such as Swift, who alludes sneeringly to “footmen at cricket,” D’Urfey, Pope, Soame Jenyns, Strype in his edition of Stow’s Survey of London, and Arbuthnot in John Bull, iv. 4, “when he happened to meet with a football or a match at cricket.”
In 1748 it was decided that cricket was not an illegal game under the statute 9 Anne, cap. 19, the court of king’s bench holding “that it was a very manly game, not bad in itself, but only in the ill use made of it by betting more than ten pounds on it; but that was bad and against the law.” Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, died in 1751 from internal injuries caused by a blow from a cricket ball whilst playing at Cliefden House. Games at this period were being played for large stakes, ground proprietors and tavern-keepers farming and advertising matches, the results of which were not always above suspicion. The old Artillery Ground at Finsbury was one of the earliest sites of this type of fixture. Here it was that the London Club—formed about 1700—played its matches. The president was the prince of Wales, and many noblemen were among its supporters. It flourished for more than half a century. One of the very earliest full-scores kept in the modern fashion is that of the match between Kent and All England, played on the Artillery Ground on the 18th of June 1744.
Cricket, however, underwent its most material development in the southern counties, more especially in the hop-growing districts. It was at the large hop-fairs, notably that of Weyhill, to which people from all the neighbouring shires congregated, that county matches were principally arranged.
The famous Hambledon Club lasted approximately from 1750 to 1791. Its matches were played on Broad Half-Penny and Windmill Downs, and in its zenith the club frequently contended with success against All England. The chief players were more or less retainers of the noblemen and other wealthy patrons of cricket. The original society was broken up in 1791 owing to Richard Nyren, their “general,” abandoning the game, of which in consequence “the head and right arm were gone.” The dispersion of the players over the neighbouring counties caused a diffusion of the best spirit of the game, which gradually extended northward and westward until, at the close of the 18th century, cricket became established as the national game, and the custom became general to play the first game of each year on Good Friday.
The M.C.C. (or Marylebone Cricket Club), which ranks as the leading club devoted to the game in any part of the globe, sprang from the old Artillery Ground Club, which played at Finsbury until about 1780, when the members migrating to White Conduit Fields became the White Conduit Cricket Club. In 1787 they were remodelled under their present title, and moved to Lord’s ground, then on the site of what is now Dorset Square; thence in 1811 to Lord’s second ground nearer what is now the Regent’s Canal; and in 1814, when the canal was cut, to what is now Lord’s ground in St John’s Wood. Thomas Lord, whose family were obliged to leave their native Scotland on account of their participation in the rebellion of 1745, was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1757, and is first heard of as an attendant at the White Conduit Club, London, in 1780. Soon afterwards he selected and superintended a cricket ground for the earl of Winchilsea and other gentlemen, which was called after his name. He died in 1832 on a farm at West Meon, Hampshire, of which he took the management two years before. Lord took away the original turf of his cricket-ground at each migration and relaid it. In 1825 the pavilion was burnt down, invaluable early records of the game being destroyed; and in the same year the ground would have been broken up into building plots had not William Ward purchased Lord’s interest. Dark bought him out in 1836, selling the remainder of his lease to the club in 1864. Meanwhile, in 1860, the freehold had been purchased at public auction by a Mr Marsden—né Moses—for £7000, and he sold it to the club six years later for nearly £18,500, a similar sum being paid in 1887 for additional ground. In 1897 the Great Central railway company conveyed a further portion to the club, making the ground complete as it now is; the total area is about 20 acres, including the site of various villas adjoining
