Cricket's Historians

102 The Cricketer Magazine text-book of the subject, perhaps not quite on the scale of Nyren and Pycroft, but demand was sufficient for it to be reprinted and updated several times, the last being in 1962. It is therefore worthwhile looking at its contents in some detail. Following the tradition of many historical text-books of the time, Altham concentrated on the ‘kings and queens’, rather than the general spread and development of cricket from its birth to many parts of the world. An accomplished writer, he provided well constructed essays on the England v Australia Test series, on Gentlemen v Players, Oxford v Cambridge, the first-class counties and the Public Schools. In the original part-work, overseas countries are almost entirely ignored, save when a major England touring team visited. He acknowledges his debt to Rockley Wilson, the England and Yorkshire cricketer, who was also a master at Winchester. Wilson possessed an extensive cricket library and Altham used it as a source for most of his material. In the Preface to the History, Altham notes: “Some time ago a kindly critic remarked to me, ‘After all, I suppose your history will only be a potted Wisden’. That impeachment I readily admit, for the book is indeed one vast plagiarism.” Altham’s bibliographic list of references however does extend well beyond Wisden , with over 150 titles given. Included in the list is Warner’s Imperial Cricket . As has been commented upon, this book gives excellent coverage of cricket throughout the Empire, and it seems a little odd that it didn’t inspire Altham to branch out beyond his narrow confines. Altham did have Ashley-Cooper on hand to eliminate any factual errors and he is generous in his praise for the latter. He was also most fortunate that P.F.Thomas’s learned booklets were being issued during the serialisation and some of Thomas’s data could be incorporated into the hardback version of the work. Although Ranjitsinjhi and Grace had nominally written long historical chapters in their published works, the last proper history of the game had been Charles Box’s volume as far back as 1877. One is left wondering