Cricket's Historians

Mainly County Histories and Overseas Annuals covering that league. His first major cricket book In Search of Cricket was published in 1937; it consisted of a series of essays, most of which first appeared in the Yorkshire Post . His style of writing was especially suited to the essay. At the same time as Kilburn’s 1924 to 1949 Yorkshire History appeared, a publishing firm, Convoy Publications, launched its series of 100 page county histories, beginning with, among others, another Kilburn book on Yorkshire. As John Arlott noted in his review of this brief Yorkshire history, Kilburn was much happier – his essay skills being more to the fore – than with the rather stilted longer book. Convoy published two other County Histories in the same year, Essex and Sussex. Author of the former was Charles (Charlie) Bray. He had represented Essex as a batsman from 1927 to 1937, though seemingly rather long in the tooth when he broke into first-class cricket, being born in Brighton in 1898. The reason for the delayed debut was that he worked in journalism in Bradford and then in Belfast, before moving South, on being appointed London editor of the Belfast newspaper, Northern Whig . He then joined the Daily Herald as its cricket correspondent, served in the R.A.F. during the war, returning to the Herald until it closed, after which he worked as a freelance on The Sun and The Times . His short history of Essex was the first attempt on telling the story of that county’s cricket. It is a pleasant introduction and well written. The statistics are by John E.Clay. Clay, who lived in Wanstead, sent frequent letters to The Cricketer , mainly on matters related to Essex and from 1946 was, effectively the Essex official statistician. A founder member of the Society of Cricket Statisticians, he wrote a rather pedantic history of Essex cricket, which was serialised in the Society’s News Letter in 1954. The Society also published season-by-season career records for many Essex players, compiled by Clay. He retired as Essex’s statistician in 1971. The third Convoy History of 1950 was written by Sir Home Gordon. He had been President of Sussex C.C.C. in 1948. He begins his book by announcing that he is in his 78 th year. The book is a cheerful, if rather careless ramble, with Sir Home quite often pointing out what he thought 143