Cricket's Historians

144 Mainly County Histories and Overseas Annuals and what he chose either to do, or not to do. The statistics consist of just two pages, which, considering all the figures he created through his long writing career, looks rather sparse. In 1939 Sir Home had written a 348 page volume entitled Background of Cricket . This comprises seventeen chapters of reminiscences and historical meanderings. Home Gordon died in Rottingdean, Sussex in 1956. Returning to more serious matters, the third volume of Middlesex’s ‘History’ was also published in 1950. Nigel Esme Haig, nephew of Earl Haig and former captain of Middlesex, was the compiler of Middlesex County Cricket Club Volume 3 1921-1947 . Born in Kensington in 1887, Haig was educated at Eton, but, surprisingly in view of his subsequent career, failed to make the College Eleven. He was later to achieve the ‘Double’ on three occasions. Haig’s book echoed the pattern set by the two earlier volumes and is therefore basically statistical, containing the detailed scores of county matches during the period under review. Haig wrote occasional pieces for The Cricketer , and died in 1966. As Sir Home Gordon was romping his way through Sussex’s cricket history, Dr Henry Fremlin Squire had published his researches into cricket in the Sussex village of Henfield and thrown fresh light on some important aspects of the game’s earliest recorded years. His book Henfield Cricket and Its Sussex Cradle remains an important source for historians. The book reproduces the 1727 Articles of Agreement between the Duke of Richmond andMr Brodrick. Squire follows the course taken by P.F.Thomas in searching for the origins of the game and illustrates the way cricket, baseball, and other sports came from a common background. Another illustration is of the match score details for a game played a fortnight before the famous England v Kent match of 1744. He was assisted by his wife for the Henfield book and also for Pre-Victorian Sussex Cricket , which was an Index to early cricket matches played in Sussex, mainly matches which were published in local newspapers. A quite remarkable man, H.F.Squire was studying medicine at Caius College, Cambridge at the outbreak of the First World War. He volunteered and served in the Mediterranean before being invalided