Cricket's Historians

152 Mainly County Histories and Overseas Annuals the All Blacks. In 1935 he created the Rugby Almanack of New Zealand and in addition to his journalistic work ran a business as a bookseller and stationer in Wellington. He was passionately interested in politics and stood successfully as an Independent on various local councils, as well as being an active member of the Wellington Hospital Board. As a pacifist he served a prison sentence during the Second World War. After his death, Walter Hadlee commented: ‘Arthur Carman was not only respected for his ability – he was admired for what he was – a truly lovable person.’ Carman’s major cricket book was Wellington Cricket Centenary 1875-1975 . As might be expected from the contents of his annual, this book is a sound work, giving summaries of each season and biographies of a good selection of the players. Career records for all the cricketers for Wellington from 1875 are included with a variety of other data. He wrote other books, mainly on rugby, but also one on the early history of Wellington. A year after Carman’s death came the news of the death of another long-serving overseas cricket journalist, Louis Duffus. Louis George Duffus was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1904, but moved to South Africa, where he trained as an accountant. A talented cricketer, he made his debut as a wicketkeeper for Transvaal in 1923-24 and was on the short list for the squad to tour England in 1929. When he failed to be picked, he threw up his accountancy job and travelled to England, accompanying the South Africa team as a journalist. Whilst reporting free-lance he was engaged by the Argus Group of newspapers and continued as a journalist for the remainder of his life, covering not only cricket but most other sports. From 1930 he was the South African correspondent of The Cricketer . His major contribution to cricket literature and its history was the compilation of South African Cricket 1927-1947 , published in 1948. It ran to 625 pages and was a worthy continuation of Luckin’s two volumes. Duffus was sports editor of the Johannesburg Star for 17 years and died in Johannesburg in July 1984. Two other publications appeared in the early 1950s, featuring cricket overseas, and merit especial attention. They are still standard text books in their particular field. A Century of Philadelphia Cricket edited by J.A.Lester,