Cricket's Historians

166 More County Histories and The Cricket Society grows cricket, with the work and research carried out by Dr Squire acknowledged and constructively employed. The author was John Norman Marshall. Born in Surrey in 1906, he moved to Sussex as a boy, was educated at Brighton College and then began a career in journalism, working mainly for Associated Newspapers. He was on the London Evening News for many years, being the editor from 1950 to 1954. Following some years overseas, Marshall was appointed an Executive of Associated Newspapers. His first cricket book, The Weaving Willow (published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1953), was little more than a series of amusing essays, most of which were related to his own cricketing experience. John Arlott provided a pleasing Foreword. His book on Sussex is much more serious and a textbook for history students on the development of the game in the county. There is a statistical appendix supplied by the Sussex scorer, George Washer. The question of whether Sussex were County Champions in 1875 was supported by Washer, but glossed over by Marshall (this point will be returned to). Washer, who the previous year had published A Complete Record of Sussex County Cricket 1728-1957 , died in February 1975, having been the county scorer for 21 years. After his book on Sussex, Marshall published the following year The Duke Who Was Cricket The subject was the 2 nd Duke of Richmond, who resided at Goodwood, and organised major cricket matches in the 1720s and 1730s. Marshall undertook a great deal of research in the Goodwood archives and presents a rounded picture of the family and of cricket at the time. Marshall was later the author of short histories of three Test Match Grounds – Lord’s, Headingley and Old Trafford. He died in Worthing in March 1985. Fresh avenues were explored by W.P.Hone with the publication, in 1955, of his book Cricket in Ireland . It was the first comprehensive history of the game in that country, though the author stresses in his Acknowledgement that the work falls short of his original intentions. In particular he states that cricket in Northern Ireland was not properly covered and he fears that his personal family history intrudes more than it should. His father