Cricket's Historians

Rowland Bowen causes Ripples hobby, and who have wide-ranging other interests; by the amateur in the best eighteenth century sense of the term. If Ashley-Cooper was an exception in these, since he relied on his writings for his living, yet his approach was that of the scholar, not of the day-to-day writer for the popular newspapers. In this modern age, what is now needed is a Nuffield Chair of Cricket History and Research but till that is founded, there are plenty of people up and down the country who have something worth while to say, and we believe, to read…’ The first issue was largely written by Bowen, the other signed articles being by two or three well-known cricket historians. An unidentified hand writes about a forthcoming encyclopedia of cricket which is stated to be appearing in 1964 edited by a well-known journalist. The work is more or less condemned unseen and a comparison drawn with Golesworthy’s little tome – not the most sane of comments. The magazine did in fact grow to become the best historical vehicle on cricket and quite a number of excellent researchers and historians contributed to it over its eight-year life. It was unfortunate that Bowen first persuaded worthwhile contributors to write for the magazine and then, in too many cases, fell out with them. The example of Rosenwater was perhaps the most notorious of these. Ironically the subject which caused the split was none other than Ashley- Cooper. Rosenwater submitted his essay on the famous cricket historian to Bowen in 1964. He could just as easily had it published in The Journal of The Cricket Society , so the question of why Rosenwater chose Bowen’s magazine is open to debate. It ought perhaps to be mentioned here that Rosenwater was heavily involved in the forthcoming cricket encyclopedia, which The Cricket Quarterly had condemned the previous year. Bowen decided that Rosenwater’s piece on Ashley-Cooper required some editorial adjustment. Rosenwater refused, as indeed he always did, to have his work altered. One version of the story then claims, Bowen rejected the piece, the other that Rosenwater withdrew it. Be that as it may, Rosenwater published his work in The Journal of The Cricket Society ; 175