Cricket's Historians

178 Rowland Bowen causes Ripples ‘Editorial Committee’. It was no doubt that through his connections with Swanton that Rosenwater was appointed ‘Manager’ in 1965. In some quarters Rosenwater was thought of as Swanton’s cricket secretary. For the few who cared about such things, the fact that Rosenwater was an integral part of The Cricketer set-up, meant that historical matters in the magazine had an authoritative eye cast upon them. It is doubtful whether Sir Pelham Warner had much say in this fundamental change. Some two months after the format hit the bookstalls, the founder of the magazine died. In an editorial obituary, John Warner comments: ‘Lately, he (Pelham Warner) has been unable to take much part in the running of The Cricketer , but his encouragement was most valuable and he often said how happy he was that the magazine was to continue.’ Back in 1950, his elder son, Esmond, had criticized the way the magazine was run (by Langford) and urged his father to take over the reins again. As a result, Warner sought the advice of the aged C.B.Fry In a sealed letter written some years earlier, but to be opened on his death Pelham Warner had asked that his son, Esmond, be given a post at The Cricketer , though in the same letter Warner asks that Langford take over as Editor on Warner’s death. Things did not turn out quite like that. The day before (in November 1962) the revamped Cricketer magazine hit the bookstalls, Roy Webber was attending a meeting at the offices of the Playfair Cricket Monthly . He then left the premises to drive home, but collapsed and was taken to St Bart’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was only 48, but had for years been very overweight. Webber was the one cricket statistician known to the general cricketing public, through his work for the B.B.C., for the News Chronicle and of course through the various Playfair publications. He was a workaholic and in that sense followed the footsteps of Alcock, Pentelow and Ashley-Cooper. The additional work load created by the demise of the News Chronicle possibly proved too much for him. Webber had provided the statistics for both the News Chronicle Cricket Annual and the Playfair Cricket Annual . The