Cricket's Historians

292 Historians Dig Deeper the internet. Ric Finlay, based in Tasmania, wrote the Famous Cricketers series book on A.F.Kippax, published in 1993, having compiled Island Summers , a history of Tasmanian representative cricket, the previous year. Currently a Committee member of the ACS, he is now more involved in computer programmes related to cricket statistics. Ronald Cardwell published The A.I.F. Cricket Team in 1980 and since then has issued a number of interesting booklets on Australian cricketing topics, including, in recent years brief biographies on W.A.Brown, R.N.Harvey and A.R.Morris. A lesser item with cricketing as a side issue is Football’s Forgotten Tour by JohnWilliamson, which tells for the first time of Arthur Shrewsbury’s effort to claw back the money lost on the 1887-88 England tour to Australia. It is a fascinating saga. The increased interest in cricket history has resulted in the reprinting of many rare cricket books. Sporting Handbooks published facsimile editions of the early Wisdens , covering the years 1864 to 1878. Willows Publishing has continued this process and facsimiles are available for most seasons up to 1945. Two projects which were, perhaps, more ambitious, were the facsimiles of Britcher and Denison. Both these were undertaken by Christopher Saunders. TheBritcher reprint of 15Britcher annuals and an accompanying volume by D.R.Allen is the more valuable project, since the extant copies of Britcher annuals are exceedingly rare. The set of Denisons follows a similar pattern, with facsimiles of his annuals and a biography (plus numerous appendices) by Allen. Roger Heavens, who has previously been mentioned in connection with the reprinting of Scores & Biographies, published a reprint of Bentley’s scores, again with an introduction by Allen. In 1989, Heavens was also responsible for re-issuing the two volumes of Buckley’s cricket notices. Perhaps someone might publish all the manuscript notes that Buckley collected and remain largely forgotten in the archives at Lord’s. J.W.McKenzie reprinted Epps’ Scores, again with an introduction by