Cricket's Historians

Wisden challenges Lillywhite Life , from which most, if not all, the scores were gleaned. The value for historians is that the annual includes a lot of matches not in Haygarth’s volume covering 1863 and some quaint overseas matches at unexpected venues. Almost simultaneously a second new cricket annual was issued, The Cricketer’s Almanack for the Year 1864 , costing one shilling. This 112 page softback, 6'' by 3 ¾'', was published by John Wisden & Co of 2, New Coventry St, London W. No editor was given either on the title page or in the brief introduction. It cannot be said to be competing with The Cricket Chronicle , since it did not include even the principal cricket match scores for 1863. Nor did the new publication compete directly with Fred’s Guide (though Fred lowered his price back to one shilling) since no review whatsoever of the 1863 summer is included and no pen-pictures of current players. The main cricket content was a section on Gentlemen v Players which included the detailed scores of all matches between the two teams – this had never appeared in book form before. ‘We have taken great pains, and been at considerable expense in collecting the information…’ runs the preliminary note – Haygarth’s first four volumes of Scores & Biographies were issued before this new annual appeared and included all the games up to 1854, so the compiler was being rather too boastful! A second section prints the 13 matches between the All England Eleven and the United England Eleven, which again had not appeared before outside the newspapers. A brief ‘record’ section lists individual hundreds made in ‘great’ matches since 1850 and the other cricket piece runs from 1787 to 1850 (why 1850?, presumably linked to the list of hundreds?) and lists prominent players with the date of their first match at Lord’s and the score(s) they made. The Laws of Cricket are printed, but, taking up the same space, are the Rules of Bowls. The remainder of the book is a general ‘almanack’. This second new annual was printed by the same firm that printed Lillywhite’s Guide – W.H.Crockford of Blackheath Road, Greenwich. Some historians have suggested that Crockford acted as the Editor, but would he have edited a possible rival to Fred’s Guide , when the latter 30