Cricket's Historians

Wisden challenges Lillywhite current players, but for his 1865 edition Fred Lillywhite decided to attack both his rivals: in 1864 he had printed the normal innocuous descriptions of John Lillywhite and John Wisden, but now he changed his stance: Lillywhite, John, born at Hove, near Brighton, Sussex, Nov. 10 1826. Has been a first-class bat, and of valuable assistance to his county and “England” generally, but is now “poaching” for ideas on another field, without license. May he be successful with his “gun” by “day” and his net by “night”… A most eminent publisher of cricketing works, following the steps of his brother Fred, having now been promoted and “gazetted” as “compiler”. Wisden, John, born at Brighton, Sussex, Sept.5,1826. Was a “good ‘un” but now “does nothing” for his county, England, or any other eleven, in fact, devotes his time to do a “deal of good” for promoting the manly game, for which he spends a vast amount of “coin” being a paid secretary to the Cricketers’ Fund Society, chairman (in daily attendance) Mr Thomas Box, late of the Brighton ground. Wisden is also the “energetic” secretary to the “United Eleven” and expects an appointment to his County Club. John Lillywhite himself acted as editor of his annual, probably for the first ten issues. G.D.West, whose books on both this annual and the later one issued by James Lillywhite, are a quite excellent historical survey of each, explains the tangled complex of the editorship. David T.Smith’s similar study, published privately in 1991, of Fred’s Guides has been mentioned before. The three annuals again appeared in 1866, all three broadly staying with the layouts they had used in 1865, though (due to his comments in 1865) Fred Lillywhite lost the patronage of M.C.C. The circulation battle was not destined to continue for a third year, for on September 15, 1866, Fred Lillywhite died in Brighton, he was only 37. Whatever his shortcomings, he had provided cricket followers in the 1850s and 1860s 32