Cricket's Historians

Wisden challenges Lillywhite sports. In 1875 the Athletic News was launched in Manchester as part of the Edward Hulton newspaper empire. Hulton began his career as a reporter for the Manchester Guardian ; in 1871 he established The Sporting Chronicle . He chose T.R.Sutton as the editor of The Athletic News . Thomas Robert Sutton was only 21 on his appointment and he turned this paper into the best all-round sporting sheet in the country. Sutton died after a serious illness in Lytham St Anne’s in July 1895, he was only 42 and still running the paper. In his youth he had been a more than competent footballer, playing both soccer and rugby. It should be mentioned that Baily’s Monthly magazine and Fore’s , a quarterly, both carried some cricket articles. Aside from the three national cricket annuals, there were two rather unexpected ones. The first, John Lawrence’s Handbook of Cricket in Ireland appeared in 16 issues between 1865 and 1881. It was published by John Fortune Lawrence, whose father (also John Lawrence) had moved from Southern England in 1833 to establish a sports outfitters in Grafton St, Dublin. Like John Wisden before him, Lawrence began the annual to publicise the goods sold in his shop. The compiler and editor of the annual was J.T. Hurford, Secretary of the Phoenix Cricket Club. Lawrence also helped in the publication in 1879 of a book describing the Irish Cricketers Tour to North America that year. The author was Henry William Brougham (1853-1908), who was a playing member of the touring side. He was, later, the father of Henry Brougham, an Oxford blue in 1911. The second unexpected annual was Scottish Cricketers’ Guide founded in 1870/71 by Percival King. King, born in Stockwell, Surrey in December 1835, had some trials for Surrey, but moved up to Edinburgh as a coach and opened a sports store in the city. The annual lasted until 1888/89. It gave good coverage to the main Scottish clubs with potted scores and averages. Whilst Ireland and Scotland both had annuals which survived for a relatively long period, in Australia cricket annuals seldom became established. Ken Piesse, the well-known Australian cricket historian, 40