Cricket's Historians

The Influence of W.G.Grace 1875 (the college is now in Weybridge). He had followed the fortunes of Surrey as a schoolboy, but it was not until 1886 that he joined the County Club as a member. He died in Pau, France on March 16, 1907. De Lugo’s other publications were a statistical analysis of W.W.Read’s career and an updated but shortened version of his 1888 Surrey book, published in 1900. In addition he made a contribution to the 1904 sumptuous Surrey Cricket : Its History and Associations . The information regarding De Lugo comes from an article by J.D.Coldham, published in The Journal of The Cricket Society , but recent research by experts in Surrey casts doubt on the actual authorship of the work. De Lugo was, seemingly, the enthusiastic amateur statistician; the author of the Nottinghamshire book was C.H.Richards, a professional publisher and printer in Nottingham, whose father had printed scorecards at Trent Bridge since the 1860s. The Richards firm over many years was responsible for the printing and publication of numerous cricketing items and more about the family and its business will be detailed later. At a national level, did the success of Cricket affect the three major annuals – the two Lillywhites and Wisden? When Lillywhite’s Companion was published in 1885, its Preface noted that ‘it has by far the largest circulation of any of the cricket annuals.’ However on January 1, 1886, Messrs James Lillywhite of 10 Seymour St, Euston Sq, London, the Companion publishers, merged with James Lillywhite, Frowd & Co of 24 Haymarket, Charing Cross, London, publishers of Lillywhite’s Annual and the Companion and Annual merged as one single entity for 1886. Charles Alcock was the editor of the combined work. Curiously the publishers were now given as jointly, Lillywhite, Frowd & Co and Wright & Co (Cricket Press) of 41, St Andrew’s Hill, London E.C. – as has been noted the latter published Cricket . Just to recap briefly on the Lillywhite dynasty, John Lillywhite who had launched the Companion died in 1874; James sen, the original partner in Lillywhite, Frowd, died in 1882 and James jun, who played for Sussex until 1883 and was responsible for the 1876-77 England tour to Australia 48