Cricket's Historians

The Influence of W.G.Grace founded The Cricket Reporting Agency in April 1880 and had a firm knowledge of sports reporting. He had been a member of George Kelly King’s Sporting Press Agency as well as a sub-editor with the Press Association. Kelly King died in 1879 and Pardon took on staff from the now defunct Kelly King Agency for his new venture. In the Preface to the 1887 edition of Wisden , Charles Pardon states: ‘Messrs Wisden requested me to undertake to tell the story of the chief play of 1886, and that task I have been able to accomplish owing to the assistance promptly and generously rendered to me by Mr Sydney H.Pardon, Mr Edgar S.Pardon (both Charles’ brothers), Mr C. Stewart Caine and other writers and reporters on cricket, who have now been associated with me for several years.’ In the 1888 edition of Wisden , Herbert E.Jewell is added to the list of assistants and contributors. Charles Pardon’s reign as editor did not last long; he died in April 1890 aged 40. C.W.Alcock, editor of the Lillywhite Annual the main rival to Wisden, is unstinting in his praise of Charles Pardon. Alcock writes in Cricket : He was an entity in the cricket world, better known, in fact, than the majority of the players, whose doings he had been accustomed so graphically to recount for several years….It was in a great measure to him that the public owes the vastly improved style of cricket reporting of late years….As a cricket writer he had no superior, combining freshness as well as vigour of style with a close observation, and, withal, practical knowledge of the game.’ Sydney Pardon, Charles’ brother, took over as Wisden editor and the 1891 edition, under Sydney’s name in the Preface has added to it ‘Cricket Reporting Agency, 112, Fleet Street. Apart from the Pardons the only named contributor to Wisden in 1887 is Charles Stewart Caine. Born in Portsmouth in October 1861, he trained as a journalist with Kelly King’s Agency and on its demised moved to the Cricket Reporting Agency, where he was destined to remain for the rest of his life – he edited Wisden for 50