Cricket's Historians

The Influence of W.G.Grace match scores, but the annual only lasted one issue. Duthoit was for several seasons on the County Umpires’ List. In addition there was Durham and Yorkshire Cricketers’ Handbook , established in 1882. It survived to 1900, but contained little statistical information. The official County Club yearbook was first published in 1893. It gave detailed scores for the previous season and a list of births & deaths of County players. This annual gradually expanded is in essence the annual which is still published by the County Club – no other county club has been so dedicated to their yearly publication. In the 1895 edition the fall of wickets data were added to the scores, also the names and addresses of Yorkshire C.C.C. members. Responsible for the annual was the long serving Secretary to the County Club, Joseph Beckett Wolstinholm. He had been appointed as Secretary in 1864, combining the job with the secretaryship of Sheffield United C.C., the club which played at Bramall Lane. He was also a senior partner in Wolstinholm and Stevenson, chartered accountants and stockbrokers. Wostinholm retired as Secretary to the County Club in 1902 and died in Malton in April 1909. Of the two remaining 1890 first-class counties, Sussex County Cricket Club, considering its age and the example of neighbouring Kent, seemed uninterested in issuing a cricket annual. Alfred James Gaston, the noted cricketing bibliophile, published a seven page booklet, A Pocket Synopsis of Sussex County Cricket containing some Sussex statistics, these included hundreds for Sussex since 1868 and batting and bowling averages. A great collector of cricketana, he gave lectures with slides on cricket history and built up a substantial business buying and selling mainly cricket books and pictures. In addition Gaston wrote for the Sussex Daily News , under the pen name ‘Leatherhunter’. He died in Brighton in October 1928, aged 74. Irving Rosenwater published a monograph on Gaston’s life, Alfred James Gaston : A Study in Enthusiasm (1975). A second Sussex cricketing bibliophile, a contemporary of Gaston, was Alfred Daniel Taylor. He was responsible for a Sussex Cricket Annual which ran from 1901 to 1909 – he used the pen name, ‘Willow Wielder’. Born in London in July 1872 he earned the title of ‘cricketologist’ and reportedly possessed the 55