Cricket's Historians

Test Match status is defined and Overseas Publications multiply man of rare charm and of much quiet humour.’ A typical example of his generosity occurred during the First World War. He was too old to take an active part in the war, but he presented virtually all his large library of cricket books to the Royal Navy, the books to be distributed around the fleet. He must have recommenced collecting after the war, in a small way at least, as books from his collection were sold by Hodgson & Co on 25, April 1929, realising £43.6.0. Bettesworth reported matches for The Cricket Field and illustrated his words with very pleasant scenes of the games under consideration. Another feature which he contributed was ‘Chats with Cricketers’. A number of these were later reissued in book form. The Cricket Field which was more attractively laid out than its rival Cricket , gave more coverage to schools and colleges. Instead of having long descriptions attached to each county scorecard, the magazine gave separate weekly paragraphs for each shire. Its statistical content was largely confined to immediate matters and very few historical articles were printed. Bettesworth remained on the magazine throughout its existence. It ceased in September 1895, after four years. Bettesworth then transferred his cricketing journalism to Cricket ; in 1902 he combined that work with the post of cricket editor of The Field , remaining with the latter until his death on February 23, 1929. His most important cricket book was The Walkers of Southgate , published by Methuen in 1900. The book remains an essential work of reference to the family which effectively created and ran Middlesex County Cricket Club. As an adjunct to the weekly magazine, the publishers of The Cricket Field launched an annual in 1893 – The Cricket Handbook , priced at 6d and 96 pages in length It was a complete contrast to the two old established annuals, Wisden and Lillywhite’s Annual There were potted county scores, brief biographies of current county players, county averages and a full page photograph of one player per county. Perhaps the more recent annual which most closely resembles it was the original Playfair . No editor was given, but Padwick attributes the work to J.B.Payne. 60