Cricket's Historians

Test Match status is defined and Overseas Publications multiply John Bertram Payne was born in Hunstanton in 1864 and educated at Stonyhurst. He qualified as a solicitor in 1889, but never practised and spent a number of years as a tutor for public examination entrants. In the 1890s he was residing in Harrogate. He published an Index to the matches in Scores & Biographies (limited to 100 copies) in 1903 and in 1905 Scores and Analyses 1864-1881 , a most valuable work which gave the detailed scores of 60 major matches that had not appeared in Wisden . In April 1927 Payne was appointed Secretary to Worcestershire C.C.C. but only remained there for nine months, the County Committee then deciding to employ an amateur county cricketer, C.F.Walters. Payne died in Redhill, Surrey aged 94 in July 1959. The publishers of The Cricket Field magazine were not the only people who felt England needed a new annual. In 1892 two had been produced. William Dewar, born in Hull in 1844, published The Cricket Annual 1892 . This hardback of 328 pages, 7½'' by 5½'' was in direct competition with Wisden , since it printed the full scores of all English first-class matches for 1892. The page layouts were much more attractive than those of Wisden , and the new annual included full-page team photographs of the major county sides, which ought to have attracted buyers, but sadly this was not the case and the annual never reappeared after its initial issue. Dewar, who lived in Leeds, was a sub-editor on a local paper – his son, also William, was a journalist. Also in 1892 came the first edition of Bussey’s Cricketer’s Diary and Companion . As its name implies the book was published by the sports goods firm of George Bussey & Co of Peckham Rye. It was very small 8ov and designed for the waistcoat pocket. The annual continued, without a break, until 1931. Yet another new departure in 1892 was Percy Cross Standing’s book which contained the scores of Gentlemen v Players matches from 1806 to date (The first edition of Wisden had contained those matches up to 1863, but with no bowling details.) A versatile journalist and writer, Standing was born in Rickmansworth in 1871 and early in his career was employed 61