Cricket's Historians

Test Match status is defined and Overseas Publications multiply noted as W.K.R.Bedford, W.E.W.Collins and Other Contributors. The book, published by William Blackwood & Sons, was issued in 1895. The Rev William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford was born in 1827 and educated at Westminster; he founded the Free Foresters in 1856 as a wandering but Midland-based club, Bedford being the Rector of Sutton Coldfield. In the 1860s he compiled two books of Free Forester match scores and in 1894 wrote a three part reminiscence of his early cricket, which was published in Cricket . He died in January 1905. His principal co-author was William Edward Wood Collins, educated at Radley and Jesus College, Oxford. A very talented all-rounder, he failed to obtain a blue and indeed played very little first-class cricket, though proving, when he did turn out, how useful a player he was. In a minor match for Northwood (Cowes, Isle of Wight) he once hit 338 not out (out of 535) in three hours and five minutes. He also represented England once at rugby football. Collins was a well-known writer on a variety of topics, many articles by him were published in Blackwood’s Magazine . A series of his cricketing essays Leaves from an Old Country Cricketer’s Diary were published by William Blackwood & Sons in 1908. The book on the Free Foresters gives detailed scores of the principal matches and potted scores of the remainder with seasonal averages. There is a good selection of photographs, both team and individual and some biographical sketches, rather similar in style to those in the West Kent book. On statistical matters in the 1890s there was some controversy regarding which England v Australia matches should be considered as ‘Test Matches’. The main debate centred on a number of matches played by England touring teams in Australia in the 1880s. The definitive list, as still employed by statisticians today, was set out in 1894 by C.P.Moody. A well-known Australian journalist, Clarence Percival Moody, born in August 1867, began his career as a sports reporter with the South Australian Register , writing on both cricket and Australian Rules Football. His ground-breaking book on Test status Australian Cricket and Cricketers 1856-1894 was soon accepted as the ‘official’ line by statisticians. The book contained the 67