Cricket's Historians

Test Match status is defined and Overseas Publications multiply member of the NSWCA in 1927 for his administrative work. he died in Bellevue Hill, Sydney in February 1941. Across the water in New Zealand cricket publications were also rare, except for the annual reports of the major Associations. The first inter- colonial game in Australia had been in 1850-51, whereas in New Zealand similar matches did not begin until March 1860 when Wellington played Auckland, however the first game ranked ‘first-class’ was in January 1864 Otago v Canterbury. The first publication which printed ‘historical’ scores of matches appeared in 1879. The book entitled Cricket Notes : Interprovincial Matches gives the games played in the Otago v Canterbury series. The author is unknown. F.E.Brittain, a local cricket club secretary, compiled a cricket annual in 1889-90, mainly covering Wellington cricket. It survived for three issues. William H.Newton edited New Zealand Cricketers’ Annual which had a run of four issues 1895 to 1898. The West Indies had one annual which did survive its first few years. This was Barbados Cricketers’ Annual , edited and compiled by J.Wynfred Gibbons. Established in 1894-95 it continued without a break until the First World War – after the first two issues, the publication was undertaken by the Globe newspaper. The annual gave a good coverage of cricket and the cricket clubs on the island. In the United States, Jerome Flannery, who was born in Dublin in 1865, but emigrated with his family to the United States as a child, was the founding editor of The American Cricket Annual , first published in New York in 1890. The annual ceased in 1902, but resumed as Spalding’s Official Cricket Guide in 1904, Flannery continuing as editor. Flannery, a very useful club cricketer, played for, at various times, Manhattan, Morris Park and Brooklyn cricket clubs. He died on May 7, 1908 in Brooklyn. The annual was an excellent production; the 1893 edition, for example, gives the detailed scores of the Gentlemen of Ireland tour, details of the Halifax Cup matches, chapters on American clubs district by district, a piece on Canadian cricket and on English cricket, the latter including County Championship tables for both first-class and second-class counties. When the Spalding sports company took over production the 69