Cricket's Historians

90 Some Sumptuous Volumes and County Histories century and still active as a player –hewas aged42 –MacLaren’s name alone ought to have boosted sales. The magazine, now in the joint ownership of MacLaren and Pentelow, was relaunched in 1914 as The World of Cricket . Pentelow however initially seemed unaware of MacLaren’s unreliability in financial matters and Pentelow’s debts doubled in the nine months during which he and MacLaren ran the magazine. Michael Down in his biography of MacLaren noted that ‘Pentelow was apparently left to take care of all the financial debts and the worry appeared to age him overnight. Although only forty years old his hair turned white, his shoulders bowed and his face lined.’ Pentelow paid off his debts by writing schoolboy fiction, almost night and day. Under the new title The World of Cricket the price of the magazine had been increased from 2d to 3d on May 2, 1914. The weekly editions were suspended on August 15; an issue appeared in September, others in October and November. One was scheduled for December 12, but never materialised. It was a sad end to Alcock’s creation. Moving from the weekly to the annual, the end of the sequence of Lillywhite annuals had come with the 1900 edition of ‘Red Lilly’. C.W.Alcock wrote in the introduction to this 1900 issue: ‘The fact that the Annual has reached its twenty-ninth anniversary is proof of itself – were any needed – that the Red Lillywhite is going strongly. Fortunately no proof is wanting. That time has not withered its infinite variety for the cricketer we have the most gratifying evidence from all sections of the cricket public. In this number some slight alterations have been made, as we believe, in the general interest. For a great part of the statistical matter we are indebted to Mr F.S.Ashley-Cooper, who has lent throughout ready help. To the Secretaries of Cricket Clubs whose doings are recorded herein we have also to express our hearty thanks.’ In fact two long standing items had disappeared from the 1900 edition, the who’s who of current county cricketers and the register of the principal