Cricket's Historians

Some Sumptuous Volumes and County Histories local cricket clubs. The price of the Lillywhite Annual was one shilling. The 1900 edition of Wisden was also one shilling, but almost twice the number of pages. Rather oddly, Alcock gives a glowing review of the 1900 Wisden in Cricket , but a very cursory paragraph on the 1900 Lillywhite . As well as competing on size with Wisden, the Lillywhite Annual had competition from the very cheap annuals that were flooding the market. The best known of these annuals were the Athletic News Cricket Annual and the Morning Leader Cricket Annual (both are mentioned in Chapter 4). Another competitor, Ayres Cricket Companion was founded in 1902 and began life as a rather odd collection of cricket data mainly related to the past cricket season. It was sponsored by the sports goods firm of F.H.Ayres and was edited by W.R.Weir (a pseudonym for W.R.Wright). The price was 6d (half that of Red Lillywhite or Wisden ). By 1914 the annual had more than doubled in page length, its price remained unchanged and the increase was largely due to Public School reports, which did not appear in the earliest issues. It also featured the history of a school in most editions. Once the First World War broke out and first-class cricket ceased, the annual was reliant on Public School data and it was to stay with that class of cricket for the remainder of its issues. It finally closed in 1932. Several other annuals appeared in the Edwardian era, but mainly they are of only passing interest, however one which deserves a mention was Cricket, Who’s Who. The Blue Book of Cricket , issued by Cricket Publishing Co. of Cannon Street, London E.C. The editor was Henry Vaughan Dorey, born in London in 1870 and on the 1901 census, living in Harpenden, Herts and being described as a ‘General Manager’. Dorey was editor of several other cricketing publications including England v Australia in the ‘Tests’ in 1910 and an expanded version in 1912 that had South African Tests added. The books are a little more than the detailed Test scores and averages after each series – sometimes the Test averages, at others the first-class averages for the touring party. Dorey was also connected with the cricket poet, Albert Craig and shortly after Craig’s death published a set of his poems plus A Short History of the Poet’s Career . Dorey was presumably a director or the proprietor of the publishing company which 91