Cricket's Historians

94 Some Sumptuous Volumes and County Histories entitled ‘Kent Cricket 1705 to 1750’ to come from Ashley-Cooper’s pen, but it is entrusted to W. South Norton. Norton acknowledges the use of H.T.Waghorn’s second volume of newspaper references, which had been issued in 1906. William South Norton himself is thanked by Arthur Haygarth for his assistance in the compilation of Scores & Biographies . Norton played for Kent from 1849 to 1870 and was for some time Hon Secretary of the Kent County Club. He was born in Town Malling in June 1831 and died at Charterhouse in 1916. The volume is well illustrated and previously unpublished photographs of many players are a particular asset for historians. Another county to publish an ambitious volume was Middlesex, but this employed a totally different format to Surrey, Yorkshire and Kent. The basis of the work was the scorecard of every Middlesex match. The actually history section was confined to 16 pages. There is a brief career record section, but not giving season by season statistics for each player. The title is Middlesex County Cricket Club 1864-1899 and the book was issued in 1900, thereby preceding the titles previously described. The author was William John Ford. Born in Paddington in 1853, educated at Repton and Cambridge, he was in the XIs in both. He made occasional appearances for Middlesex, but emigrated to New Zealand where he was Principal of Nelson College. On his return to England he continued as a schoolmaster, but later also contributed to many sporting journals. In 1902 he followed his Middlesex book with a much more profound work on Cambridge University Cricket Club. There are 150 pages of historical detail, even before the first match score. The early scores are published for the first time, having eluded Arthur Haygarth’s grasp. It is a little unfortunate that Ford chose to print only the detailed score information for the Cambridge players and omitted that for the opposition. The book also contains some informative photographs. Ford died in April 1904. The book which should be used in conjunction with Ford’s Cambridge history is Oxford and Cambridge Scores and Biographies compiled by J.D.Betham and published in 1905. The work commences with the scores