Cricket's Historians

Some Sumptuous Volumes and County Histories of the University Matches, but then follows this with excellent brief biographies of the players involved, including their occupations and dates of death or current addresses. It is important to note that Betham did not simply cull his data from Haygarth’s work, but obviously undertook much original research. John Dover Betham, born in 1874, was a wool manufacturer and died in Sedbergh in 1918. This is his only cricket book, but he did assist the editor of Wisden in the information given annually for the cricketers whose deaths are recorded in the annual. Nottinghamshire’s production of a history was a hybrid – Edwin Browne, the County’s Assistant Secretary, had published in 1887 a 33-page history plus the match scores of the season 1887. The efforts of Sutton and the annuals issued by Frank Spybey have been discussed in Chapter 3, but the publishers who went much farther than either of those pioneers, or indeed Browne’s effort, were the Richards family, also noted in Chapter 3 They had the rights to print scorecards on the Trent Bridge Ground and in 1890 published Fifty Years of Nottinghamshire Cricket 1838-1887 . The first date given is the year William Clarke founded the Trent Bridge Ground. The initial part of the book comprises biographies of 62 Nottinghamshire cricketers, the lengths of which are variable. Arthur Shrewsbury is allowed 11 pages, T.F.King is given five lines. As mentioned in Chapter 3 bowling analyses and match description details commence with the 1869 season along with the seasonal averages and in the later years Championship tables are also printed. The book does not include a narrative history. On the title page, Richards sub-titles his work ‘Volumes One and Two of Notts Cricket Scores & Biographies.’ In 1903, Richards issued a continuation to this work, which was titled Nottinghamshire Cricket Scores and Biographies 1888 to 1900 Volume 2. Again this starts with biographies and then the detailed scores, 33 of which are pre-1888 and had been omitted from the first mentioned volume. What I have stated here is a simplification – a number of the biographies were issued as separate booklets. Those readers who wish to look deeper into the Richards’ publishing schedules should consult Duncan Anderson’s Bibliography of Nottinghamshire Cricket Literature . The Richards firm was taken over about 1886 by 95