Dimming of the Day

41 June 1914 Dorset. R.C.Ashfield is known to have played once after the war for a weak Cambridge University side that lost to Liverpool and District in 1920. At least all of them survived the war. At Dudley Warwickshire had won massively and Field returned figures of 8.4-6-2-6. His figures would not read so well nowadays, as he bowled five no-balls. Yorkshire and Lancashire, in classic fashion, made no attempt to obtain a result. The first innings of both sides had occupied nearly two days, with Yorkshire holding a small lead. Lancashire had made 370 with James Tyldesley and W.Huddleston putting on 141 for the ninth wicket. It was Bill Huddleston’s highest score: he had taken 100 wickets for the only time in 1913, but he was 41 and did not reappear after the war, though he continued to play with considerable success for Leigh, his club side. Yorkshire declared at 299-4 in their second innings and Lancashire made no attempt to make 311 in 190 minutes. Mr A.H.Hornby, opening the batting, made 45*. He was the Lancashire captain and the son of “Monkey” Hornby. ‘There was great excitement at Taunton’ as Somerset actually won a match against Gloucestershire, making 134-3 in 90 minutes, Bertram Bisgood making 78*. He was an amateur who played on and off for Somerset between 1907 and 1921: one of that class who had not attended a major public school, having been to Prior Park College in Bath, which had been established in 1830 and had been intended to be the country’s first Catholic university: it is still there, occupying a spectacular Palladian mansion. He was a solicitor by profession and in 1911 had been living in Richmond, Surrey, but he had been born in Somerset. On 4 June The Times carried a list of malicious damage to property carried out by militant suffragettes, divided into damage to works of art, bomb explosions and ‘incendiary outrages’ including the destruction of Yarmouth Pier and the burning of the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe, the grandstand at Birmingham racecourse and several country houses. The paper also reported that a procession of suffragettes in Bournemouth was attacked by a crowd. This was a serious campaign indeed and certainly today would be described as terrorism. The Times was suggesting that the authorities now had a full list of subscribers to the WSPU and that they could be held responsible for the damage, and alleged that that much of this was being done by women who were ‘well paid’ to do it. Worse than that! A correspondent opined, ‘One gentleman writes in this morning’s Times under the name of “Anti-Rot”. He is against killing animals by shooting or hunting them to death, and says he would rather teach his son to hit a golf ball than shoot a bird. We all know the end of that boy, and Anti-Rot will only have himself to blame.’ Mr R.H.Lyttleton wrote today to argue for a change in the LBW law because of the number of high-scoring draws. It was perhaps unfortunate that the