Dimming of the Day

60 July 1914 In Ulster 12 July had been celebrated with even more than usual enthusiasm. 70,000 Orangemen had marched from Belfast to Drumbeg. The Times leader ‘Dallying with Danger’ was of course about Ireland. The fleet was being mobilised by Churchill, crews being brought up to strength. There was a dock strike on the Mersey. A piece in The Times talked about ‘three kinds of cricket match’ at Lord’s, saying that, The University match is one-half cricket and one-half society. At the Eton and Harrow match many more of the spectators go to see the frocks than the game. At the Gentlemen v Players it is all stern cricket and nothing else. On the first day of that match the Gentlemen had been dismissed for 265 which was a substantial recovery after Barnes and Hitch had reduced them to 37 for 4. As these two were supported by Tarrant, Kennedy and J.W.Hearne the Players had a formidable attack. Only S.G.Smith, described by The Times as ‘at the moment perhaps the best amateur batsman in England,’ reached 50. By the close the Players were 58-2. At Tunbridge Wells Essex were bowled out by Fielder and Blythe for 138 and by the close Kent had rampaged to 303-3, Seymour 139* in 165 minutes. If James Seymour is now best remembered as the man who would take the Inland Revenue to court and win, he scored well over 25,000 runs for Kent during a lengthy career, with 53 centuries to his name. J.H.King made 227* against Worcestershire at Coalville. John King was already 43 and this was his highest county score, but he carried on for Leicestershire until 1925, when he was 54. 25,122 first-class runs and 1,204 wickets was a fair haul in a career which spread over thirty years. Derbyshire carried on to 504 against Lancashire with a last-wicket stand of 93 by Numbers ten and eleven, J. Humphries and J. Horsley: Lancashire were all out for 204 in reply. The Times also carried the score for the Green Jackets against I Zingari. The inexhaustible Teddy Wynyard turned out for I Zingari in pursuit of yet another century for his scrapbook, but this time he only made 73. On 15 July, though ‘all was quiet in Belfast,’ Ireland remained the obsession. It was reported that Rasputin was still alive after all. There was anxiety about Albania but nothing else about the Balkans. A special article on Tunbridge Wells concentrated on the social side, lamenting from that point of view that Kent had wrapped up their game against Essex in two days. Seymour had gone on to 214 and W.J.Fairservice then bowled Essex out again. Bill Fairservice played for Kent from 1902 until 1921, then put in a few years for Northumberland. There was a new pavilion to replace the one burned down earlier in the year: the town was full of bunting and coloured lights. There was a full social programme and the band played during the cricket. There had been two performances of Robert Marshall’s The Duke of Killiecrankie at the