Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

Hornchurch v White Conduit Club and Moulsey Hurst (page 101): 15 May 1787 There is much doubt both about the venue of this match and about many of the players involved. The match is not in Epps or Bentley and has not been traced in any newspaper or other contemporary source. Details are taken from SB, in which Haygarth says, ‘It was not mentioned where this match was played, but it is presumed at Hornchurch, as the return [i.e. the match on 3 July] took place at Moulsey.’ This was a reasonable suggestion on the basis of the information available to him, but it is called into question by the discovery that a third match took place at Hornchurch on 2 August (although the score has not survived). The World of 9 July, after reporting the second match, adds, ‘There is to be another match at Cricket, between the White Conduit Club and the club at Hornchurch - the place again, Moulsey - the time, as it stands at present, the end of this month.’ This sounds, although perhaps not unambiguously, like an announcement of something new; an impression strengthened by the fact that arrangements were still vague and explicitly open to change. Indeed, in the event the third match finally took place not in late July but in early August, and at Hornchurch, not Molesey. If the third match was an extra game arranged subsequently to the first two, it means that Haygarth’s original speculation about the venue of the first match remains valid. A further point is that the first match appears to have escaped all the London papers. This is surely likelier if it was played at a relatively obscure venue like Hornchurch as opposed to the White Conduit ground, Molesey, or even Lord’s: although all these remain possible. The match also presents special difficulties in the matter of player identification. Three of the players, Butcher, Graham and Rimmington, share surnames with known Kent cricketers – too many to be a coincidence. It is assumed that they are the same. • Butcher – Note his consistent record as a bowler in most matches in which he appears. • Graham – It is probably significant that his only Kent match is against Essex at Hornchurch (27 September 1792), and Ashley-Cooper identifies him as N.Graham of either Crayford or Dartford (both just over the river from Essex). • Rimmington – He must be one of the three players with this uncommon surname appearing in Kent matches 1780-83. The late H.S.Scales in his register of 18th-century players (Journal of the Cricket Society, Vols III-IV) suggests M.Rimmington: no reason is given but Scales is known to have had access to unpublished notes by Ashley-Cooper, now lost, so in the absence of other evidence M.Rimmington has been accepted, even though B.Rimmington appears to have been the most prominent in the earlier period. Davidson is assumed to be the same man as appeared for England v Hants in 1784; also as a given man for Hornchurch in a match v Berks in 1785 ( Dawn of Cricket p64). 276