History of Bucks CCC

The Birth of Minor Counties Cricket The Bucks County Club starts up again The county’s first minute book, which still survives, records that the inaugural meeting to form a county club was held on Thursday 16 January 1891 at The Charing Cross Hotel. In the chair was EH Parry, the older brother of Cecil. The Parrys hailed from Stoke Poges, where their father, the Reverend E St John Parry, ran a small preparatory school, Stoke House, which was only a short distance from Stoke Green Cricket Club, where the family were all heavily involved. The two brothers were educated at Charterhouse and later followed their father into the teaching profession. Edward was an assistant master at Felsted until taking over Stoke House in 1892, while Cecil spent eight years on the staff at Wellington. Though he never played cricket for the county, Edward Parry was a fine sportsman, reserving his greatest achievements for the football field, where he captained Oxford University in 1877 before going on to win three England caps. Though Cecil Parry died at the early age of 34, Edward was still serving on the Bucks committee in 1920. At the inaugural meeting Lord Rothschild was elected the club’s first president, an office that changed annually in the early years. Edward Parry was confirmed as chairman, and the captain of the Marlow Cricket Club, GR Ward, a man of independent means who had been the prime instigator of the meeting, took on the office of secretary. CM Woodbridge, a bank manager from Iver, who played in a few of the early matches, was elected treasurer. The county’s titled aristocrats and landed gentry were invited to become vice-presidents and the first committee included the names of several gentlemen who were to give sterling service to the cause of Bucks cricket beyond the turn of the century: PJ de Paravicini (Datchet), HE Bull (Buckingham), FD Clare (Chesham), CE Cobb (Aylesbury), AJ Thurlow (High Wycombe), E Warne (Winslow), W Curtis (Chalfont St Giles), JH Roberts (Datchet) and AA Somerville (Eton College). Another who would soon join their number was FT Higgins. In 1897 he was to take the name of his maternal grandfather, Sir Thomas Tyringham Bernard, who was the 19 HE Bull, jnr at Eton Photograph courtesy County Archive