Cricket 1888

“ Together jo ined in cricke t’s m a n ly to il.”— Byron. EeeiBtertd1fZr4TraT?r5,BBl^Abroaa. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1888. P R IC E 2d. scene of the memorable en­ counter between Edward III. and his rebellious Barons—in Yorkshire on28th July, 1842, he is now well on towards the completion of his forty- sixth year. To show that he is not by any means out of date for active cricket, we may here state in paren­ thesisthathe iselevenmonths the junior of his old mate Tom Emmett, the evergreen, who has done—and in all probability will continue to do for some years yet—good service to Yorkshire. George Freeman was only sixteen years of age when he played his first match, on behalf of the town of his birth. His debut in public was against Langton Wold, and though, unfortunately, there are no statistics extant, rumour has it that he did more than ordinary execution with bat as well as ball. In the follow­ ing year,when he had reached the age of seventeen, he vacated Boroughbridge in favour of a more extensive field ofaction at Leeds. While at the latter place he gained such repute in the various local matches which took place in the neighbourhood, that he was on four separate occasions selected to form one of the opposition to withstand the All England Eleven, when that itinerant body was able to muster in its ranks such an irresistible quartette of bowlers as Jackson, Tarrant, Willsher, and Tinley. In the year 1863, when he had come to “ man’s estate,” or what poor Tom Hood was wont to call “ poor wretched twenty- one,” he was installed as cricket tutor in ordinary to the boys at the Grange House School, Edinburgh, and during his official con- r nection there was no less successful as “ a coach” than in his individual achievements both in bowl­ ing and batting. Iu the M R . G E O . F R E E M A N . The cricket record of the popular player whose pre­ sentment we are able to give this week is, if not unique, at all events of quite an ex­ ceptional character. As far as we know, Richard Daft furnishes the only instance of an amateur, after repre­ senting the Gentlemen against the Players, becom­ ing a professional, and sub­ sequently reverting to the ranks of the great unpaid. There are several cases within our own recollection of the first two phases of this process of transmution. H. H. Stephenson, of Surrey, Y. Titchmarsh, of Hertford­ shire, W . Wood . Sims, of Derbyshire, W . R . Gilbert, of Gloucestershire, and E. J. Diver, of Surrey, were all, we believe, amateurs of position before joining the professional order. The ex­ amples of cricketers who have made a reputation as professionals taking a prominent place among amateurs are, though, very scarce. Of this very limited few, the burly cricketer whose fast bowling some twenty years ago scattered d e s tr u c tio n b ro a d c a s t among the wickets of Yorkshire’s opponents is a conspicuous illustration. And we have no hesitation in saying that, even at the present time, though he has for many years been out of touch with the great public which interests itself more particularly in what are terpaed first-class matches, our portrait gallery would scarcely be complete without the inclusion of his portrait. George Freeman, to drop the prefix and write of him as he was familiarly known in his day by all classes of cricketers, is not such a veteran as his long absten­ tion from County pricket woulcj lead anyone to believe, pprfl ^ Borought}ridge —#19