Cricket 1893

“ Together joined in cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron * No. 3 4 7 VOL. X II Registered for Transmission Abroad T H U B S D A Y , O C T O B E R 26, 1893 P R IC E 2d. CRICKETJNOTCHES. A YARN WITH A VETERAN CRICKETER. By th e B e v . B . S. H olm es . A v e t e r a n indeed, if not the doyen of cricketers, who was playing the game before wides and no-balls were counted, and when the standard size of the wicket was 24 inches by 7 ; to w hom the first matches on the Oval and Trent B ridge grounds were events o f his m iddle life ; who either played w ith, or saw play, B eldham and Lam bert, L ord Frederick Beau- clerk and W illiam W ard, and was him self in full cricket swing long before Parr, W isden, and Caffyn were heard of. Y es, I have seen, and talked to, and sm oked a pipe with, the last survivor o f the famous old Kent E leven, and “ it fell upon a day,” now not quite a fortnight ago. I f anybody had told me thirty years since that in this present year of grace I should be found sitting in the back parlour o f a m an who for m ore than tw enty years played shoulder to shoulder with M ynn and F elix, P ilch and W enm an, H illyer and Martingell, I should have felt disposed to question his sanity. As it is, after the event, it is hard to say whether the interview did really h app en : it looks m ore like a dream. Yet I know I booked at Char­ ing Cross on a brilliant m orning o f this m onth o f October, was landed, after an hou r’s run, in the pleasant old town o f Graves­ end, and was making sundry enquiries for “ Bose Cottage, Prospect Place,” where lived the m an I was in quest of. E verybody knew it, though as he had resided for m ore than four score years in the same town, it was only natural that his house should be better know n b y his name than by the name it actually bears, And his name is T om A dam s . Not B ill Adams, of w hom a Yankee humorist has left on record how he won the battle of W a terloo; nor Alfred of that ilk, o f Saffron W alden fame, who in 1837 knocked up an innings of 279. N o, m y hero was the first and last m em ber o f that branch o f the Adam s fam ily that JOHN TUNNICLIFFE (Yorkshire).—See p. 447. From a photograph by E. Hawleins & Co ., Brighton made for him self a name on the tented field. L et’s have a look at him first of all. Perhaps you are fam iliar w ith him in his prim e, gentle reader. There he stands, N o. 2 from the left-hand m argin of M ason’s picture, Kent v. Sussex, easily recognised by the “ corkscrew gipsy cu rl” (as P ilch described it) on each tide o f his face, “ looking as if he had eaten live birds for breakfast” (so the “ Old B u ffer” puts it). A nd did not Corbet Andersen include him in his picture gallery o f worthies ? On m y study wall he has hung for m any a year, but in such a painfully cramped attitude as a batsman that I have often wished that during som e night he w ould ju st straighten him self out. Catching sight o f this last p ic­ ture in the fr o n t parlour of “ B ose Cottage,” I was certain that the figure in the arm -chair in the bach parlour was the m an I had com e to see. Adams doesn’t look as he did in 1849, no m ore do any o f us ; one expected a marked change ; but for all that there was a m an of eighty-four years of age still goodly and well proportioned, clad in a brow n velvet jacket, and surrounded by sundry pot- hats, o f w hich m ore anon. L et’s listen to the old m an’s tale, which was told ia frag­ m ents, and for the m ost part in answer to various questions which, for the sake o f space, m ay w ell be om itted h e re ;— “ I was born in Gravesend in May, 1809, and here I ’ve lived all m y life, and here I hope to die— which w on’t be long now . Is Gravesend m uch changed ? Just y ou have a look at that pictu re: it’s our H igh Street on Guy Fawkes' day when I was a young m an, and it’s exactly like what the H igh Street was then. M y m other was a laundress, and was left a w idow when I was quite a c h ild ; I was a labourer in the ordnance em ­ ploy, and after a time earned twelve shillings a-week. So far as I re ­ m ember there was no cricket in our fam ily, but som ehow I took to the gam e very early, practising whenever and wherever I got a chance. Y ou see Fuller Pilch was a K ent m an, and all o f us youngsters had heard of him and seen him ; we were proud o f him and we