Famous Cricketers No 60 - Ernest Tyldesley

Ernest Tyldesley There were two families of Tyldesleys who played for Lancashire during the early part of the twentieth century. The larger contingent comprised the four brothers Bill (W.K.), Jimmy (J.D.), Harry (H.) and Dick (R.K.) who emanated from the Westhoughton area; of these four Dick had by far the most distinguished career, taking over 1500 wickets and representing England seven times in Test cricket. Yet it was the two brothers Johnny (J.T.) and Ernest (G.E.) from the tiny village of Roe Green, Worsley on the western periphery of Manchester who were indisputably the greater cricketers, standing even to this day only just outside the top twenty run scorers of all time. It is odd that this profusion of Tyldesleys should appear within such a short time scale. The name, by no means uncommon in this part of Lancashire, appears to be derived from the mining town of Tyldesley which is situated just about halfway between Westhoughton and Worsley; but these six are the only cricketers of this name ever to take part in the first-class game and their combined careers were encapsulated in the brief period 1895-1936. Ernest, the youngest of a family of eight children comprising five boys and three girls, was born in Roe Green on February 5th, 1889, coincidentally the same day as his great England rival “Patsy” Hendren. This, in any event, was generally held to be the case until, in the course of drafting this history, I chanced to see his birth certificate which had been carefully preserved by his nephew, Mr Donald Dean. This document, originally obtained in 1924 - no doubt in connection with E.T.’s application for a passport to enable him to take his first overseas tour to South Africa that winter - revealed his birthdate to be February 21st, 1889, some sixteen days on. However, I believe this date can be discounted. I immediately looked at the date of registration of the birth - April 4th, 1889 - and found that it fell exactly 42 days after the supposed event. I had encountered this scenario several times in the course of my investigations into the birthdates of old footballers for the book I co-wrote on the history of Southport F.C.; it was a common misconception that heavy fines were levied on parents whose registration of their child’s arrival fell outside the statutory six weeks’ limit. Accordingly they would advance the date of birth to precisely 42 days prior to the date of registration to escape this supposed penalty and I am confident that this was very likely the case with Ernest Tyldesley. Don Dean remembered how his uncle would often complain that his birthdate would be misquoted in official communications, occasioned no doubt by the original “error” on his certificate. The certificate yielded yet another surprise; the name under which the child was registered was simply “George” Tyldesley. His parents, Joseph Tyldesley, a coal dealer and grocer, and his wife Elizabeth, both staunch Methodists, had recently moved to a shop at the corner of Starkie Street and it was from there that their youngest son was subsequently baptized at “the little Chapel on the Green”. It was only on baptism that the name Ernest was appended, a fact that was alluded to in the far right column of the 1924 certificate. To his family he was always Ernest but despite being referred to invariably as just “E.Tyldesley” throughout his long career, to his team-mates he was known as “Jud”, an affectionate abbreviation of George. The whole family, including the three girls, Ada, Edna and Ethel, were considerable cricketers; indeed there is evidence that the cricketing genes have been passed on through the female line to Michael Vaughan of Yorkshire and England, who is the great-grandson of the aforementioned Ada! The great “J.T.”, as Johnny was universally known, was some 15 years Ernest’s senior and became an established county and England batsman whilst the youngster was growing up. That Ernest should model himself on his prolific elder brother was inevitable and no finer example could be desired. He 8