Famous Cricketers No 76 - J.N.Crawford

1909 Crawford’s last main county season started promisingly enough with consistent run-getting in his first eight matches during May (497 runs at 35.50) and a couple of good bowling hauls against Northamptonshire and Oxford University among his 22 wickets at 21.27 before a major controversy erupted. The ‘Crawford Correspondence’ published in The Cricketer in April 1983 revealed the interchange of letters between Crawford and Surrey captain Henry Leveson-Gower, secretary William Findlay and president Lord Alverstone. Between a congratulatory note on the 20 May from Alverstone, through to the same writer’s ‘deep regret’ of 15 July when he required Crawford to apologise as befitting ‘a gentleman and a sportsman’ before he could reappear for Surrey there is a deep divide. Some problems may have arisen in the Surrey–Derbyshire match on 1 and 2 July because after Tom Rushby (7-67), ‘Razor’ Smith (7-57) and Walter Lees (6-85) had bowled Surrey to an innings victory on a rain-damaged wicket Lees and Rushby were disciplined for an untoward incident by being omitted from Surrey’s return match against the Australians to follow the next game against Lancashire. The fiery Queensland all-rounder Alan Marshal, who severed his connection with the county before the next season, may have also been implicated in the same incident. For his part Crawford was invited to captain Surrey in the Australian match but refused the offer because of the absence of three professionals: opening bowlers Rushby and Lees, and leg-spinner William Davis. Given his own inability to bowl due to a wrenched shoulder Crawford argued that the attack he was presented with was inadequate and it was this action which led to the formal rupture with his club. In his 17 July reply to Alverstone, Crawford objected to being treated like ‘some young professional’ instead of ‘a young fellow with an experience of cricket that has seldom fallen to anyone’. From Crawford’s perspective he had been given a team, selected by Leveson-Gower, with which he felt he could not take the field. From Alverstone’s perspective, ‘brilliant amateur’ that he admittedly was, Crawford had not followed the rules. When Leveson-Gower learned of Crawford’s attitude, as expressed in his letter of 5 August, he felt Crawford had shown the ‘deepest ingratitude’. Formal expulsion followed the next day. The trio of correspondents were formidable opponents with whom to cross swords. Henry Leveson-Gower (1873-1954) variously captained Winchester (1892), Oxford (1896), Surrey and England during a first-class career that spanned 1893-1931. In 1909 he made his first appearance on an England selection panel chaired by Lord Hawke. Eventually Surrey president (1929-39) and chairman of England selectors (1924, 1927-30) he was knighted in 1953 after a lifetime of being known as ‘Shrimp’. William Findlay (1880-1953) captained Eton (1899) and Oxford (1903) before playing for Lancashire from 1902-06. He became successively Surrey secretary (1907), MCC assistant secretary (1919), MCC secretary (1926-36), Lancashire president (1947-48) and MCC president (1951-52). Sir Richard Everard Webster (1842-1915) MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, Charterhouse and Oxford, alone of the three did not play first-class cricket. He instead became an MP briefly in 1865, a QC (1878) before re-entering parliament (1885-1900). Attorney General (1885-1892, 1895-1900) and Lord Chief Justice (1900) he had been knighted in 1879 before being created the first Baron Alverstone. He was MCC president in 1903. These were the establishment figures who decided Crawford’s cricketing fate after previously being apparently well-disposed towards him. At some stage Crawford had reportedly talked about emigrating to Australia to Victor Trumper, who had in turn asked Clem Hill to investigate the offer of a resident mastership at St Peter’s College in Adelaide at £160 per annum. Crawford initially cabled Adelaide to say that he would arrive around February or March 1910. Prior to Leveson-Gower’s written advice of 29 July that the MCC would not require his services for its South African tour he probably expected to be playing Test cricket in Cape Town at that time. 21