Famous Cricketers No 95 - P.A.Perrin

Introduction Though his name can be readily found in the middle reaches of cricket record books, Percy Perrin is little known to cricket followers in the early twenty-first century. His achievements were, nevertheless, substantial feats of endurance which justify an appearance in this series. He played more matches, 496, in the County Championship than any other amateur cricketer. A right-handed batsman, he scored more Championship runs for his county, 27,703, than any other Essex player, including Graham Gooch and Keith Fletcher. At Chesterfield in 1904, he scored the first triple century, 343 not out, in first-class cricket in the twentieth century, setting an Essex record which has lasted a hundred years. In that innings he hit 68 fours, setting a world record total which has remained unbeaten ever since. His rise up the social ladder can also be seen as a feat of endurance. He was born a publican’s son at Hackney in East London. Without the advantages said to be conferred by a public school or university education, he became a confidante of the game’s ‘establishment’ at Lord’s, chairing the England Test selectors in the last season of first-class cricket before the Second World War. He died in 1945, a man ‘of independent means’ according to his death certificate, much respected for his judgment of the abilities of candidates for Test cricket, even though he had himself not quite attained that standard. Family background Percival Albert Perrin was born on 26 May 1876 in a small two-storeyed terraced house in Lancell Street, Stoke Newington, about two miles north of the City of London. He was the second child of Samuel and Emma Perrin, who ran a public house nearby: they had earlier run a pub at Shadwell in London’s dockland. Stoke Newington was then a rapidly developing area following the opening of the railway into Liverpool Street in 1872; it also had one of the lowest pub ‘densities’ in London at the time, so that the Perrins had the basis for a successful business. The area now forms part of the London Borough of Hackney, currently the second poorest of Greater London’s thirty-three boroughs: the house in which he was born was demolished some years ago and its site forms part of the playground of the adjoining Board School. The surname Perrin is not uncommon in East London, and there are forty-seven Perrins buried in Abney Park cemetery, close to Lancell Street. The name is a ‘double diminutive’ form of Peter, and probably originated in Devon. In the latter part of his career, Perrin was generally known as Peter to fellow cricketers, but he hung on to Percival long enough to pass it on in 1902 as one of his son’s forenames. To his family he was always Percy. In the late 1870s the Perrin family moved to the White Hart Inn at Tottenham Hale on the edge of the Lea Valley. Like Stoke Newington, Tottenham was also a rapidly developing suburb. The 1881 Census records the family, plus a niece and a live-in barmaid at the address. During the 1880s, the Perrins moved to The Bull Inn at 278 High Road, Tottenham, about half a mile away, and let the White Hart to a tenant. The Bull was a remarkable, timber-framed property which was recorded in the Manor Rolls in 1542 as a lodging for travellers. It was demolished in 1939, and another pub, The Connaught, built on its site. The Connaught was itself demolished in early 2006. The Perrin household of four, comprising Percy, his parents and their niece, now aged 33, was recorded by the 1891 Census at The Bull, but they later moved to their own house in Tottenham High Road. When Percy was fifteen, his father, Samuel, died there in February 1892 at the age of sixty, from influenza and pneumonia. Local directories show that his mother, Emma, then became the licensee. Percy’s father had become a man of some importance in the Tottenham community, as much a property developer as a publican, and two thousand people attended his funeral at Abney Park cemetery on 22 February 1892. His will lists some forty houses in his ownership, plus several commercial properties at Tottenham Hale and along Tottenham High Road, including the freehold of two public houses. 4