Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

28 Diaspora; Cricketing Migration 1795 tersely states ‘no gentlemen present’, leaving one to ponder the Marie Celeste poser as to whom then bore witness and penned this enigmatic phrase. Commercial ventures had not been universally profitable. The Artillery Ground on Chiswell Street, London, where the cash-starved Honourable Artillery Company was keen to make some money, earns it place in cricket history as being probably the first venue to charge entry to all attending for a great match. This was in 1744 and it cost twopence. Several thousand were attracted but when the price rose to sixpence the crowd numbered only 200. The ground was let to and managed by the landlords of the conveniently neighbouring Red Horse pub but although all sorts of other events were on offer – foreshadows of tomorrow - it was difficult somehow to make a profit. George Smith then the landlord was declared bankrupt in 1748 and no major spectator cricket was played there after the 1750s. 2 The retail exploitation of cricket proved at this time and into the 19 th century to be something of a disaster. Entrepreneurs in provincial towns such as Leicester, Brighton, Leeds and Sheffield built enclosed grounds, hopeful of staging games, renting out the venue to local clubs, widening the range of activities, attempting to assemble membership lists and selling alcohol. None were uniformly successful for long. Even where they were profitable, the businessmen involved found, like Thomas Lord, that prime land brought a lucrative reward as urban development expanded. Perhaps most telling of all, Peter Wynne-Thomas has astutely calculated that by 1830 there were only a score of cricket professionals in the country, a huge decrease from, say, the fifty years before. He asserts that modern professionalism, defined as a full-time summer job, dates only from this point. 3 Thomas Lord, like his fellow entrepreneurs, had opened his famous ground to such exotic events as pedestrianism, ballooning and pigeon- shooting in order to turn a profit. Four ‘great’ cricket matches a year was not a business-like proposition. He had moved twice under the threat of urban development and in 1825 he decided to sell his lease for building but the wealthy William Ward, himself no mean batsman, stumped up (apt slang usage) £5000 and presented MCC with the property. It should be called Ward’s ground. That £5000 ensured that the upper middle-class faction and interest would have a doughty stronghold when cricket was revivified. It has been argued that the Revolutionary and Napoleonic War was the disruptive cause of this slowdown of cricket. This may have been the case although the sole close-up pressure had been the very brief point in 1805 when a Napoleonic invasion had been feared. As usual, in war as in peace, the rich notables who backed and gambled on cricket appeared to remain affluent enough, with some merchants doing exceedingly well. There are always ups and downs but, for instance, the armaments, textiles (all those uniforms) and victualling businesses profited from the hostilities. It should not be forgotten that the 18 th century, during which cricket had