Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

33 The eponymous hero of Nicholas Nickleby (1838) was enrolled as an actor- writer with the Vincent Crummles peripatetic theatre company. It is likely William Clarke bumped into non-fictional ‘fit-up’ Thespian troupes on his cricketing safaris. In the wake of Philip Astley’s equestrian riding show dating from 1768, circus had also come to town, with, as well as several static venues, including Nottingham, Leeds and Birmingham, an outcrop of the tented variety. The Leeds Amphitheatre had accommodation for 3000. Later the sea- side resorts would have resident circuses. In 1826 there came a brash American challenge of circus within a huge marquee. William Batty led the British response with a big top that held 1400 and, along with travelling fairs, the visiting circus remained very popular for generations. Another example is well illustrated by the biography of Marie Tussaud (1761-1850). She inherited her uncle’s wax exhibits and was instructed by him in the arcane craft of wax modelling, and in the macabre chore, while imprisoned, of making death masks of victims of the Guillotine during the French Revolution. Moving to England, she toured, a real-life Mrs Jarley, for 33 years before setting up a permanent home for her growing collection in Baker Street in 1842, inclusive of Napoleon’s toothbrush and one of the teeth presumably cleansed by it. Notable actors, circus performers and cricketers were welcomed, recognised and feted on these periodic often annual visits, usually with a similar mix of audience, many from the lower orders but always a goodly sprinkling of their so-called betters. In Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madd’ing Crowd (1874) Squire Boldwood sits with Bathsheba Everdene in relative comfort amid their servants and farm workers to watch an enactment of the story of Dick Turpin at a travelling fair. Unashamedly, the itinerant cricketers labeled themselves ‘Exhibition’ elevens, for in the nicest sense they were making an exhibition of themselves and becoming household names, with portraits on sale and many of the other trappings of celebrity. In short, the professional cricketer found himself for the first time cast as an integral part of the entertainment industry, operating on a national basis. Although this first modern cadre of ‘pros’ was almost entirely working class in origin, there was, within that massive social swathe, a quality they chiefly shared. They tended to come from an artisan rather than a labouring background. As with the paid occasional players of the past, cricket was still a part-time job. With the Exhibition elevens it became a full-time summer occupation, but to borrow the pained cry of the seaside landladies faced with lodgers complaining about high charges, ‘we’ve got to think of the winter when you’ve gone.’ It is well known that many early professionals were piece workers, able, for instance, to combine their lace making or other crafts at home with forays into paid cricket now and then, unlike others tied to the more stringent regimen of the farm or, increasingly, the factory. Diaspora; Cricketing Migration