Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Chapter Twelve Essex committee man, 1890-1912 In 1890 Lucas was elected to the Essex committee in place of George Alfred Sedgwick, who died suddenly in the autumn of 1889. Sedgwick was a solicitor who had put forward detailed proposals for a scheme to solve the club’s financial problems by forming it into a limited company with a capital of £15,000 in £5 shares – ‘demutualising’, we would call it today. 95 The committee recommended the plan to the members, who gave it their approval, but after Sedgwick’s death nobody else was keen enough to carry the scheme forward, although no other county considered such a radical move until a century later. Lucas’s election was probably an ex-officio courtesy in recognition of his position as captain, but it was one he could have done without. In three years he did not attend a single committee meeting, even though they were usually held at the offices of C.E.Green’s shipping company, within easy walking distance of his own. Earlier at Surrey and later in his time at Essex he seems to have been a fairly conscientious committee member, so the most likely explanation is pressure of business, and perhaps pressure of the captaincy. Not unreasonably, he then offered his resignation but the secretary was instructed to write and ask him to reconsider. He did reconsider and started to attend committee meetings, though never on a regular basis. Amateur cricketers playing alongside professionals respected their cricketing skills but the amateur committee managed them in a master-servant relationship, which sometimes created a tension in individuals who were fulfilling both roles. Percy Perrin ‘preferred not to be on the committee as he was still playing for the county team’, 96 but Lucas and others sought to reconcile the two roles. An intriguing episode from 1902 indicates where his sympathies lay. 113 Lucas in his later years, as an Essex committee man. 95 This chapter based on ECCC minutes, 1886-1913. 96 ECCC minutes, 26 February 1920.