Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

who captained Essex in that match, had twice played alongside Diver for the Gentlemen, and the episode may have stuck in his mind. And yet, on an issue of far greater importance, Lucas apparently followed the committee’s line when it came into dispute with two of Essex’s most respected professionals, Bob Carpenter and Walter Mead. Though conducted separately, with Carpenter in 1902 and Mead in 1903, the two disputes had very similar causes. Both were deeply disappointed with the proceeds of their benefits, which would have been nowhere near enough to ensure any sort of financial security. Carpenter received only £180 and Mead a mere £137, the lowest ever recorded for an Essex professional. The equivalents in 2010 would be no more than £10,500 and £8,000. Both had financial concerns about their families and wrote threatening to resign if they were not given an increase in their winter pay. Both were unceremoniously dropped from the side, until eventually they had to give in and write grovelling letters before they were reinstated. It cannot have enhanced their sense of fair treatment that, in April 1903, their former captain and so-called amateur, Hugh Owen, received a cheque for 200 guineas and various other gifts, albeit by special subscription. Nor when Green told a special meeting, called to discuss the club’s debt of £1,500 and its possible winding up: ‘If membership continues to fall off and the professionals continue to take this grasping and unpatriotic attitude, what point is there in carrying on?’ These were desperately unhappy episodes from which neither side emerged with any great credit. The editor of Wisden , Sydney Pardon, commented: ‘One cannot help thinking that with a little tact and diplomacy the whole thing might have been got over when it first presented itself.’ Both were fine players at the peak of their powers, but scarcely indispensable, and the committee were right to consider that they were being given an ultimatum. They, in turn, failed to recognise the legitimate grievances of loyal servants in a precarious profession, and forced them into a humiliating climb-down. Essex were in grave financial difficulties, but it would have cost only £20 to grant the requests of Carpenter and Mead, and the club lost far more than that when the poor results of a weakened side led to declining attendances and a further loss of income. 116 Essex committee man, 1890-1912 C.E.Green, shipowner and cricket patron, whose wide interests included fox-hunting. He was an autocratic Master of the Essex Foxhounds, and sometimes treated professional cricketers in a similar way.