Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

celebrations of Grace’s fiftieth birthday, but Kortright was still so furious about the events at Leyton that initially he declined the invitation to play. Appropriately, the peacemaker was Lucas who, far from bearing a grudge, demonstrated his Christian faith in action by persuading his young friend to turn out. Nevertheless the feud continued on the field and at first they refused to speak to one another, even when Grace threw the ball to Korty to bowl the first over. Kortright’s bowling was fast and furious in every sense of the phrase and eventually Grace made the first move, asking Korty whether he was fit to continue bowling in the exceptionally hot weather, and normal relations were resumed. Set 296 to win on the final afternoon, the Gentlemen had collapsed to 80 for nine when, at 5.40, Korty joined Grace, who encouraged him to play his usual game. Korty batted very responsibly and top-scored with 46, but when going for the four that would have given him his 50, was caught off Lockwood’s cleverly disguised slower ball, the third of the last over. The Gentlemen had lost, but he and Grace linked arms to leave the ground to the cheers of the crowd, who would not disperse until their amateur heroes had appeared on the balcony to acknowledge the applause. It may well have been Lucas who encouraged Kortright to return to the side after missing the whole of the 1899 season through injury, and in 1903 to succeed him in the captaincy. Ironically, it was on Lucas’s proposal that the committee unanimously invited Frederick Fane, an even more reluctant captain than Lucas himself, to take over when Kortright stood down after just one year. * * * * * In 1887, having determined to qualify by residence for Essex, Lucas moved with his wife to Westfield, Broomfield Road, Chelmsford. He rented the house from another Uppingham man, a fellow member of the Rovers, C.E.Ridley, who lived nearby at The Elms. A member of the noted Essex brewing family, Ridley was a committee member who had played a few non-first-class games for the county with conspicuous lack of success. The 1891 census shows that Bunny and Bessie lived in some comfort, with her sister and three servants. After selling Loseberry, his mother and sister moved to Scravels, a large house in Broomfield, close to Bunny. His mother died there in 1902, aged 86. In 1892 the King Edward VI Grammar School moved from its cramped premises at Duke Street in Chelmsford to a new site next door to Westfield. The school took over Westfield for use as a preparatory school in 1924 which was the year after Lucas’s death, but he moved away around 1902 so that was presumably a coincidence. The Lucases were still at Westfield in 1901, but a year or two later the rector of Fryerning left the parish. The new rector chose to live in the Bunny, Korty and Fryerning, 1885-1923 123