Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Chapter Ten Essex captain, 1889-1894 Lucas’s Times obituary summarised his county career thus: ‘In county cricket Mr Lucas had a varied experience. He came out in 1874 for Surrey, played some years later for Middlesex, and finally in 1889, with the view of helping his life-long friend, Mr C.E.Green, threw in his lot with Essex.’ His Warnham Court namesakes and his wife’s family both lived in Sussex, so there must have been some possibility that he would qualify to play for that county. It was therefore quite a coup for Green when he enticed such a famous and experienced batsman to the minor county of Essex, although Lucas perhaps benefited from a revival of his enthusiasm for the game, as well as doing Green a favour. In 1887 he signalled his intentions by moving to a house near Chelmsford and turning out for the Gentlemen of Essex, for whom he hit 151 against Shoebury Garrison. The Essex club that Lucas joined was founded in 1876, on the initiative of James Round, MP for East Essex and Lord of the Manor of Birch, a village near Colchester. Records and newspaper reports of its first six seasons reveal a leisurely gentlemen’s club that was largely amateur and amateurish in its organisation. The club’s rapid transformation was due chiefly to Green, who in 1883 was elected captain and chairman. Irascible when crossed, but whole-hearted in all that he did, this wealthy shipowner brought to his native county the same charm, drive and generosity that had benefited his old school, Uppingham. Of his many initiatives, the most significant was to move the club’s headquarters ground from the then sleepy town of Brentwood to the bustling suburb of Leyton, in the 1880s the most rapidly growing part of the country. At that time, the first-class counties made no formal arrangements among themselves for deciding the champion county, which was therefore acclaimed by the sporting press, not always unanimously. In December 1889, after a three-way tie in the Championship, a meeting of the secretaries of the eight first-class counties voted to introduce a simple system whereby the points total was calculated by deducting losses from wins. Meanwhile, other counties were working towards entering the Championship. To encourage this, the newly-appointed editor of Wisden , Charles Pardon, published a ‘Second-Class Counties Competition’ table, starting with the 1888 season. Evidently his ideas gained currency quickly, for as early as June 1888 the Walthamstow Guardian referred to ‘a match between these second-class counties’ (Essex and Leicestershire). There was no formal management committee responsible for running the second- 88