Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

the Norfolk wickets between them. This would be his last appearance for Norfolk for whom his career record in 21 matches was 886 runs with an average of 26.85, plus 44 wickets. It was also elder brother William’s last game for Norfolk for whom he had appeared on 20 occasions, scoring 160 runs with an average of 4.40 and taken 56 wickets. 13 After their match at Leeds, the All-England tourists had over a week to spare before their next game at Newcastle-upon-Tyne starting on 20 September. Viscount Milton invited them to spend it at his vast country house, Wentworth House near Rotherham. Bell’s Life reported: A most joyous and a most English-like week it was; for, in the first place, whilst the hospitable board of the noble earl each day – it may almost be said each hour – groaned beneath every substantial delicacy of the season, so in the second was there so marked a personal attention on behalf of the members of the family towards them as was not merely extremely gratifying to all, but that at once convinced them they were welcome partakers of their lordships’ munificence. Whilst the gentlemen of the Eleven [Mynn, Felix, Pell, Townley and Macawin] were received and regaled in the drawing and the dining-rooms with the family, the professional players had one of the large halls in Wentworth House appropriated for their use. Beds, too, were also set apart for each of the Eleven, the umpires, and the scorers under the roof of this splendid mansion. Not surprisingly, Fuller rushed up from Norfolk to take advantage of the hospitality that was on offer. There was a lawn in front of the house, part of Humphry Repton’s park landscape, which the magazine reported as ‘210 yards in length, and comprises between 14 and 15 acres of beautiful turf. This spot has been devoted by the noble earl to the purposes of cricket.’ A match was arranged between a team captained by Viscount Milton himself, against a team captained by his brother the Hon Charles Fitzwilliam, splitting Clarke’s squad between them and including some members of the Wentworth House club that had played there regularly. Bell’s Life reported that, once the game got under way, ‘Earl Fitzwilliam, and the Honourable Ladies Fitzwilliam, Lady Milton, and a string of company, occupied chairs upon the lawn, whilst there were a considerable number of visitors who ranged themselves around the scene of action.’ Milton’s side collapsed all out for 78 with Fuller unbeaten on 37. They had just avoided following on in reply to Fitzwilliam’s 174 who then rattled up another 154 to lead by 250, but there was no time for Milton’s side to bat again and the match was left unfinished. Fuller and the All-England players then went off to play their match at Newcastle against Twenty of Newcastle followed immediately by a match at Stockton-on-Tees against Twenty-Two of Stockton and North Yorkshire. As soon as that game ended Fuller and half-a-dozen others, including The new St Lawrence Ground 99 13 Eldest brother Nathaniel had retired three years earlier after scoring 267 runs with an average of 10.27 and taken five wickets in 15 matches for Norfolk.