Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of individuals and organisations who helped my research in many ways, including tracking down and supplying copies of various newspaper reports of matches: Mick Pope, Wombwell Cricket Lovers’ Society; Willie Sugg, Cambridgeshire cricket historian; Colin Munford, Suffolk County Cricket Association historian; Julian Lawton-Smith, Oxfordshire cricket historian; David Robertson, curator, Kent County Cricket Club; Pauline Chapman, Horningtoft Heritage Society; Jeanette Earl, Canterbury Christ Church University; Peter Henderson, King’s School, Canterbury; Rhiannon Markless, independent researcher at the National Archives Centre; Anne Thorburn and Christopher Hall, Canterbury Library; Sheila Malloch and Ali Heaps at the Cathedral Archives, Canterbury; Craig Bowen at the Canterbury City Museum and Neil Robinson at the MCC Library at Lord’s. Staff at Bromley Library, the British Library, the East Kent Archives Centre, Maidstone Reference Library and West Malling Library have been most helpful. My thanks also to Philip Bailey, Roger Moulton and Duncan McLeish who have contributed statistical and classical knowledge to the text; and Terry Taylor at Bury St Edmunds who helped me kick-start the book by providing all of the research for his article in Cricket Lore and details of the bi-centenary celebrations of the birth of Fuller Pilch organised by the Horningtoft Heritage Society. I must express particular thanks to Peter Wynne-Thomas at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, who read the first draft of the text and identified inconsistencies, errors and omissions that needed to be corrected. Special thanks are also due to David Jeater for his encouragement, suggestions and calm but firm guidance through to completion. Zahra Ridge has designed the cover; Peter Griffiths has attended to the time-consuming task of typesetting and has overseen the production process; Roger Mann, Steve Lewis and Canterbury City Museum have helped with the illustrations; Kit Bartlett and David Kelly have brought their proofreading expertise to bear. My thanks to them all. B.R. 134