Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

draws particular attention to ‘a red-brick house with a small paved court-yard in front, which anybody might have known belonged to the attorney’ and this may have been his acknowledgement of the importance of the part played in the development of Town Malling as a famous cricket club by local solicitor Thomas Selby. Moving on to the cricket field Pickwick found ‘The wickets were pitched, and so were a couple of marquees for the rest and refreshment of the contending parties.’ In his entertaining description of a typical game of cricket in the 1830s, Dickens certainly captured the spirit of good-humoured rivalry between two clubs of the time based only a mile or two apart, particularly when he moves on to dinner at the Blue Lion Inn where the victors All-Muggleton entertain the players of Dingley Dell and Mr Pickwick and his friends. Back in the real world, Fuller began his season on 6 and 7 June at Lord’s for MCC where his 15 out of 35 and 37 out of 110 could not stop Sussex winning by five wickets. This was the first match in the MCC scorebooks which had the addition of the bowler’s names when a catch, stumping or lbw was made. It would take a few years but eventually this would become the practice at every club and bowling figures could be recorded in greater detail. Two weeks later, Fuller was engaged again by Benenden to play a two-day game against Kent at Hemsted Park, home of the West Kent MP, Twisden Hodges. It was one of those matches played on a private estate set up by wealthy benefactors that Fuller always enjoyed. Fred Gale reported him in The Game of Cricket as saying: Town Malling and Mr Pickwick 50 Commemorative plaque at the Town Malling cricket ground in Norton Road. Kent played, in all, fourteen first-class matches here, including ten involving Fuller Pilch from 1836 to 1841. West Malling village sign erected in 1986, depicting the village cricket match in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. The bowler resembles Alfred Mynn and the batsman may be Felix.