Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

Chapter Twenty William Clarke creates the All-England Eleven In the spring of 1846 William Clarke moved from Nottingham to London to take up employment at Lord’s as a ground bowler for MCC members. This placed him in the perfect position, when the MCC season finished at the end of July, to approach players to suggest they join his travelling team to tour the unfashionable but prosperous North of England to take advantage of the rapidly increasing railway network and the industry that had sprung up around it, as described by Charles Dickens in Dombey and Son : ‘There were railway hotels, office-houses, lodging houses, boarding houses, railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottle, sandwich-boxes, and time-tables; railway hackney-coach and cab-stands; railway omnibuses, railway streets and buildings.’ Clarke intended to take his squad around the country to towns and cities where big-match cricket had not yet been seen, playing against teams of up to twenty-two local players. Using the title ‘All-England Eleven’ in order not to upset his masters at MCC who had traditionally managed and paid expenses for previous elevens to represent ‘England’ when asked to do so, Clarke expected to profit from the interest the games were sure to create. In a conversation with James Dark, the proprietor of the Lord’s ground and manufacturer of all forms of cricket equipment, the confident Clarke declared to James Pycroft, who duly reported in The Cricket Field : ‘It is a-going to be, Sir, from one end of the land to the other, you may depend on that; and what is more, it will make good for cricket – it will make good for you as well as me: mark my words, you‘ll sell cart-loads of your balls where you used to sell dozens.’ But cricketers would need not only balls, but bats, hats, shirts, trousers, boots, gloves and leg-guards and it is no surprise that Clarke’s ideas grabbed the interest of Fuller Pilch who saw opportunities to expand his own cricket equipment business, and when the time came he was ready to sign up for the tour. But first there was a normal cricket season to play. Fuller and his nephew began their season playing for the Kent Club on 25 May at the Beehive Ground in Walworth, home of the South London Club. William’s top score of 28 out of 72 in the second innings was not enough to avoid defeat by 41 runs. Three days later Fuller and Martingell were in the home side at Gravesend in an unfinished match against the Islington Albion Copenhagen Club which had hired Lillywhite, Hillyer, Dean and Dorrinton. The next day, 1 June, all six players were at Lord’s for what was expected to be the most important match of the year. 91