Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

Appendix One After Briggs’ death Briggs is buried in Stretford Cemetery, which lies at the end of a typically suburban road – Lime Road – almost exactly two miles from his cricketing home at Old Trafford. The cemetery, which was opened in 1885, is still in use today although there are few spaces still available. Briggs’ grave lies about 150 yards from the chapel which is at the far end of the well-maintained cemetery. The stone is surmounted by a grey stone obelisk which towers over the other graves in its section. Interestingly, the inscription bears the name ‘Johnny Briggs (Jack)’. Briggs is referred to as Jack is in the Hornsea Gazette report of his practice session with W.G.Grace many years earlier. He is also referred to as Jack in some contemporary Test match reports and in reports of his rugby exploits at Widnes. It is more than likely that Jack was the name which his wife and family must have called him. Briggs is buried together with his wife Alice, who died in 1914, a daughter, Alice Nora, who survived her mother by only two months, and one of the twins, John Hector, who died in 1951 at the age of 67. At the base of the obelisk are sculptured two crossed bats, three stumps complete with bails, two balls and a Lancashire rose. Stretford Metrolink Station is close to the cemetery and trams – part of Manchester’s light railway system – rattle on past the cemetery at regular intervals. Briggs might have been comforted to know that the next stop on the Altrincham-Bury route is Old Trafford Station, where passengers alight for the famous old cricket ground. A fund was set up on behalf of Briggs’ wife and family after his Leeds seizure, which according to a newspaper of the day, would allow ‘his wife and Mrs Pilling (wife of wicket-keeper Dick Pilling) to carry on the business of Pilling and Briggs, a firm which deals with all athletic wares in Oxford Street, Manchester’. The sum of £740 was raised according to Lancashire’s records. Briggs’ home at 15 Stamford Street, from where the hearse containing his body left on the day of his funeral, is still standing. It is in a fairly nondescript row of terraced houses at the end of After Briggs’ death 93