Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

which is an off-licence. The original outer brickwork and front door does not remain, however, as all the houses in the street appear to have been refurbished. There are two satellite dishes at the front of the house and no acknowledgement whatsoever that a famous cricketer ever lived there. The house is just over a mile from Old Trafford and it would have been a brisk twenty minute walk for Briggs to reach the ground on match days. The Briggs family were neighbours of Emma Pilling, widow of Lancashire wicket-keeper Dick Pilling, who resided two doors away at No.19. Briggs and her husband had been business partners, running a sports outfitters. Dick Pilling pre-deceased Briggs, dying from a lung condition on 28 March, 1891. There was a Jack Briggs – no relation –who played for Lancashire in 1939, making four appearances. In four innings he failed to trouble the scorers, but was never dismissed. He took 10 wickets at an average of 39.10 with a best bowling of 4 for 48 against Derbyshire at Manchester. Briggs appears on a set of 16 stamps issued in 1984 by the Pacific island of Tuvalu along with Arthur Shrewsbury, Hedley Verity and Patsy Hendren. Briggs, who features on two 60 cent stamps, is shown bowling and in portrait form. The island, which issues stamps known by some philatelists as ‘wallpaper’ and which are almost worthless, produced another cricketing set in the same year, featuring Brian Close, Geoffrey Boycott, David Bairstow and Godfrey Evans. Little Johnny Briggs is mentioned along with ‘Monkey’ Hornby and others well-known cricketers of that era by a character in the 1985 book ‘Sherlock Holmes at the 1902 Fifth Test’ by Stanley Shaw. Written after the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the dramatis personae include Lord Hawke, Archie MacLaren, George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes. Shaw, who also wrote ‘Sherlock Holmes meets Annie Oakley’, tells the rather preposterous tale of a young Australian visitor to London who is forced to bat at eleven for England in place of Rhodes in the final Test at The Oval, so that Holmes can solve the mystery of Rhodes’ disappearance on the evening prior to the final day’s play. The Australian ends up 94 After Briggs’ death