Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

6 Preface Straight chronological treatment of a life as multi-faceted as Walter Read’s would result in something of a pig’s breakfast. I have therefore chosen a more thematic approach in an attempt to demonstrate how his family background and early involvement in education contributed to an ethos of self-improvement and an awareness of the place he assumed was his right in the class-ridden society of the late nineteenth century. David Sawyer writes that his birth and parentage are enshrouded in middle-class obscurity. 1 That is no longer the case, if indeed it ever was. Contemporary profiles state that he was the son of a schoolmaster, but the increased ease of accessibility of Censuses of Population and genealogical websites reveal a whole family background from his grandfather to his siblings steeped in education long before the 1870 Education Act introduced an element of compulsion. No treatment of Read’s life can ignore his prolific batting record, especially his Test match century, his (at the time) individual innings record for his county and his back-to-back first-class double centuries, but for completeness it is also important to include his grass-roots experience, of which he never lost sight, and his role as a player and administrator with the Reigate Priory Club. The role of Assistant Secretary in the Oval office (not the one in Washington DC), while self-evidently a fig-leaf barely concealing de facto professionalism, was not quite the sinecure it might first appear. Allied with his teaching and administrative experience in Reigate, it equipped him with the skills of a shrewd and calculating negotiator capable of extending his playing career by a couple of years and maximising the financial benefits. His writing and coaching complete the peripherals which form the wrapper round a career in first-class cricket significant on the field for brilliant batsmanship and off it for a successful attempt to establish and maintain a position in society. Money and what could be bought with it were important to Walter Read. The purchasing power of the pound in 1885, approximately the mid-point of his career was the equivalent of about £80 today. Keith Booth November 2011 1 A Century of Surrey Stumpers p 29