Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

75 clan to play on his own estate, along with the six sons of William Wister, another leading local businessman. The resultant Young America Cricket Club not only kept cricket going during the Civil War when adult players were away on active service, but also nurtured an atmosphere in which new, locally born players were actively encouraged in order to promote the game for the future. Above all, although the young gentlemen had picked up the game from Nottingham weavers settled in the Germantown area of Philadelphia, they took it and turned it into the preserve of the native-born upper classes, thus creating a model that could be sustained in the face of outside pressures. Indeed, according to J.Thomas Jable, by 1870 only about one per cent of members of the four major local clubs were born in the United Kingdom, while eight per cent were white-collar workers. Thus, in stark contrast to New York, a small number of Americans had established a climate in which social standing could be enhanced, rather than diminished, by membership of a cricket club. By 1868, the local scene was very much dominated by the Newhall family. Of the ten brothers, no fewer than seven played for the Young America Club, and there were four in the twenty-two amateurs selected to play in the match beginning the day after the visitors’ arrival. The captain, at 23 the oldest sibling on show, was George, described in these terms by the North American and U.S. Gazette : No-one but those who know would take the pale, quiet looking gentleman … to be the famous cricketer he is. Should he grasp your hand, however, or place you on the field, you would at once acknowledge that he was more than he looked. Charles, who had already shown his mettle in Boston, was eulogised as ‘the fastest bowler in America, if not in the world’; Daniel, a batting allrounder, was ‘the first cricketer in America’; and Robert, only 16, ‘the “spider”, stands a little bit higher than the wickets.’ Overall, Young America was represented by eight players, as was the Philadelphia Club. The remainder of the squad was made up of five from Gentleman, and one I Zingari member. The fledgling Merion Club, founded only in 1865, was not called upon. Nevertheless, the Gazette was happy with the selections, promising that ‘with ordinary skill and nerve we can beat them; if not, we have the players to give them a tight game.’ Philadelphia was to be all work and no play for Willsher and his charges, as the match commenced the day after their arrival in Cricket on the Brain