Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

86 of W.G.Grace had been secured as a guaranteed crowd-puller, but in the end the trip was aborted and Australian audiences would have to wait another four years for their first sight of cricket’s leviathan. A similar line-up was suggested by the Sporting Gazette of 12 April 1870, this time as the ‘English Eleven who are to visit America in the autumn’. Again, the main drawcard was to be Grace, supplemented by eleven professionals, including Willsher and five of his former team-mates, but again, the tour never took place and it was two more years before Gloucestershire’s favourite son accompanied a team of amateurs on a jaunt across the Atlantic. For Willsher, his days in the limelight were slowly drawing to a close, and despite the ego boost provided by these invitations, it was time to think of a future beyond the cricketing stage. After two decades playing for his beloved Kent, it was only right that something should be done to mark the occasion. Sure enough, ‘a select circle of friends’ gathered on the evening of 22 December 1869 for the presentation of a ‘handsome’ gold watch and chain at the Queen’s Head, run by Robert Willsher’s son William, in Borough, the area just south of London Bridge. ‘Long may he live to wear it’, said Bell’s Life . Although this was a fine gesture, surely the ‘Lion of Kent’ was worth more than this after twenty years of unstinting service? Fortunately, the Kent committee agreed, the minutes of 27 January 1871 recording that it had allowed him ‘to announce his benefit at Lord’s as being under the patronage of Kent CCC.’ This meant that, if for instance the weather intervened in his benefit match, the county would be inclined to help out by arranging a replacement fixture at a local venue. This was crucial in the days when the proceeds from one match, rather than a year- long series of events, formed the bulk of the beneficiary’s takings. Edgar was to have every reason to be grateful for his county’s backing, for the weather was indeed unkind when ‘The Married’ turned out at Lord’s against ‘The Single’ on 10 July 1871. The rain only allowed two, frequently interrupted, days of play, and on the second day the outfield was under water at times. Although the spectators were treated to a classic 189 not out by W.G., carrying his bat, there was simply not enough cricket to create a substantial testimonial fund. Even if the weather had relented, the Sporting Gazette , forthright as ever, thought the enterprise was doomed from the start: It is our opinion that Willsher’s benefit match was a mistake. It is simply incomprehensible that any man of experience in cricket should have supposed that a match between the Married and Single of England (let us be grandiose or Winding Down