Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

88 ‘enable the beneficiaire to embark in some lucrative business.’ Edgar could be well satisfied with an amount that compared very favourably with the benefits of contemporaries like Tom Emmett (£616) and Edward Pooley (£400), but he would have to make wise investment decisions when he retired to ensure that he did not end up in the workhouse like the former Surrey keeper. In practice, the most likely options open to him were being a publican or a sports goods outfitter, while keeping up a connection with the professional game in some way. This usually entailed umpiring or coaching, and both were something Willsher had already had ample experience of during his long career. In addition to his stint with Lord Enville, he was engaged as a professional by Manchester’s Broughton club in 1859, and there are numerous instances of him coaching at public schools and both of the major universities. In May 1862, Bell’s Life records him playing in a practice match against Rugby School, along with others, such as Cambridgeshire’s ‘Ducky’ Diver, who would have supplemented their income for a few precious weeks by bringing on the next generation of gentleman cricketers. He also merits a brief, but hardly flattering, mention in William Patterson’s Sixty Years of Uppingham Cricket : … the ‘coach’ who came in 1868, and again in 1870, was well known in the cricketing world … no doubt Willsher did his duty, but his ministrations being short, and confined to a period of three weeks of cold weather, and on the soft wickets to be expected so early in the season, little permanent impression was left on the cricket of the school … Willsher’s fee was £5 per week with travelling expenses. Finally, a tantalising and poignant glimpse of this hand-to-mouth existence comes in the form of two entries in the census of April 1871. The first records Sarah Willsher living with sons Ernest and Edgar junior, and daughters Edith and Alice, at 115 Upper Fant, Maidstone, probably the last family home before a move to Lewisham. The second shows Edgar boarding at 46 High Street, Marlborough, and the most logical conclusion is that he was coaching at the local school, although no records survive from that time. The harsh reality for Willsher and millions like him was that he would literally have to continue working until he dropped, trying every means possible to keep himself and his family afloat. Although his summer incomemay just have been enough to sustain them through the winter, he would not have been in a position Winding Down