Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

89 to refuse local employment when it arose. After his sojourn at his cousin’s pub in Borough, this may well have included working for his brother William, who, in Melville’s Maidstone Directory of 1858, is described as a wine and spirit merchant and landlord of the George Inn on Gabriel’s Hill. Whether he continued working in the trade after his brother’s death in 1861 is not recorded, but once his benefit had been realised in 1871 he could surely afford one winter off, especially as he was just about to embark on the last big challenge of his career. On 16 December 1871, the Sporting Gazette announced that ‘Willsher would be available for only two of his county matches and their returns, as he had been engaged as manager and principal bowler for the Prince’s ground, Brompton.’ 19 The entrepreneurial brothers George and James Prince had established a social club just north of Milner Street in Chelsea in about 1850, erecting rackets and real tennis courts in 1853. Always with an eye for the main chance, in 1869 the brothers took the lease of an adjoining 13 acre site from the Cadogan Estate to create a cricket ground, croquet lawn and skating rink. With over 700 members from the upper echelons of society, this was a fashionable resort for the London élite, and Edgar would have been comparatively well paid. It was no sinecure, though. Alfred Lubbock, writing in his Memories of Eton and Etonians , made it clear what Willsher was up against: The two Princes themselves knew absolutely nothing about the game of cricket. Many were the amusing remarks they made on the subject, and although I did my best to persuade them that if they wanted good attendance and gate money, they must produce good cricket, they didn’t see it, and thought a band and ‘soldier’s cricket’ was the acme of perfection in this line, and would command a big assembly. As it was, at most of the matches a whole bevy of duchesses and dowagers came down nominally to see the cricket; but, as a rule, they sat with their backs to the game, watching their daughters skating on the asphalte, in happy ignorance all the time that a good hit might at any time catch them full in the small of the back. Despite the Princes’ best efforts, first-class cricket was indeed played on the ground for the first time in May 1872, when the North took on the South. Edgar played for the South, but he had no time to contribute, as the game was washed out after the first 19 Willsher was one of several professional ground bowlers engaged by the Princes between 1872 and 1878, and was identified in Wisden as their ‘captain’. Winding Down