Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

14 Montague draws the background of Mitcham, cricket and gypsies: The mid-Victorian period was recalled with obvious nostalgia by a number of old Mitcham residents who recorded their memories in the 1920s. Cricket was the great game, played on the Lower Green by all classes. Mitcham vied with Hambledon for the distinction of being the cradle of club cricket in the 18 th century, and by the 1830s and ’40s could field a team fit to take on all comers. The annual fair, held on 12, 13 and 14 August on the Upper Green, 15 was regarded as an event of considerable antiquity and looked forward to by many. Gypsies, attracted by the fair and the prospect of employment in the herb gardens came to Mitcham in droves after the Epsom races. Dozens of their colourful caravans and tents could often be seen on the Common, where they made their own entertainment with impromptu horse racing and bare knuckle fights. Many were to settle in Mitcham, finding permanent sites for their vans in the yards off Western Road, and in the neighbourhood of Phipps Bridge, nicknamed ‘Redskin Village’. 16 At times, some of the gypsy population operated at the margins of legality, as when one of their number was found guilty by local magistrates of acting as a pedlar without a licence and obtaining threepence by fraud and false pretences. 17 Tom was educated at the ‘National School for the Education of the Poor according to the Principles of the Church of England’, located close to the Lower Green. Because of increasing numbers of children, especially after 15 The customary site of the fair until 1924 when it was relocated on the ‘Three Kings’ Piece’ 16 Mitcham – A Pictorial History – pages are unnumbered. 17 Wimbledon Times 17 August 1889 Mitcham Mitcham Green: the first mention of cricket being played there is 1685.