Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

15 cousin Martin had died young with what was diagnosed as heart trouble. In 1893 Kate moved up to Edinburgh: it was Hex who had gone out at Easter, found a ‘main-door’ flat in Torphichen Street, gone to the lawyer who had it in his charge and agreed a price: quite mature for a 16-year-old. Kate says that it was a bargain as they sold it for twice as much in 1897! Where the money came from in the first place is a mystery, as all their previous properties had been rented. The tenements of Torphichen Street are still there, handsome four-storey dwellings. At Fettes Hex played cricket in the summer and shot in the winter, buying his first gun at the age of eleven and, according to Kate, smuggling it into school. He may have done some schoolwork as well, though Hamilton Fyfe says at Fettes there was no compulsion to work, little coaxing even, between the first form and the sixth. 7 In fact in 1890 we find one of his masters, Mr Harrison, suggesting that Prichard is certainly inclined to do more work than he can stand. But a year later his form master is saying he has been a good deal engrossed by cricket, and he was doing badly in form, largely in consequence, lapsing into the dreamy ways natural to such preoccupation of mind … as a punishment for poor work I forbade him to play for a week or so. Scottish cricket had been strong but by the 1890s was falling into administrative chaos. There were essentially just a few Scottish schools on Fettes’ regular fixture list – Glenalmond in Perthshire, Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh, Blair Lodge in Glasgow (the only one which no longer exists), and Loretto, also in Edinburgh. Loretto was the needle match, but Loretto was a school which placed a much higher emphasis on sporting achievement than Fettes – at Loretto games were a cult. 8 Fettes also played against the occasional club side and of course the Old Fettesians. Although MCC had an extensive series of matches against public-school sides, the club does not seem to have ventured as far north as Scotland. Lillywhite’s recognises Blair Lodge, Loretto and Fettes in its annual reports. The 1893 season was to be the one in which Hex broke through. The Fettesian records a couple of games in May that must effectively have been trial matches. The first was ‘The XI’ against the Second xi and Masters (who batted thirteen). Playing for ‘The XI’, Hex took five wickets in their first innings (three bowled) and three in the second. He then played for Classicals against Moderns: Classicals were beaten by an innings, scoring 55 and 57, to which Hex contributed 0* and 0, but he did take three wickets. The Lillywhite annual actually records two more matches in May, against Brunswick and Edinburgh Teachers, both of them won. These games are absent from The Fettesian . This seems to have been enough to ensure his place, and on 3 June he played for the First XI against Edinburgh Academy, opening the bowling with F.H.Todd. Francis Todd was a couple of years older than Hex and had 7 Quoted in H.F.MacDonald (ed), A Hundred Years of Fettes, T. and A.Constable, 1970. 8 See J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School , Frank Cass, 2000. India, Jersey and Edinburgh