Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

35 Chapter Four Portsmouth and Patagonia By the beginning of 1900 Kate and Hex were busy with a good deal of writing, for Hex mainly the various write-ups of the Haiti venture. He usually got a lot of material out of his trips, writing them up in both academic and popular form, but they were also continuing to write stories for the magazines, some of which re-emerged as books . Kate says that in 1900, Hex played a lot of cricket and was in the Hampshire team. In fact, on 24 May 1900 he made his first-class debut for Hampshire against Somerset at Bath. He had played on 15 May for the Allahakbarries against the Artists, 18 taking six wickets, but it would not necessarily have seemed the best preparation for first-class cricket. Though Kate had mentioned it in passing, it is not clear how he could have been qualified to play for Hampshire. The county qualification rules had been agreed in 1873. Because of his birth in India, their key provision as far as Hex was concerned, was Rule 3 which, from 1 January 1900, read: A cricketer is qualified to play for any county in which he has resided for the previous 24 months and is residing but: (a) the mere acquisition or hiring of a tenement, unless used as a bona fide home does not constitute ‘residence’; (b) the occupation of a tenement during the cricket season only does not constitute ‘residence’ Hex had been living in Horsham in Sussex in 1896 and 1897 and at some point in 1900 went over, with Kate, to Jersey. Then later in the year Kate had a cable from Mr Dewing in Horsham to say that the tenant they had let the house to when they left for South America had walked out, and Kate returned to England, leaving La Plata on 24 October, so it seems fairly clear that they had not taken anywhere in Hampshire: indeed, though it was let for short spells, they kept the house in Horsham until late in 1901. Certainly there was nowhere in Hampshire that could be described as a ‘family home’, which might have given him a qualification under the old rules which were superseded at the beginning of 1900. As we have seen, Hex and his mother were particularly footloose, largely because there was no family home. Hex’s father had been born in Hereford, but had lived with his aunt before being posted to India; so perhaps even he had nowhere to go to. There was some rumbling about this issue over the years, though nobody seems to have bothered about Hex, but it was 1914 before MCC seemed to become really concerned, circulating counties about ‘the breaking of the laws of county qualifications by amateurs’ and suggesting the establishment of a register. Certainly the rules were enforced more 18 Telfer, p.179 .