Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

39 Portsmouth and Patagonia They went on to play at Worcester, starting on 28 May. Hampshire scored 235; Hex, down to No.11, scored 0. He then returned 11-0-41- 0 as Worcestershire scored 302, did not bat in the second innings as Hampshire declared at 341 for eight, but then took four for 27 in 12 overs in the second innings as Worcestershire ended at 144 for six. At the top of the innings he had clean bowled both Wilkes and Arnold, reducing Worcester to 76 for four. By 30May The Times called him ‘Mr H.Pritchard’. The Manchester Guardian , which called him ‘H.H.Prichard’, said ‘Prichard made the batsmen appear anything but confident, and three wickets fell to him before the total had exceeded 33.’ Immediately the county came back to Southampton for two matches, the first starting on 31 May. In that game, Lancashire scored 411, with Hex, again opening the bowling, taking one for 60 from 21 overs, his one success being Alex Eccles bowled hitting across the line. The Manchester Guardian, possibly a little partisan, said that the Hampshire bowling ‘never strong, was quite unequal to the task of dismissing Lancashire for a reasonable score. Eight members of the home eleven were tried in the course of the day, but no one displayed any special ability.’ Hampshire replied with 251. Hex was not out 10 – his first double-figured score in first-class cricket – and took part in a partnership of 50 for the last wicket with David Steele. Lancashire’s second innings was declared at 203 for four, with Hex conceding 42 runs off his eight overs, and Hampshire’s second innings was 187, Hex out for 0. The Manchester Guardian now called him H.Hesketh-Prichard and appeared to be better informed than The Times . This is therefore perhaps the place to raise the question ‘When did our subject decide to become Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard?’ The answer can only be tentative: it seems that he did not go through any legal procedure to make the change, so there is no specific date to be identified, but the change became most apparent at around the end of May 1900. As Kate was later to call herself Kate O’Brien Hesketh-Prichard, the issue seems to have been to do with authorship. The Hampshire Chronicle gave his name as H.Pritchard on his first appearance for Hampshire but by the fourth match, on 4, 5 and 6 June 1900, he was H.Hesketh-Pritchard (they kept the ‘t’). 24 There was a family story that the change was because there was another writer called Hesketh Prichard, but there is no evidence for this. There could have been confusion with Hesketh Pearson, but he was not known as a writer until a good while later. Double-barrelling seems to have been a vogue: among others, Frederic Meyrick Jones became Frederick Meyrick Meyrick-Jones, changing his name in 1893. He was a regular and successful player with the Allahakbarries and their scorebooks record him scoring two centuries. He had played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and Kent some years before, and later turned out for Norfolk against Suffolk in 1909, scoring 32 and 46*: he had just become headmaster of Gresham’s School, 24 The Wisden almanack for 1901, in reporting on these games, gives his name as ‘Prichard’ in the first two matches and as ‘Hesketh-Prichard’ in the third and fourth. In the season’s averages, compiled after the season’s end, he is simply ‘Prichard’. Whatever his surname the almanack made sure it was preceded by ‘Mr’.