Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

52 together, not quite in mortal combat, but by contractual terms which are referred to somewhat vaguely in the Hampshire Committee minutes. On 14 November 1900, Dr Bencraft had reported that Buck would play as a professional receiving £3 3s 0d (£3.15) a week, plus talent money. In February 1902, when he was intending to return to South Africa to represent his country against Australia, the Committee agreed to the terms which he had put forward: £40 a month, together with his second-class return fare and a formal agreement had been drawn up by October. A year later he was re-engaged. Early in 1904, Abe Bailey wrote to the county asking that Llewellyn should play for that season’s South African tourists in as many matches as possible; the quite terse response was that Hampshire would let him off for only four fixtures. (As it transpired he played in six.) At some time over the following three years, Buck asked for and received at least one loan from the club, for at the start of 1907 the Committee resolved to grant him ‘a further £50 free of interest’, but only if he agreed to wait until 1908 for his benefit match. By May, the Committee had discovered that he had also entered into a further agreement with MCC without the sanction of the county, but he was allowed to continue. In November 1907, he was allocated the Kent match as a benefit, beginning on 30 July 1908 and a benefit sub-committee was appointed. Money, or the lack of it, was clearly an issue between Llewellyn and the club; as the termination of his current engagement on 1 July 1908 approached – readers will note that the date of his benefit came after his contract had expired – the Committee turned their minds to his future. Even as the detailed arrangements for his benefit match were being worked out, there was a general feeling that the club was unable to carry on his current agreement after its expiration. The conclusion is that after his great initial success with the county and the overwork which resulted, he was a discontented player, not always fit, and stretched to support his growing family financially, but his innate skill enabled him to produce top-class performances frequently enough to keep the county Committee, if not his captain, interested. He cannot have been entirely a happy man over those middle years with Hampshire, yet he continued to set a fine example in the field and his services as a coach to his colleagues remained invaluable. Reveillé