LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

8 Chapter One Early Years in Staffordshire Stafford had been a small market town, just like many others in the Midlands, until the nineteenth century when William Hopton introduced machines for the mass production of shoes and built long rows of terraced houses for his factory workers. That enterprise eventually failed but by the start of the twentieth century it had been replaced by the development of factories in Stafford serving the railway industry and Stafford was a thriving, although predominantly working-class, town once more, augmented by a hard core of lower-middle-class families like the Robins. The 1901 Census records that Harry Robins, a 45-year-old railway clerk, was the ‘head’ of the household at 52 Lichfield Street in Stafford. He and his wife Leticia, aged 40, had three sons and three daughters living with them. The eldest son was Vivian (20), a postal clerk, and his two younger brothers were Veral (19), a railway clerk, and Vernon (15). The three girls were Vera (17), Gwen (12) and Valeria (7). By 1901, Vivian was already a cricket-playing member of the Stafford Cricket Club. The club played at The Hough which they leased from the King Edward VI Grammar School. Tennis courts were available to full members paying an annual subscription of one guinea and those courts were to be the scene of an unfortunate incident when a quick-fire angry response to criticism could have seen the end of Vivian’s cricket career at Stafford before it had hardly begun. At a committee meeting on 21 January 1902 it was recorded that A complaint was made by Mr Shaw respecting the conduct of Mr V.H.Robins during the cricket season. Mr Shaw said he had occasion to remonstrate with Mr Robins in playing lawn tennis, Mr Robins not being a guinea subscriber, and alleged that Mr Robins used bad language towards him. Having heard the complaint, it was resolved, on the motion of Mr J.Hall, seconded by Mr R.H.Webb, that a letter should be written to Mr Robins informing him that unless he apologised to Mr Shaw by letter he would be expelled from the club. At the Annual General Meeting of the club at the Alexandra Hotel in Stafford a week later the matter had been resolved, whether by retraction of the original complaint or by written apology is not recorded. What was recorded was the election of Mr Shaw to the position of treasurer and the election of Vivian to the committee where future minutes would confirm that they both met at regular intervals without rancour. In the summer of 1904 Vivian won the batting prize of a new bat, value twenty-one shillings, for coming top of the batting averages. His father, Harry Robins, was elected member of the club that year and at the next A.G.M. was voted on