Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

110 alive. He was buried in the South Metropolitan Cemetery, West Norwood on 30 August, when the Eleven were fulfilling a fixture at Hull. William Clarke died intestate and there seems to be no way of discovering the value of his estate, but since no stone was erected to mark his burial place it would appear likely that William Clarke left little money and that his son, Alfred, was not a person of means in 1856. When I went in search of Clarke’s grave in the 1960s, I found a wilderness of weeds and brambles but no headstone. Some ten years ago this lack of any positive marking of Clarke’s last resting place in the cemetery was remedied by Alex Picker, a young enthusiast employed at the time by Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, and due solely to his efforts money was raised to produce and erect a suitable memorial there. The Last Summers Seek and ye shall find. The author failing to identify William Clarke’s unmarked grave at West Norwood in 1969.