Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

114 Postscript under the management of John Wisden, and formed a new professional body, the United South of England Eleven. This schism seriously weakened the United Eleven and it limped on for several seasons before its demise. Clarke’s AEE continued, but fixtures grew fewer and probably the arrival of the Australians in 1878 saw its virtual closure. The USEE, with W.G.Grace as its star attraction, continued on a low-key basis for some further years. Nottinghamshire, insofar as inter-county cricket was concerned, was a shadow of what it ought to have been, given the quality of players available to make up an eleven in the mid-1850s. Surprisingly there were no inter- county matches at Trent Bridge from 1855, when there was a single match against England, Clarke captaining the county until 1860, when Surrey were the visitors. John Johnson, the Nottingham solicitor, effectively took control and one can say a new era began with the first Notts Colts trial at Easter in 1861. When William Clarke assumed control of the Nottingham Old Club in 1830, he had simply continued the modus operandi by which the top level of Nottingham cricket had been run since the 1770s. After he died George Parr followed in his footsteps, but through the 1860s worked in collaboration with the County Cricket Committee created by John Johnson. Once Parr retired, the Committee, elected annually by subscribers to the County Cricket Club, took over the running and financing of representative county teams. Yorkshire county cricket evolved via Sheffield in a similar manner, but almost all the other county sides developed, not through professional players organizing themselves, but through the landed gentry of the county. Alex Picker with William Clarke’s gravestone in West Norwood Cemetery.