Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

51 Thomas Chamberlayne, better known in yachting circles and a large landowner in Hampshire, was making an attempt to revive the cricketing fortunes of his county. He was responsible for financing the Hampshire side to Trent Bridge, which side played a match at Lord’s before travelling north. Hampshire’s game with MCC was a close-fought affair, though principally due to the talents of Fenner, the Cambridge professional. At Trent Bridge, Redgate, Barker and Clarke were too much for Hampshire – they lost by an innings. The return contest at Day’s Ground remains memorable as the only ‘major’ county contest in which a batsman was allowed to bat twice in each innings. Francis Noyes was permitted to have his innings and then bat again in place of Thomas Barker, whose leg, as we noted earlier, had been broken when he leapt from a runaway hansom cab crossing London to change trains. Nottinghamshire included the Rev Henry Maltby in their eleven. A later brief notice on Maltby states: ‘He was a feeble bat and poor bowler, and rumour has it that he was indebted to a douceur to old Clarke for his appearances for the County.’ Abram Bass also played, presumably to defray expenses, and Notts won by 39 runs. On the return from Southampton, Nottinghamshire played MCC at Lord’s – Notts included E.S.E.Hartopp, a member of MCC, in their team, probably on the grounds that his father was the incumbent at West Leake. Sussex were only played once, on 18, 19 and 20 September, at Trent Bridge. Ten days prior to the match taking place, the press reported: ‘For the Benefit of Clarke – Mr F.Noyes is the Treasurer of the Committee formed to organize the game.’ This therefore was the first Nottinghamshire inter-county match staged for a player’s benefit. The report on the match itself notes that Butler Parr and Sam Parr declined to play, John Chapman and John Gilbert taking their places. Gilbert hit 91 which stood for 16 years as the highest individual innings for Notts − he was never to approach this total again in county games. Clarke took twelve Sussex wickets and victory was by an innings. I was unable to find a report on the financial returns to Clarke of the match. Denison’s 1844 Cricketer’s Companion publishes averages for 1843 after the match scores. Clarke finishes eighth in the ‘Batters’ list with 11 innings and 170 runs and top of the ‘Slow Bowlers’ list with 36 wickets, average 5 and 1/7 per match. Denison includes the two Sheffield matches in his statistics, even though his match scores section omits not only the Sheffield game at Trent Bridge, but also the Trent Bridge game v Hampshire. Judged by Denison’s figures, the only all-rounder with better statistics than Clarke in 1843 was Alfred Mynn. Clarke was not chosen for ‘England’ in the five important matches played under that title (mainly England selected by MCC) or for the Gentlemen v Players match at Lord’s, which, based on Denison’s figures, would appear rather remiss of MCC. It is important to consider Denison’s statistics, rather than those compiled later using a different set of matches – the cricket followers of 1843 would obviously judge the merits of players by the figures published at the time. Not a single Nottinghamshire match was organized by Clarke in 1844. Denison’s Cricketer’s Companion covering the 1844 season includes the following passage, written in April 1845, in the author’s review of the Fate Takes a Hand