Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

59 and 23 Honourables. When Clarke arrived as a professional in 1846, the total MCC membership was 494. The three major inter-public schools matches, as well as the University match, were played on Lord’s Ground, which meant that many of the participants in those games became MCC members, and thus the prestige of the Club was maintained and enhanced. The principal cricket fixtures of the 1840s were the Gentlemen v Players matches. In reality, as is illustrated by the fact that Clarke was not invited to participate until 1846, the majority of those taking part were either MCC members or professionals engaged on the ground, so the two teams did not necessarily contain all the best available talent. Any member of the public who wished to watch the best players of the time in anything other than the very occasional match, needed to visit Lord’s. Denison’s Cricketers’ Companion covering the season of 1846 proves just how dominant MCC and Lord’s were in cricketing terms. His review of the season devotes some 14 pages to MCC and Lord’s-based matches and just a single page to ‘other cricket clubs’ ( i.e. the rest of the British Isles). By the very creation of the All-England Eleven, with its star players and the publicity gained through touring England and later Scotland, Clarke broke the MCC stranglehold on pukka cricket and made the sport a truly national game. Clarke enabled the general public to see the great players of the time and a lucky few in each locality – usually twenty-two young hopefuls – could actually test their cricketing ability against England’s best. Local newspapers gave extensive coverage to these All-England matches, so even those who were unable to see the cricket itself could read about it. How and why was Clarke inspired to create this cricketing innovation? Professor West’s book The Elevens of England is the major work on the subject of Clarke’s team and the later teams set up as rivals, but in discussing Clarke’s initial concept Professor West states only that Clarke’s scheme ‘had matured in the same year’ (in which he came to Lord’s). However, looking at the broader picture, the economy had grown rapidly in the previous four years, with industry doing particularly well. Of course Clarke would not have had any detailed figures and the statistics for the 1840s which are in circulation at the present time have been retrospectively estimated. But he would have known that business confidence, especially in industrial towns, was high and signs were propitious. (As it happens, from 1848 to 1852 the UK economy went into recession, although industry was less adversely affected than other sectors.) Having been a publican for over 25 years, Clarke would have been only too aware of the ebb and flow in sales, as well as the success or otherwise of ‘leisure events’ staged by his fellow publicans. There seem to be no extant letters or other manuscript documents that might throw light on how Clarke thought up and organized his brainchild. The first reference to the All-England Eleven in the newspapers seems to be in July 1846 in the Sheffield press, announcing that the match in Sheffield would begin on 31 August. I am of the opinion that Clarke decided on testing out his scheme as a result of the success of the match between England and XIV of Nottinghamshire played at Trent Bridge in September Leaving Trent Bridge