Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

91 Chapter Nine Controversy ‘At a meeting held at the Adelphi Hotel, Sheffield, this 7th day of September, 1852, by the members of the United Eleven of England, it was unanimously resolved, That neither the members of the above Eleven shall at any time play in any cricket match, for or against, wherein William Clarke may have the management or control (county matches excepted), in consequence of the treatment they have received from him at Newmarket and elsewhere. John Wisden, James Dean, Thomas Adams, Thomas Hunt, George Grainger Brown, John Lillywhite, Thomas Nixon, George Picknell, Samuel Dakin, George Chatterton, Thomas Lockyer, James Grundy, Thomas Sherman, Henry Wright.’ Exactly what happened at Newmarket seems never to have been revealed. To go back a month or two, John Wisden and James Dean had decided between themselves to set up a rival to Clarke’s All-England Eleven. Both were Sussex professionals. Wisden himself had played in 31 of the 34 AEE matches in 1851, including all the last batch of games. In 1852 he became the professional coach at Harrow School and, whilst he and Parr still were lessees of the ground in Leamington, it doesn’t seem certain that he continued to live in that town. As a resident he had played for North v South, but in 1852 he appeared for South v North at The Oval on 1 and 2 July. He continued to take part in the few Sussex matches of the season. His co-conspirator, Dean, was a ground bowler at Lord’s from 1837 to 1861; and although he played in the All-England Eleven in its early days, he (apart from two matches) was not seen in Clarke’s side after 1848. On 26, 27 and 28 August 1852 the All-England Eleven played on the new ground at Hereford Racecourse, whilst on the same dates, Wisden and Dean staged their first United All-England Eleven match on Day’s Ground at Itchen versus Twenty Gentlemen of Hampshire. Two of Clarke’s team from the match at Teignbridge earlier in the week, Thomas Adams and James Grundy, deserted Clarke for the Wisden/Dean combination. Neither could be described as integral parts of Clarke’s side. Adams had not played for the AEE in any games in 1851 and Grundy, although making his AEE debut in 1851, appeared in only ten of the 34 matches. As Professor West states in his book The Elevens of England, the impression given by some historians that Clarke treated most of his players so callously that they moved almost en bloc into the Wisden/Dean camp is clearly a misconception. Aside from Grundy, Adams, Wisden and Dean, of the other nine original members of the United Eleven, viz Lockyer, Chatterton, Wright, Sampson, G.G.Brown, John Lillywhite, F.P.Miller, Picknell and Nixon, only Chatterton had much connection to the AEE and he ceased to