Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

22 field to ensure comprehensive victories over unsuspecting visitors and by his behaviour as a spectator at ‘his’ matches. Many examples of his tendency to put unnecessarily strong sides into the field are given below in chapters three and four – but there is also a ‘debunking’ of a story, written in The Cricketer by Evelyn Metcalfe (supposedly a friendly source) which lampoons Robinson but which is, in fact, a complete fabrication. This might seem to suggest that Lionel was to some extent a victim of his own notoriety; having established a not unearned reputation for poor behaviour, other stories from less reliable sources might well have clung to him (much like they did to Fred Trueman, 50 years later) and made him appear rather more a figure of derision than he merited. 22 The case for Robinson has been rather swamped by the weight of evidence against him. Tom Walshe describes him as ‘a generous host and a loyal, if demanding, employer who fell in love with Old Buckenham and became a respected figure in the village and county’. Reference has already been made in the introduction to his hospitality, especially to cricketers visiting from abroad, and chapter seven will include an account of his funeral, which ‘his’ villagers attended in droves. A few years earlier, household servants and estate workers had mingled with well-heeled guests at the wedding reception of his daughter Viola at London’s Claridges. He may have been a ruthless businessman and no blushing violet, but he was no monster and seemed to inspire affection in those who knew him well. Unsurprisingly, Australian sources are much kinder to their compatriot, one describing him as: ‘a good-natured, pleasant man, free of any suggestion of swank’. Buying and rebuilding the estate at Old Buckenham The owner of the Old Buckenham estate before Lionel Robinson was Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, who had been resident in Old Buckenham Hall since 1897. He was the second son of the Maharajah Duleep Singh, the King of Punjab, who had six children in all. His father had been deposed by the British authorities while still a minor and brought to England in 1854. Prince Freddy, whose guardian had been Queen Victoria, developed a liking for Norfolk and spent most of his life in the county. The country house at Old Buckenham was built in Georgian times and Prince Freddy had extensive alterations made. The estate ran to 340 acres and contained stables, pleasure gardens, shrubberies and extensive woodland areas. Within the grounds there were four farms and numerous other smallholdings. He held an annual dinner party for his tenants and also for the owners of adjoining lands which he hired to shoot. He might also have had a cricket ground made at the rear of the hall, but the relation of this shadowy ground to that used by the villagers and to those constructed by Robinson remains unclear. Prince Freddy seems to have been a perfectionist and was far from happy with the formal gardens that he had laid out, stating in 1904: ‘Nothing 22 Ironically, Lionel’s family can trace their ancestors back as far as the 11th century and so, while Lionel might have behaved as if he was ‘new money’ he had a very distinguished set of forerunners indeed. Robinson comes to Norfolk