Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

Rockley Wilson was a keen and discerning collector of cricket books, ceramics, paintings, prints and other cricketana, as to a lesser extent was his brother Clem. Rockley always regretted that he had not started collecting earlier than he did and the limited funds he could devote to his collection was always a constraint. For example, in 1931 he was not able to meet the £500 asking price for the Ashley Cooper collection. Nevertheless, by judicious purchasing, over the years Rockley built up one of the finest cricket collections and libraries, particularly of prints and of the early literature of the game. A number of items in Rockley’s collection were acquired on his overseas cricket tours. A catalogue of his collection of paintings, drawings and prints that Rockley made in 1934 survives. It contains details of nine oil paintings, thirteen drawings and ninety seven prints. 35 Rockley would of course have added to his collection after 1934. By his will, Rockley gave MCC the choice of any items in his collection (which even at the time of his death in 1957 must have been worth a very considerable sum) that they wished to have. All his paintings and drawings, many prints, some books and nearly all the glass and ceramic items were selected for MCC’s collection. A further indication of the size and breadth of the collection from which Lord’s has benefited is a letter of 30 November, 1987 to David Wilson from Stephen Green, the Lord’s curator, that lists glass and ceramic items from the collection held by Lord’s along with a variety of other cricket collectibles such as snuff and tobacco boxes, brass and metal ware and figures, commemorative handkerchiefs, presentation cricket balls and the like. The list runs to two foolscap pages. The rest of Rockley’s collection, other than some items retained by the family, was sold commercially. Rockley would have been pleased that at least some of the prized items in his collection of cricketana can be viewed today by visitors to Lord’s. A number of letters to Rockley from other collectors or dealers survive. These reveal the extent of Rockley’s interests in cricket books and history. For example, he enquired of J.W.Overend, proprietor of the Overend Press, in 1923 about the possibility of getting copies of two Overend publications, Cricket for Boys and the Eccleshill C.C. Record Book. Mr Overend replied that neither A Singular Man 43 35 Some details of the catalogue can be found in David Wilson, The Rockley Wilson Collection in The Journal of the Cricket Society , Autumn 1988, pp.51-54. Irving Rosenwater includes Rockley Wilson in his little book, Cricket Books: Great Collectors of the Past , privately published in 1976.