Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

117 or 5s a game during his days playing for Halifax. He would have been on more than that at Keighley, where he worked Monday to Saturday for 20 weeks and was also found work during the winter. During the 1870s, he played a growing number of first-class matches (7 in 1871 but 26 in 1878), for which he would have received £5 a match (and occasionally £6 from the county committee or £10 for a major representative match) or perhaps up to £140 a season, including occasional collections for fine performances. In the early 1870s, he was also professional at Middlesbrough, which would have provided an additional income, but also meant he could not play for Yorkshire on occasions. As we have seen, Emmett also played numerous other matches in a season, often as a bowler against the touring elevens. In the late 1860s, when there were fewer county games organised, he appeared in around a further 15 such matches a summer, for which he would have been paid perhaps £2-3 a match, and he also secured two short public school engagements at that time. In the 1870s, the number of these extra games he was able to play in declined, but still averaged around eight per season. In 1875, eight Yorkshire United fixtures added nicely to his programme, but not returning from Australia until early June 1877 cut into his availability and meant he missed out on additional engagements. Nevertheless, as we saw, when Emmett and Pinder were both seeking a benefit in 1876, one report stated it was quite well known that Emmett was not hard up, which justified priority being given to Pinder. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Emmett had several opportunities to earn significant additional sums by touring abroad. For each of the three winters he was abroad in Australia, he received around £200, a sum he could not have earned at home, and which probably more than doubled his annual earnings those years. His accommodation and expenses were also paid so that he could have brought home most of it if he had been careful. The visit to the United States and Canada was shorter in 1879 and probably secured him only half that sum. Around the same time, Emmett also received a benefit of over £600 – perhaps the equivalent of four years’ earnings. For a period, therefore, Emmett was able to make the most of his skills and fame, and in 1879, the Leeds Times suggested he was in a ‘very comfortable position’. In the 1880s, Emmett made an average of 26 first-class appearances a year until his retirement, and he took other short-term early season paid engagements such as at the Leys School in 1884. His top-class career lasted far longer than many of his contemporaries, and it would appear that his basic earnings for the summers through to the age of 46 were in the region of £130-£150 a year, now augmented by whatever income was generated through his sales of sports equipment. His retirement would have seen a significant drop in income, which was why the prospect of a secure long-term appointment at Rugby School – where his annual income was £120 - was so important to him. In the remaining decade or so of his life, Emmett lived in far less comfortable circumstances – although some of his children were earning and so less dependent on him - and it is clear Personality, performance and popularity