Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

92 Chapter Seven The later years (1889-1904) ‘Tom Emmett is an institution of the cricket world: may his shadow never grow less!’ The Meteor (Rugby School Magazine), 10 April 1889 The last few months of 1888 were a time of farewells for Tom Emmett, as he left for the Midlands and a coaching post at Rugby School. This had been secured for him with the help of Lord Harris, who commented reassuringly that he had ‘never heard him say, or seen him do, anything that would bring the least harm to boys.’ 59 At the end of season meeting of the Bradford Cricket Club, Emmett was thanked for his contribution, the Chairman stating ‘that a great portion of the success gained by the club during the summer in its weekly matches was due to the work and influence of “Old Tom Emmett”. They were sorry that his services would not be available for next season.’ In Halifax, a sign of his continuing popularity was that a silver model of Emmett was placed on the top of the cup awarded to the winner of the Halifax Parish Challenge Cup, inaugurated in 1888. In December of that year, a celebratory dinner was held for Emmett at the Bowling Green Hotel in Bradford, at which he received an illuminated address. Around 60 people – including Ted Peate and George Atkinson - sat down to eat, and over 70 names were attached to the address, including many local cricketers. A similar event was held in the New Year in Manchester, where he was presented with an ornamental album and another illuminated address. As we have already seen, such events were not to Emmett’s taste. He admitted that he had stayed awake at night thinking about what he was going to say, but had failed to ‘make the words stick’. One report said that he was clearly better at drinking a draught of his namesake ‘Old Tom’ or bowling a wide and taking a wicket than ‘speechifying’, but added that he had ‘made a good imitation of Gladstone on the warpath for all that.’ Emmett’s new place of work, Rugby School, had been established in the sixteenth century but its most famous days came in the nineteenth, with the widely influential headship of Dr Thomas Arnold, and its association with the game of rugby and the novel ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’. The headmaster between 1886 and 1895 was Dr John Percival, who had been educated at Appleby Grammar School and Oxford University. 60 Emmett took up his new permanent post on 20 March 1889, working with a temporary bowler (Brown of Hereford) to prepare the boys for an intensive summer term of cricket, including for the school’s annual match with Marlborough at Lord’s. The local paper, the Rugby Advertiser , noticed his