Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

One, at least, of Richard’s business interests had survived his bankruptcy because Mary left all her interest in ‘the business of marl dealer carried on in partnership with Richard Parr Daft’ to him, provided that he pay £20 per annum to his sister, Mary. The business, which dealt in what had been a profitable commodity, had escaped when Richard’s financial difficulties had come to a head, perhaps because Mary claimed it as her own. Marl was a much-used top dressing for cricket squares. The business continued in the hands of Richard junior, who, in his will made in 1921, left everything he possessed ‘together with my interest in the marl business now being carried on under the name of Richard Daft at Radcliffe-on-Trent, Notts’ to his sister, Mary. On his own death in a Croydon nursing home in March 1934, he was described as an insurance clerk who lived in Wallington, Surrey. He had never followed up his early literary success. Butler Parr junior died in the same year, just, on 31 December. In an active life as businessman, sportsman and local councillor, he can never have regretted his decision to keep out of the family brewery at Radcliffe-on-Trent. The last survivors of Richard’s immediate family were Mary and Amy. Mary spent most of her life living quietly in North Wales until her death in 1961, at the age of 85. Harry had died on 10 January, 1945 at High Cross in Hertfordshire. His involvement in cricket continued at Oxford University until 1914 and later as a coach at Haileybury College. He umpired in Oxford University home matches regularly from 1900 to 1914 and missed, by only one year, officiating contemporaneously with his father in first-class cricket. Amy Bell died on 21 February, 1958. Harry was interviewed by E.V.Lucas in connection with his preparation of 100 Years of Trent Bridge , which turned out to be his last book published in 1938, the year of his death. Lucas found Harry in Hertfordshire where he had remained after his retirement, living with his daughter and son-in-law. Lucas wrote: ‘Harry Daft, whom I used to see in the field and can recall as an inconspicuous, serious player, is now an old gentleman of military cut, with a small white moustache and a merry eye. Of his father – The Governor – he has much to say and cannot over-praise the encouragement to sport of every kind which was given him in his youth . . . the talk recurred again and again to The Governor, who was a stern captain but a just one, who enjoyed life in every aspect; who never touched anything until the evening, but then liked his bottle as a man should.’ Harry preserved the silver tea and coffee Post Mortem 135