Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Hall was a left-arm bowler. Butler and Hall were employed in succession as head groundsman at Trent Bridge. In June 1857, Richard put together scores of 13 and 17 when for Twenty-two of Loughborough, he faced the bowling of Clarke’s England Eleven. He top scored in the second innings and took three wickets with his fast round-arm bowling. His most significant action, from a historical viewpoint, was that he held a catch. The victim was the ageing superstar, Alfred Mynn, who had made only two. He had been the champion all-rounder of the 1830s and 40s, a fearsome round-arm fast bowler and hard-hitting batsman. Perhaps the occasion of this match at Loughborough was the first meeting between these two giants of the game, Mynn with his best years far behind him and Richard on the threshold of his distinguished career. In Kings of Cricket , Richard wrote: ‘Mynn did not live to see me through a great part of my career, though he did live to see me attain many successes in the cricket field and paid me many kind compliments on my play.’ He died at the end of October, 1861 following the rapid onset of diabetes. The tradition in Richard’s family was that he made his first visits to Radcliffe in the company of Mynn who, when his cricket career was in decline, set up as a hop merchant. In the course of his travels, he met Butler Parr, who was the proprietor of a brewery in the village and was to become a member of the Notts county committee. The two became great friends and when visiting Radcliffe, Mynn took Richard with him. Butler Parr’s origins were in Lincolnshire, but the village of Radcliffe was thronged with indigenous Parrs, among them the great Notts batsman, George Parr, who captained the county from 1856 to 1870. His family had farmed around the village for generations and occupied the Manor House. George was not a Advancement in Life 15 Butler Parr, the senior member of the Parr clan in Radcliffe.