Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Notts victors by an innings and 24 runs. Shaw took eleven for 56 and Morley nine for 45. The proceeds of Richard’s testimonial were not presented to him immediately. The County Committee announced at the club’s Annual General Meeting that they had purchased a most handsome service of plate which they would present to him at the George Hotel on 11 January, 1877. Richard’s equivocal status among sportsmen was reflected in the form that the presentation took, which was generous yet gentrified. In addition to a purse of five hundred sovereigns (£37,000 in modern terms), he received a magnificent tea and coffee service, a splendid salver, a tankard (the gift of John Walker of Southgate), and from Captain Holden a hunting flask. All were of solid silver. Subsequently, Richard received, in addition, a silver sandwich case from G.B.Davy, the former secretary of the county, a dining-room clock and a pair of bronze candelabra, a fine pair of bronzes and a drawing-room clock. In the hotel dining-room, Sir Henry Bromley, President of the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, was in the chair, with Captain Holden on his left and Richard seated on his right. The names of the cricketers who had accepted invitations included the brightest and best of Notts’ players over the previous fifty years, from Tom Barker, whose career had begun in the 1820s, and George Parr, and continuing as a roll of honour to the beneficiary. The gifts made a magnificent show, displayed in a case at the upper end of the room. On the salver the inscription read: ‘Presented together with a tea and coffee service and a purse of 500 sovereigns to Richard Daft by the admirers of cricket throughout the Kingdom 1876.’ There were no fewer than fifteen speeches before Sir Henry rose to hit the right note. ‘It has been said by an old heathen philosopher that the grandest sight in the world is to see a good man struggling against adversity. It might be very true, but my opinion is that if we had that old sage around us on an occasion as this one, we would soon convince him that we had an even grander sight – it was in seeing so large an assembly that night to greet a man of our own county – a man who was not only good as a cricketer, but as a citizen and one who has ingratiated himself in our good feelings.’ . . . (Applause) . . . ‘He had ‘also a recollection of the time when I came down to meet the Nottingham Commercial Club in whose ranks I saw practising a small young lad whose defence, even then, was remarkable. He began at the beginning; he learnt defence and Benefit in Kind 77