Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

famous Arnold (‘Bobby’) Rylott, a fast left round-arm bowler who had been professional in Birkenhead for a few years from 1867 (twice being primarily responsible for victories over the All England Eleven) before giving sterling service to Leicestershire from 1873 to 1890 in pre-first-class days. Factors suggesting Rylott’s involvement are that he was a senior member of the ground staff at Lord’s, 6 which King joined in 1899 directly after leaving Birkenhead, and that the club’s minute book has an entry for 1898 to the effect that the club captain Cecil Holden had written unsuccessfully to both Smith and Rylott enquiring about a possible replacement for King. King’s weekly wage, at least in his first year, was £2 15s 0d, of which the club, no longer rich, paid £2 5s 0d, the remaining ten shillings being made good by the members who were charged an additional one shilling each for the season. This arrangement by which the club itself paid only part of his salary was continued, for the minute book records that for the following season ‘the secretary was instructed to do his utmost to secure guarantors towards the wages of King so as to lessen the amount of the indebtedness of the club’. It is perhaps indicative of his scanty credentials that the professional whom he replaced, Ellis Town, despite the fact that he had been given a ‘final warning’ over inebriation three years before, had been employed at the rate of £3 per week. 7 Although King’s contract no longer exists, it was almost certainly the standard contract of Birkenhead Park, which contained the following three clauses: 1. The said — shall be employed by and shall act as Professional Cricketer, Groundsman and Coach to the said Club from — to — . Apprenticeship 22 Arnold Rylott, professional cricketer and poet, had a hand in King’s early career. 6 Rylott, born in Lincolnshire in 1839, played in 85 first-class matches between 1870 and 1888, of which 72 were for MCC. Leicestershire awarded him a benefit in 1888. 7 Town, born at Halifax in 1866, never played first-class cricket. He played one match in the Minor Counties championship, for Cheshire in 1895, scoring six runs and taking four wickets.