The Minor Counties Championship 1901

4 THE MINOR COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP 1901 INTRODUCTION This book contains the match scores, a statistical survey and full averages, both by county and by player in alphabetical order, for the seventh season of the Minor Counties Championship. It follows the same format as the previous ACS publications that covered the first six years of the competition. THE LEAD UP TO THE 1901 COMPETITION The members of the Minor Counties Cricket Association remained keen to expand the number of minor counties and county second elevens competing in the Championship with the goal of getting the MCC formally to recognise the competition and to regard it as the Second Division of the First-Class County Championship with a recognised system of promotion. In 1900 a record fourteen counties had qualified for the Championship. This number compared with seven in both 1895 and 1896, ten in 1897, nine in 1898 and eleven in 1899. The December 1900 Annual Meeting The Annual Meeting was held at Lord’s on Tuesday 14 December 1900, prior to the annual gathering of county secretaries to arrange the first-class fixtures for 1901. Those present were R W Allen and W W Marks (Bedfordshire), W O Nares (Berkshire), P J de Paravicini and G R Ward (Buckinghamshire), O Papworth (Cambridgeshire), D Howell (Cornwall), Col J Fellowes (Devon), F Monday (Dorset), M Foster and W R Wilson (Durham), J H Brain (Glamorgan), Dr J Earl Norman (Hertfordshire), L F Stedman (Monmouthshire), E G Buxton (Norfolk), P W Dale, A P Darnell and T Horton (Northamptonshire), F G H Clayton and R G E Mortimer (Northumberland), H M Turner (Oxfordshire), Rev P E Mainwaring (Staffordshire), A M Miller (Wiltshire), J B Wostinholm (Yorkshire 2nd XI) and R H Mallett (Hon Secretary of the Association). James Fellowes was elected to chair the meeting. At the December 1899 meeting, a motion had been passed urging that “every effort should be made to obtain full recognition by the first-class counties and the MCC of the Minor Counties Competition as the Second Division of the County Championship, and to secure a recognised system of promotion by merit”. An ‘Emergency Committee’ had been established to further these objectives consisting of Oliver Nares (Berkshire), Percy de Paravicini (Buckinghamshire), ‘Pat’ Darnell (Northamptonshire), Audley Miller (Wiltshire) and Harry Mallett (Durham and Hon Secretary). The Emergency Committee had drawn up proposals that were submitted to the MCC for its consideration. MCC Recognition - Harry Mallett was able to report to the 1900 meeting that the MCC Committee had agreed to recognise the Minor Counties Championship as the Second Division of the First-Class County Championship. This consent was conditional on the use of neutral umpires with a maximum payment of £4 per match. The Emergency Committee had also received “an intimation that insistence upon promotion at this juncture might imperil the chances of official recognition” and had therefore “thought it wiser to withdraw this proposal for the time being”. Neutral Umpires - While agreeing to the principle of neutral umpires, a great diversity of views were reported on how the selection and payment of umpires should be made and it was