1735 English cricket season

The 1735 cricket season was the 138th in England since the earliest known definite reference to cricket in January 1597 (i.e., Old Style – 1598 New Style). Details have survived of twelve important matches and one notable single wicket match.

Kent patron Edwin Stead, believed to have become a bankrupt, died aged 33 or 34 in London on 28 August. The leadership of Kent cricket passed to the Sackvilles of Knole House, Sevenoaks. The county teams of which records exist in 1735 were Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex while London and Croydon remained the predominant town clubs.

Important matches

The following matches are classified as important:^{[fc 1]}

date	match title	venue	result	source
27 May (Tu)	Croydon v London	Duppas Hill, Croydon	London won	[1][2]
notes	G. B. Buckley found four different notices of this match in the Whitehall Evening Post (WEP), the London Evening Post, the Weekly Register and the Grub Street Journal. The WEP called the game "Surrey v London" but the others all agreed it was "Croydon v London". The day of the match was Whit Tuesday. The Weekly Register (Saturday, 31 May) reported that "London beat Croydon with very great ease" on Wednesday, 28 May, and Ian Maun has recorded this as a second match,[3] but it is almost certainly the same one, as Buckley recorded it,[1] the Weekly Register getting the date wrong.
7 June (S)	Surrey v London	Moulsey Hurst	London by 9 wkts	[4][5]
notes	Scores are known: Surrey 54 & 44; London 61 & 38-1. Also known are some of the players: Cook, Ellis, Dunn and Wheatley of London; and at least two players called Wood played for Surrey. Mr Ellis could not play because of an injured finger and he was London’s "best bowler". Cook of Brentford ("reckoned one of the best bowlers in England") was brought in to bowl instead of him. The Surrey players called Wood evidently came from Woodcot; one of them was injured during the game. After London lost one wicket in their second innings, the target was reached by Mr Wheatley, the distiller, and Mr Dunn. Never before have so many players’ names been given in a match report.
11 June (W)	Greenwich v Westminster	Blackheath	result unknown	[1]
notes	The stake was £500. Expected to attend were the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Middlesex and Lord John Philip Sackville.
18 June (W)	Surrey v London	1. Kennington Common 2. Artillery Ground	drawn	[6][5][2]
notes	Originally arranged to be played on Kennington Common, as reported by the General Evening Post (GEP) on Thursday 12 June, the venue was altered to the Artillery Ground as reported in the London Evening Post (LEP) on Saturday, 14 June. The GEP report says that Mr Jervoise of Croydon selected "11 men out of Croydon and that neighbourhood in Surrey". It goes on to report that "the three or four bunglers who played on the Surrey side at Moulsey Hurst last Saturday (7th inst.) do not play". London batting first lost their first wicket at 22-1 and this was considered an achievement by the LEP whose report says: "the Londoners got 22 notches before ever a man was out". The team scores are known: London 67 & 72; Surrey 97 & 33-7. The totals were, thus, 139 and 130–7 but Maun, miscalculating, says they were "London 149; Surrey 140–8".[7] H. T. Waghorn says the report's use of the word "innings" was the earliest he had noticed.[8]
12 July (S)	London & Middlesex v Kent	Moulsey Hurst	Kent by 4 wkts	[9][10][2]
notes	The scores are in Waghorn: London 95 & 41; Kent 80 & 57-6. The London & Middlesex team consisted of eight players of the London club and three of Middlesex, including Cook of Brentford who was reckoned to be "one of the best bowlers in England". Kent's patron was the Earl of Middlesex, who was the eldest son of the 1st Duke of Dorset. Their opponents were backed by the Prince of Wales. The match was staged for £1,000 a side. The report confirmed that a second match would be played in two weeks on Bromley Common (see below). The General Evening Post reported that the London team was imbalanced by inclusion of the three Middlesex men and lost the match for that reason. The Prince of Wales was reported as saying that his team in the return match would therefore be an all-London XI. As G. B. Buckley says, this was "an early appreciation of teamwork".[11]
18 July (F)	Surrey v London	Kennington Common	London won	[11][2]
notes	The London Daily Post on Saturday, 19 July, reported that London beat Surrey "with ease".
29 July (Tu)	Kent v London	Bromley Common	Kent by 10 wkts	[12][2]
notes	This was the return match to that on 12 July above. The Prince of Wales decided to select eleven London players, hence the change of team name. Scores were recorded as: London 73 & 32; Kent 97 & 9-0. The report states that a large crowd attended and "a great deal of mischief was done". It seems that horses panicked and riders were thrown while some members of the crowd were "rode over". One man was "carried off for dead" as "HRH" passed by at the entrance to the Common.
13 August (W)	Sussex v Kent	Lewes (precise venue not specified)	Sussex won	[13][2]
notes	The source for this match is a letter from John Whaley to Horace Walpole dated Wednesday, 13 August. He says the Sussex team "seem as much pleased as if they had got an Election". He also reported that "we have been at supper with them all" until one o'clock in the morning.
16 August (S)	Westminster v London	Tothill Fields	Westminster won by 3 runs	[11]
notes	The report in the General Evening Post says simply that Westminster won "by 3 notches" and that a return would be held on Thursday, 28 August.
c.20 August (W)	Kent v Sussex	Vine Cricket Ground, Sevenoaks	Kent won	[14][2]
notes	The London Evening Post speculated that "the Conqueror" (i.e., a decider) between the Kent and Sussex teams, led by Lord John Philip Sackville and Lord Gage respectively, would be played in a few days, but there is no record of a further match.
28 August (Th)	London v Westminster	Artillery Ground	result unknown	[11]
notes	The return match to that on 16 August.
23 September (Tu)	Surrey v London	Kennington Common	result unknown	[15]
notes	To be played "for a considerable sum".

Single wicket matches

Monday, 11 August. The General Evening Post on Thursday, 7 August, announced a single wicket match the following Monday on Kennington Common involving seven players of the London Club. The game would be three against four with Mr Wakeland, Mr Dunn and Mr Pool against Mr Marshall, Mr Ellis and two others. Dunn and Ellis have been mentioned previously.^[11]

Other events

Thursday, 28 August. The death of Edwin Stead was reported in the Grub Street Journal dated Thursday, 4 September. He was a noted patron of the game from the mid-1720s and may have been a good player too. He was a Maidstone man who undoubtedly did much to promote the game in Kent. A compulsive gambler, it seems he died in reduced circumstances. One account stated that he died "near Charing Cross" and another that he died "in Scotland Yard".^[16]

First mentions

Counties

• none

Clubs and teams

• London & Middlesex^[9][2]
• Westminster^[1]

Players

• Cook (Brentford)^[4]
• Dunn (London)^[4]
• Ellis (London)^[4]
• Mr Jervoise (Croydon and Surrey)^[1]
• Marshall (London)^[11]
• Pool (London)^[11]
• Wakeland (London)^[11]
• Wheatley (London)^[11]
• Wood (Woodcot, Surrey)^[4]

Venues

• Tothill Fields^[11]

Footnotes

1. First-class cricket was officially defined in May 1894 by a meeting at Lord's of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season. Pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective and the important matches designation, as applied to a given match, is based on the views of one or more substantial historical sources. For further information, see First-class cricket, Forms of cricket and History of cricket.

References

1. Buckley, FL18C, p. 10.
2. ACS, Important Matches, p. 20.
3. Maun, p. 67.
4. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, pp. 8–9.
5. Wilson, p. 45.
6. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, pp. 9–10.
7. Maun, p. 69.
8. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, p. 10 (footnote).
9. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, pp. 10–11.
10. Buckley, FL18C, pp. 10–11.
11. Buckley, FL18C, p. 11.
12. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, pp. 11–12.
13. McCann, p. 15.
14. McCann, pp. 15–16.
15. Maun, p. 75.
16. Buckley, FL18C, p. 12.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709 – 1863. Nottingham: ACS.
• Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell.
• McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Sussex Record Society.
• Maun, Ian (2009). From Commons to Lord's, Volume One: 1700 to 1750. Roger Heavens. ISBN 978-1-900592-52-9.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773). Blackwood.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1906). The Dawn of Cricket. Electric Press.
• Wilson, Martin (2005). An Index to Waghorn. Bodyline.

Additional reading

• Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). George Allen & Unwin.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum.
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
• Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Cotterell.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. HarperCollins.
• Marshall, John (1961). The Duke who was Cricket. Muller.
• Underdown, David (2000). Start of Play. Allen Lane.

External links

• Classification of cricket matches from 1697 to 1825
• From Lads to Lord's; The History of Cricket: 1300 – 1787