1825 English cricket season

1825 English cricket season

Cricket formats	first-class and single wicket

In the 1825 English cricket season, the pavilion at Lord's Cricket Ground was destroyed by fire. Many irreplaceable documents which recorded early cricket matches are believed to have been lost. The impact of this upon cricket's history is that it is only since 1825 that surviving records can be viewed with anything like complete confidence.

Inter-county matches are recorded for the first time since 1796. Two of the greatest players of the 19th century, William Lillywhite and Ned Wenman, made their known debuts in first-class cricket.

First-class matches

A total of eleven first-class matches were recorded in 1825, the most in any season since the 18th century and the onset of the Napoleonic Wars. Note that these matches are unofficially first-class.^{[fc 1]}

date	match title	venue	result	source
23 May (M)	Cambridge University v Cambridge Town Club	University Ground, Cambridge	University won by 109 runs	[1][2]
notes
13–14 June (M–Tu)	Sussex v Kent	Royal New Ground, Brighton	Sussex won by 243 runs	[3][2]
notes	The first inter-county match to be played since 1796.
16 June (Th)	Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) v Godalming	Lord's Cricket Ground (Lord's), Marylebone	MCC won by 86 runs	[4][2]
notes
23 June (Th)	Godalming v MCC	The Burys, Godalming	Godalming won by an innings & 139 runs	[5][2]
notes
27 June (M)	Hampshire v Godalming	Bramshill Park, Hampshire	unfinished	[6][2]
notes
27–28 June (M–Tu)	Kent v Sussex	Hawkhurst Moor	Kent won by 16 runs	[7][2]
notes
4–7 July (M–Th)	Gentlemen XVI v Players XI	Lord's	Gentlemen won by 72 runs	[8][2]
notes
11 July (M)	All-England v The Bs	Lord's	All-England won by 134 runs	[9][2]
notes
18 July (M)	Godalming v Hampshire	The Burys	Godalming won by 202 runs	[10][2]
notes
8–9 August (M–Tu)	Sussex v Hampshire	Petworth Park	Sussex won by 177 runs	[11][2]
notes
15 August (M)	Hampshire v Sussex	Bramshill Park	Hampshire won by 72 runs	[12][2]
notes

Best individual performances

Jem Broadbridge was the outstanding player of the season as he scored the most runs and took the most wickets.^{[fc 2]}

• Most runs – Jem Broadbridge 552 (HS 135)
• Most wickets – Jem Broadbridge 31 (BB 6–?)

County cricket

Inter-county cricket was revived for the first time since 1796 with Sussex playing two matches each against Hampshire and Kent, the home team winning every time. Hampshire and Kent did not play each other. Based on the known results, the strongest team was probably Sussex.^{[fc 3][13]}

Other events

• On Thursday 28 July, a schools match at Lord's between Harrow and Winchester had just concluded and then, during the night, the pavilion burned down with the consequent loss of valuable scorecards, records and trophies. Thomas Lord claimed he lost £2600 in paid subscriptions, none of which were ever recovered, raising the questions of why it wasn't in the bank and why he apparently wasn't insured.
• William Ward purchased the lease of Lord's ground from Thomas Lord, who retained freehold. Lord had been proposing to build houses on the land which brought cries of outrage from the gentlemen players. Ward, a rich banker as well as a fine batsman, stepped in and bought the leasehold to save the ground for cricket.

Debutants

1825 debutants included:

• William Lillywhite (Sussex)
• Ned Wenman (Kent)
• James Burt (Hampshire)
• Richard Cheslyn (MCC)
• Herbert Jenner (CU/MCC)
• Henry Kingscote (MCC)
• Charles Lanaway (Sussex)
• George Meads (Sussex)
• Richard Mills (Kent)
• Thomas Stearn (Cambridgeshire)
• Edward Thwaites (Kent)

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 "unofficial first-class" 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.
2. Surviving match records to 1825 are incomplete and any statistical compilation of a player's career in that period is based on known data. Match scorecards were not always created, or have been lost, and the matches themselves were not always recorded in the press or other media. Scorecard data was not comprehensive: e.g., bowling analyses lacked balls bowled and runs conceded; bowlers were not credited with wickets when the batsman was caught or stumped; in many matches, the means of dismissal were omitted.
3. "Champion County" is an unofficial seasonal title proclaimed by media or historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted.

References

1. Haygarth, p. 511.
2. ACS, Important Matches, p. 33.
3. Haygarth, p. 514.
4. Haygarth, p. 515.
5. Haygarth, p. 516.
6. Haygarth, p. 517.
7. Haygarth, p. 517.
8. Haygarth, p. 520.
9. Haygarth, p. 520.
10. Haygarth, p. 521.
11. Haygarth, p. 525.
12. Haygarth, p. 527.
13. Leach, John (2008). "Champion cricket teams since 1728". Stumpsite. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2016.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709 – 1863. Nottingham: ACS.
• Haygarth, Arthur (1862). Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826). Lillywhite.

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.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. HarperCollins.

External links

• Classification of cricket matches from 1697 to 1825
• CricketArchive – 1825 first-class matches list