Beauclerk's 170 — Highest Score in Cricket, Homerton v Montpelier, 1806

By 1806 Beauclerk was 33 and at his absolute peak. The previous summer he had become the first man to score two centuries in a season; the 1806 season produced the Gentlemen v Players match in which he led the amateur side. He was also a regular player for, and against, the suburban London clubs that hosted matches outside the major Lord's calendar.

Homerton's match against Montpelier was a club fixture of the kind that Beauclerk played in throughout the season for stakes and for pleasure. The pitches at suburban grounds like Homerton were rougher than at Lord's; high scoring was rare. Beauclerk arrived for the match knowing he was expected to anchor the Homerton innings.

Homerton, in the eastern suburbs of London, ran one of the strongest club sides of the early 1800s, and its members regularly used given men from the highest level of the game. Beauclerk, already known as the leading amateur batsman in England after his two-century season of 1805, played for Homerton against Montpelier in 1806 — the precise date is disputed; some sources give 1807. He scored 170, an extraordinary innings on the rough club pitches of the day. The match was not first-class — neither side counted as a major team — but the score was widely reported in the metropolitan press and became, by general consent, the highest individual innings ever recorded in cricket. It surpassed the previous benchmarks of innings around 130-150 set by Beldham, Tom Walker and Beauclerk himself. The 170 stood until 24 July 1820, when William Ward, MCC's leading amateur, scored 278 for the club against Norfolk at Lord's — the first known double-century in any cricket match. Beauclerk's 170 was also a personal vindication: it confirmed his place at the top of the early-1800s batting order and added to his reputation for accumulating runs against bowlers who seldom conceded them.

“The 170 he scored for Homerton against Montpelier stood as the highest score in any form of cricket until William Ward registered the mammoth 278 for MCC against Norfolk in 1820.”

Beauclerk continued to dominate batting in the late 1800s. His record stood through the lean Napoleonic seasons and into the recovery of major cricket after Waterloo. By the time it was finally beaten in 1820, the figure of 170 had become a kind of folkloric benchmark — the score every aspiring batsman wanted to match.