George Parr — All-England Eleven Captain Through the 1860s

Parr was born at Radcliffe-on-Trent on 22 May 1826, the son of a small farmer. He made his first-class debut in 1845 at age 18 and was an established Notts professional by the time William Clarke recruited him into the All-England Eleven. By 1856 he was the most accomplished batter in the country.

Clarke's death in August 1856 left a vacuum at the head of the AEE. Parr's appointment was uncontested. The 1857 fixture against the rival United All-England Eleven was the immediate test of his authority and he won it convincingly.

Parr inherited the captaincy of the All-England Eleven on William Clarke's death in August 1856. He was 30 years old, the leading professional batsman in England (his 130 against Surrey at the Oval in 1859 was the highest individual score by a Notts batsman to that date), and immediately settled the long-running internal disputes of the Eleven by accepting an annual fixture against the breakaway United All-England Eleven. The first AEE v UEE match was at Lord's on 1 June 1857 and the AEE won by five wickets; the rivalry continued every summer through 1866 and was, alongside Gentlemen v Players, the showpiece of English professional cricket. Parr captained the first English overseas tour, to North America in 1859 with John Wisden in his side, and the second tour to Australia and New Zealand in 1863-64. He was an autocratic captain — popularly known as 'the Lion of the North' — and his Notts side dominated unofficial county cricket throughout the decade. By the late 1860s, however, the AEE was in decline. The legalisation of overarm in 1864, the rise of formal county fixtures, and W.G. Grace's emergence undermined the touring-eleven model. After 1864 the AEE 'were seen very little in the south'. Parr retired from playing in 1870, the year W.G. Grace's Gloucestershire CCC played its first first-class match. He died of rheumatic gout in 1891 and was buried beneath an elm tree at Radcliffe-on-Trent that became known as 'Parr's Tree'.

Without Parr the AEE faded rapidly. The county clubs, with their fixed fixture lists and overseas tour ambitions, supplanted the itinerant elevens by the mid-1870s. Parr remained an unofficial elder statesman of Notts cricket until his death.