William Lillywhite 'The Nonpareil' — Sussex's Roundarm Master Through the 1830s

Sussex in the 1820s had pushed harder than any other county for the legalisation of roundarm bowling. Lillywhite and Broadbridge were the two bowlers who openly defied the underarm law and forced the issue. The 1828 law change — permitting the hand to be raised to elbow height — was followed in 1835 by a further widening to shoulder height.

Lillywhite's career had begun late but built rapidly. Through the late 1820s he was already the leading roundarm bowler in the country; the 1830s, in his forties, were his peak.

William Lillywhite was born at Westhampnett in Sussex in 1792, late by the standards of professional cricketers. He came to first-class cricket in his thirties and was already in his late thirties when roundarm was finally legalised in 1828. His action — a low to medium roundarm with the hand at or just below shoulder height — was less spectacular than the deliveries of his contemporary George Brown of Brighton (who reputedly killed a long-stop's dog with a stray ball) but vastly more accurate. Through the 1830s, in his forties, he was unarguably the bowler most county and All-England sides wanted on their roster. He was almost always engaged for the Players against the Gentlemen at Lord's; he was the bowler around whom Sussex's strong county side was built; and he led the bowling for the South in the new annual North vs South fixture from 1836. His delivery was relentlessly accurate, length and direction perfect, with a slight movement off the seam that left the off-stump on a dry pitch. Contemporaries said he could bowl all day at the same spot. The nickname 'Nonpareil' — without equal — followed him for the rest of his career.

“Mr Ward says he never saw a more graceful bowler than Lillywhite, and the late Mr Budd has said the same thing in my hearing.”

“He bowled as if from a machine — every ball at the same spot.”

Lillywhite continued at the top into the 1840s, eventually becoming the first bowler to take 1,000 first-class wickets. His sons John and James both became first-class cricketers and publishers; the Lillywhite cricket dynasty would dominate cricket publishing for the rest of the nineteenth century. He died in 1854.