Yorkshire Cricket — The County's Rising Strength in the 1850s

Cricket in Yorkshire had been played since the late eighteenth century, and by the 1840s the Sheffield Wednesday Cricket Club (the cricketing arm of the Sheffield football and cricket club) was the strongest local side. The county played representative matches in the 1840s and 1850s without a formal county club structure, using Sheffield, Leeds and Harrogate as home grounds depending on the fixture. Players of genuine quality emerged through the 1850s: Tom Emmett began his career at Bradford in 1857 (though his first-class debut was not until 1866), and several Sheffield professionals played in AEE touring sides. The lack of formal organisation meant that Yorkshire could not compete consistently with Surrey or Nottinghamshire, which had stable professional staffs. Yorkshire County Cricket Club was formally constituted in January 1863 at a meeting in Sheffield; from that point the county's development accelerated rapidly, and by the 1880s Yorkshire were the strongest county in England.