#1808

6 incidents tagged

Old Hambledon Hands Gather at the Bat & Ball Inn — Broadhalfpenny Down, August 1808

n/a

1808-08-15

In August 1808 a small group of surviving Hambledon Club veterans gathered at the Bat & Ball Inn at Broadhalfpenny Down — the inn that had served as the club's headquarters in its great years — for an informal reunion. Beldham, Walker, Aburrow, Sueter and a handful of fielders met for the day; a young John Nyren attended and made the notes that would become the basis of his 1833 memoir.

#regency-cricket#underarm#hambledon

⭐Mild

First Documented Cricket at Hove — Sussex Club Match, July 1808

Brighton vs Hove

1808-07-19

On 19 July 1808 a Brighton club side played a Hove village side on a strip laid out behind the church at Hove — the earliest documented cricket match at Hove, and the founding entry of a venue that would, by the late nineteenth century, become the headquarters of Sussex County Cricket Club.

#regency-cricket#underarm#hove

⭐Mild

William Lambert's Treble Single-Wicket — Lord's, August 1808

Lambert vs three opponents

1808-08-08

On 8 August 1808 William Lambert played a single-wicket match at Lord's against three opponents — bowling, batting and fielding alone against a side of three. He won by 11 runs. The match is one of the most famous individual feats of the underarm era and the first major demonstration of Lambert's all-round ability that would, ten years later, see him called the finest cricketer in England.

#regency-cricket#underarm#william-lambert

⭐Mild

Thomas Lord Loses His Original Ground — Dorset Square Notice, October 1808

n/a

1808-10-04

On 4 October 1808 the Portman Estate served formal notice on Thomas Lord that his lease on the Dorset Square ground — the original Lord's, opened in 1787 — would not be renewed. The land was wanted for housing. Lord had eight months to find a new ground. He did, and opened the Middle Ground at North Bank in May 1809; but the Dorset Square notice is the moment at which the original Lord's was lost.

#regency-cricket#underarm#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

William Ward's First Major Match — Surrey v England at Lord's, June 1808

Surrey vs England

1808-06-13

William Ward — the City banker who would, twelve years later, score 278 at Lord's and, in 1825, save the ground itself by buying its lease — made his first major-match appearance for Surrey against England in June 1808. He scored 18 in a low-scoring defeat. The debut is the entry point of one of the great careers of the Regency era and of one of the most important administrators in the history of Lord's.

#regency-cricket#underarm#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Moderate

Cricket Under the Napoleonic War — The Lean Seasons of 1803-1808

n/a

1803-05-18

Britain's Napoleonic War with France, resumed in May 1803 and continued until Waterloo in 1815, drained investment and manpower from English cricket. Only three major matches were recorded in 1803, six in 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), and the entire period from 1811 to 1813 produced just three. The MCC and a handful of well-organised London clubs kept the game alive through the lean years; without them, cricket might have lost a decade.

#napoleonic-war#cricket-decline#1803