#william beldham

6 incidents tagged

The 'Old Buffers' — Hambledon Nostalgia in the 1830s

n/a

1834-09-01

Through the 1830s a small group of surviving Hambledon veterans — William Beldham 'Silver Billy', John Nyren and a handful of others — were the last living link to the great Hambledon era of the 1770s and 1780s. Cowden Clarke's transcription of Nyren's recollections (1833) captured their world for posterity, and the 'old buffers' became a fixture of cricketing nostalgia for the rest of the Victorian period.

#hambledon#old-buffers#william-beldham

⭐Mild

William Beldham's Last Major Match — Surrey v England, August 1817

Surrey vs England

1817-08-21

On 21-22 August 1817 William 'Silver Billy' Beldham played his last major-match fixture: Surrey against England at Lord's. He was fifty-one, white-haired and the last of the Hambledon greats still appearing in major cricket. He scored 18 in the first innings and 9 in the second. Surrey lost. Beldham retired to his Wrecclesham smallholding and lived for another forty-five years; he was the last surviving player of the great 1780s Hambledon side.

#regency-cricket#underarm#william-beldham

⭐Mild

William 'Silver Billy' Beldham — The Aging Master of Hambledon, 1810s

Hampshire, Surrey, MCC and various private elevens

1817-06-01

By the 1810s William 'Silver Billy' Beldham — born in 1766, the great Hambledon-era batsman whom John Nyren had called 'one of the most beautiful batsmen ever seen' — was the senior figure in English cricket. Already in his fifties, he was still good enough to be picked for senior matches at Lord's and to hold his own against professionals half his age. His final senior match came in 1821 at the age of 55. He lived another forty-one years, dying at Tilford in 1862, and gave to historians the most detailed verbal record of Hambledon cricket through his late conversations with the Reverend James Pycroft.

#william-beldham#silver-billy#hambledon

⭐Mild

Beauclerk v Beldham Single-Wicket Match — Lord's, June 1806

Beauclerk vs Beldham

1806-06-09

On 9 June 1806 Lord Frederick Beauclerk — Regency cricket's swaggering amateur — challenged William Beldham, the most respected professional in the country, to a single-wicket match for stakes of 50 guineas. The match was played in front of a paying Lord's crowd. Beauclerk won by twelve runs, helped by a much-debated stumping decision against Beldham in the first innings. The contest is one of the great single-wicket fixtures of the period.

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

⭐Mild

William 'Silver Billy' Beldham's 144* — Surrey v England, Greenwich, July 1804

Surrey vs England

1804-07-23

On the Greenwich ground in July 1804, William 'Silver Billy' Beldham — by then in his fortieth year and the most admired batter in England — made an unbeaten 144 for Surrey against an England XI. It was his highest score in major cricket, played on a rough out-ground in three consecutive sessions, and is one of the largest individual scores recorded in the underarm era.

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

⭐Mild

Beldham v Walker Single-Wicket Match — Lord's, August 1803

Beldham vs Walker

1803-08-22

On 22 August 1803 the two greatest survivors of the Hambledon batting school — William 'Silver Billy' Beldham and Tom 'Old Everlasting' Walker — played a single-wicket match at Lord's for stakes of 25 guineas. Beldham, faster-scoring and more elegant, won by 14 runs. The fixture is one of the few well-documented direct contests between the two senior professionals of the period.

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