#william clarke

15 incidents tagged

George Parr Takes Command of the All-England Eleven After Clarke's Death — 1856

All-England Eleven

1856-08-26

When William Clarke died on 25 August 1856, George Parr of Nottinghamshire — already England's leading batsman — took over effective leadership of the All-England Eleven. Parr's first act was to end Clarke's boycott of United All-England Eleven players, reuniting the two professional bodies and arranging the annual AEE v UAEE fixture that from 1857 drew the largest crowds in English cricket.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

⭐Moderate

William Clarke's Death — End of the Founder of the All-England Eleven, 25 August 1856

n/a

1856-08-25

William Clarke, the Nottinghamshire slow underarm bowler who founded the All-England Eleven in 1846 and turned professional touring cricket into a paying business, died on 25 August 1856 at Priory Lodge, Wandsworth Road, London, of paraplegia. He was 57. His death ended the four-year boycott of the United All-England Eleven and opened the way for the AEE v UAEE annual match that would shape the next decade of English cricket.

#william-clarke#all-england-eleven#death

🥊Moderate

Wisden and Dean Break Away — The Founding of the United All-England Eleven, 1852

United All-England Eleven (UAEE) split from All-England Eleven (AEE)

1852-08-07

In August 1852, John Wisden of Sussex and Jemmy Dean of Surrey, the two leading professional cricketers in the south of England, broke from William Clarke's All-England Eleven over Clarke's autocratic management and the meagre share of takings he allowed his players. With several discontented colleagues they founded the United All-England Eleven, which from 1857 would meet the parent AEE every summer in fixtures that drew the largest crowds in English cricket.

#united-all-england-eleven#uaee#aee

⭐Mild

All-England Eleven at Sheffield — The Biggest Cricket Crowd in England, 1849

All-England Eleven vs Twenty-Two of Sheffield

1849-08-20

The All-England Eleven's August 1849 visit to Sheffield's Hyde Park Ground attracted a crowd estimated at between 12,000 and 15,000 — among the largest ever seen at a cricket match in England at that point. The Sheffield fixture was the AEE's most reliable commercial event, reflecting the city's massive working-class enthusiasm for cricket and its willingness to pay to see the best professionals. The match against Twenty-Two of Sheffield was a showcase of the touring format at its most commercially successful.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

All-England Eleven Spreads Cricket — Manchester, Bristol, Derby and the Country Towns, 1847-49

All-England Eleven vs local sides

1849-08-01

Between 1847 and 1849 the All-England Eleven extended its fixture list from the north and midlands into the West Country, the Welsh borders and East Anglia. Visits to Manchester, Bristol, Derby, Newcastle, Norwich, Stourbridge and dozens of other towns turned cricket from a southern English diversion into a recognisably national game and triggered a wave of local club foundations.

#all-england-eleven#william-clarke#manchester

🥊Moderate

William Clarke's Iron Grip on the AEE — Player Grievances and the Coming Rebellion, 1848

All-England Eleven — players vs Clarke management

1848-07-01

By the late 1840s, William Clarke's management of the All-England Eleven had generated serious discontent among the players he recruited. Clarke kept the lion's share of gate money for himself, paid players a fixed day rate regardless of receipts, and selected and dropped players according to personal favour rather than merit. By 1848–49 a core of leading professionals — including John Wisden and James Dean — had concluded that Clarke's terms were exploitative and were planning the breakaway that would become the United All-England Eleven in 1852.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

All-England Eleven's First National Tour — 1847

All-England Eleven vs local 18s and 22s

1847-09-01

In its first full season after foundation, William Clarke's All-England Eleven played a programme of fixtures across the north and midlands — the first systematic national cricket tour ever organised. Sides of 18 or 22 local players were engaged at Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Stockton and Derby; the eleven won the great majority of fixtures and drew crowds of three to five thousand at most venues.

#all-england-eleven#william-clarke#1847

⭐Mild

Eleven vs Eighteen, Twenty-Two of Locals — The Odds Format of AEE Tours, 1846-49

All-England Eleven vs local 18s/22s

1847-07-01

From the foundation of the All-England Eleven in 1846 every fixture the eleven played against a local side was contested at odds — eighteen, twenty-two or occasionally even more local players against the AEE's eleven. The format kept the contests competitive for spectators and for promoters' returns; it remained the standard structure of touring cricket for the next forty years, including the first English tours of Australia in the 1860s.

#all-england-eleven#william-clarke#odds-cricket

⭐Mild

William Clarke Founds the All-England Eleven — 1846

n/a

1846-08-31

In late August 1846 the Nottinghamshire lob-bowler William Clarke, then a 48-year-old professional working as the practice bowler at Lord's, gathered eleven of England's leading professional cricketers and founded the All-England Eleven. The travelling side that resulted would, over the next two decades, take first-class standard cricket to every corner of the British Isles and create the commercial template for professional touring.

#william-clarke#all-england-eleven#aee

⭐Mild

Player Payment Structure of the All-England Eleven — £4-£6 a Match Plus Expenses, 1846-1849

All-England Eleven

1846-09-01

William Clarke paid his All-England Eleven professionals between £4 and £6 per match plus travelling expenses through the late 1840s — at a time when a skilled labourer earned around £1 a week. The pay was generous by the standards of the day, but Clarke kept the gate as promoter and the disparity between his earnings and his players' would, by the early 1850s, drive a series of breakaways and the eventual foundation of the United All-England Eleven.

#all-england-eleven#professional-cricket#player-payment

⭐Mild

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club Constituted — William Clarke's Role, 1841

Nottinghamshire cricket establishment

1841-03-01

The Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club was formally constituted in 1841, initially under the management of William Clarke who had developed Trent Bridge as a first-class ground after marrying its landlady in 1838. Clarke's entrepreneurial energy turned Nottingham's cricket infrastructure into one of the strongest in the provinces, though his founding of the All-England Eleven five years later would divert his attention from county to national cricket.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1840s

⭐Mild

William Clarke Opens Trent Bridge Ground — Nottingham, 1838

Nottingham; Trent Bridge

1838-05-30

William Clarke, the Nottingham slow-bowling all-rounder, opened the Trent Bridge cricket ground in late May 1838 on land adjoining the Trent Bridge Inn — the public house he had acquired through marriage in 1837. The ground would become the home of Nottinghamshire cricket and, in time, one of the senior Test venues in England.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#william-clarke

⭐Mild

William Clarke's First Major-Match Appearance — Nottingham v Sheffield, June 1838

Nottingham vs Sheffield

1838-06-04

On 4-5 June 1838 William Clarke — proprietor of the newly-opened Trent Bridge ground — played his first major match for Nottingham against Sheffield at the new venue. He took 6 for 41 with his slow underarm bowling and scored 23 with the bat. The performance announced Clarke as a major-match player and confirmed Trent Bridge as a serious cricket venue from its opening.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#william-clarke

⭐Mild

Trent Bridge Cricket Ground Opens — Nottingham, 1838

Nottinghamshire

1838-05-26

William Clarke laid out a cricket ground on land behind the Trent Bridge Inn at Nottingham in 1838, the year after his marriage to the inn's proprietor, the widow Mary Chapman. The ground hosted its first major match in May 1838 and grew through the nineteenth century into one of cricket's great Test venues — and the only major Test ground in the world founded by a single individual on commercial initiative.

#trent-bridge#william-clarke#nottingham

⭐Mild

William Clarke Begins Cricket at Nottingham — 1824

n/a

1824-05-15

In summer 1824 William Clarke — eighteen years old, a Nottingham bricklayer — joined the Nottingham Cricket Club at the Forest ground. Clarke would become the most influential English cricket entrepreneur of the mid-nineteenth century: founder of the All-England Eleven (1846), proprietor of Trent Bridge (1838), and the leading slow underarm bowler of his generation. His 1824 arrival at Nottingham is the start of that career.

#roundarm-era#william-clarke#nottingham