Cambridge Cricket Club jug.
Used by kind permission of
Anthony Baer.
Cambridgeshire Cricket
Cambridge University 1710
Wisbech 1744
March 1744
Eton v England 1751
Cambridge 1757
Royston 1764
Chatteris 1774
Newmarket 1788
Manea 1791
Thorney 1810
Newton 1812
Leverington 1812
Murrow 1812
Parson Drove 1812
Ickleton 1813
Bentwick 1815
Doddington 1815
Wimblington 1815
Elm 1816
Ely 1818
Bassingborn 1820
Tholomas Drove 1820
Wisbech St Mary's 1820
Bottisham 1821
Fulbourn 1821
Soham 1822
Abington 1822
Walsoken 1826
Longstowe 1826
Bourn 1826
Linton 1827
Chesterton 1828
Whittlesey 1829
Cambridgeshire 1832
Mepal 1833
Sutton 1833
French Drove 1834
Fordham 1834
Balsham 1838
Sawston 1838
Comberton 1839
Haslingfield 1839
Steeple Bumpstead 1839
Barrington 1839
Melbourn 1839
Willingham 1839
Camps 1840
Cheveley 1841
Newport 1841
Quy 1841
Chippenham 1843
Kirtling 1843
Grantchester 1843
Haddenham 1843
Over 1844
Littlington 1844
Foxton 1844
Swavesey 1844
Fowlmere 1844
Shepreth 1844
Harston 1844
Thriplow 1845
Elsworth 1846
Toft 1846
Ashley 1849
Eversden 1849
Wimpole 1849
Arrington 1849
Burrough Green 1849
Burwell 1849
Swaffham 1849
Six Mile Bottom 1849
Harston 1849
Caldecote 1849
Shudy Camps 1850
Aldreth 1850
Babraham 1850
Waterbeach 1850
Horseheath 1850
Swaffham Prior 1851
Cambridge Clubs
Cambridge Cricket Club
?-1826
Cambridge Fountain
1822-27
Cambridge Castle
1822-37
Cambridge Union
1822-31(33?)
Cambridge Hoop
1827-30
Cambridge Town CC
1838-43
Cambridge Town &
County CC
1844-48
Cambridge Britannia CC
1850's
Cambridge Hope CC
1850's
Cambridge Darts CC
1850's
Reformed 1851 & 56
Cambridge Town CC
1861
Cambridge Cricket Venues
Jesus Green
From 1757
From 1757
Parker's Piece
From 1792
From 1792
Jesus Close
From 1805
Midsummer Common
From 1820
University private
ground Mill Rd
1821-30
Field behind Town Gaol
From 1846
Fenner's
From 1848
What I am working on at the moment
I have two ongoing projects:
1) Cambridgeshire Cricket 1849-90
2) The Life of F P Fenner
Cambridgeshire Cricket 1849-90
Local newspapers provide much in the way of match reports, accounts of club meetings and letters etc which are of great help in making sense of cricket's progress in Cambridgeshire.
Another vital source is Haygarth's "Scores and Biographies" which contains many match scores as well as an informative bias in the compiler's irritation at the behaviour of several of the Cambridge professionals.
As the 20th century dawned autobiographies by Richard Daft, William Caffyn and W G Grace each threw personal light on the match statistics as did interviews by the likes of Old Ebor.
1849-56
This was a second period of retrenchment for Cambridgeshire cricket following the collapse of the Cambridge Town and County Cricket Club in 1848, especially in Cambridge.
A few Cambridge clubs such as the Britannia and Hope kept the game going, but most of Cambridge's professional cricketers had left the county to seek employment elsewhere.
There were several county sides in the late 40's and 50's but they did not play other counties and were mainly amateur only sides drawing from towns and villages around the county..
Cambridgeshire sides 1857-71
Why was Cambridgeshire top-class but never first-class?
From 1857 to 1871 Cambridgeshire played inter-county matches with the likes of Surrey, Kent and Yorkshire and were considered a major side. I am currently researching this period in the history of Cambridgeshire cricket and the inevitable question is why did this success not last?
The answer is complex despite there being some obvious component factors such as the lack of adequate financial support. My take on it is that there are several themes running through Cambridgeshire cricket history in the 18th and 19th centuries which help explain both the success and the ultimate failure.
First of all there was the ongoing relationship between Cambridge University, Town cricket, with the Town benefitting financially when sharing Parker's Piece with the University Club and struggling when the latter found a private ground, both in the 1820's and after the opening of Fenner's in 1848.
Secondly Cambridgeshire was not a densely populated or wealthy county, at least when it came to promoting cricket. In the 1860's the lack of financial support was a key factor in the collapse of the County Club.
The thirdly the concentration of the game in Cambridge, particularly in the form of professional talent, meant that Cambridgeshire representative cricket was directly dependant upon the state of cricket in the county town and on professionals it produced. Possibly due to the example of cricket at the University and to the relative concentration of population and employment opportunities within the town, the game had become well established in Cambridge by the end of the 18th century. When the University moved to its first private ground in 1821 Town cricket struggled but was carried through by the sheer number of good cricketers in the town. Similarly after a second period of struggle in the 1850's it was the town's professionals that formed the core of the county side.
Fouthly there seems, even during the most successful period for the county side, to have been a comparatively weak Cambridgeshire identity. Even though the county side appeared successful the Cambridgeshire matches of this period were not the product of one Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club, but a combination of collaborations with the University (1857-58), County Club promotions (1861-62 and 1866-68), professional-led ventures (e.g. 1861, 1865 and 1869) and matches financed by the opposition (eg 1863 v Kent ) as well as several one-off arrangements which included the 1861 Cambridge Town club match v Kent. The County Club (formed in 1858) failed to gain sufficient county-wide support in its two stints at being in control and when the Cambridge professionals passed their peak the team began to fall apart.
The presence of the University was felt in various ways. As well as providing competition for finance it also represented an opportunity for co-operation which was most evident in the 1840's and in the joint Univerity/Town teams which made up the -57/58 county sides. A more abstract influence came from the University's instinct for separation which not only drew financial support away from town and county cricket but also shielded town cricket from the growth of a public school-driven, amateur-led modern pattern of the game. As a result, it seems possible to me that Cambridge, and consequently Cambridgeshire cricket, thrived on the pre-industrial model of games based on commercialisation, competition and professionalism. This created the successful Cambridge Town and County Club of the 1840's as well as a strong professional county side in the -60's. But it also led to the best professionals leaving the town to take part in the national explosion of professional cricket in the -50's and -60's, thus weakening the culture of cricket in the town and county, which was then unable to supply adequate new players. What amateur, middle-class leadership there was proved incapable of compensating for Cambridgeshire cricket having backed the wrong horse.
This, of course, is only my attempt at an explanation. I would be fascinated to hear other people's opinions.
Although we have names from earlier years there is far more information available on the players of this time. The best known were Billy Buttress, Robert Carpenter, Alfred Diver, Thomas Hayward, John Smith and George Tarrant. Others included Charles Arnold, Frederick Bell, Henry and John Perkins, Frederick Pryor and Fred Reynolds.
From The Illustrated Sporting News May 1863
George Tarrant - Cambridge & Cambridgeshire
1871-90
Post 1871 Cambridgeshire cricket appears to have retreated to small local clubs, apart from the CU of course, whose success now began to match its status.
Francis Phillips Fenner
F P Fenner is remembered now for the cricket ground which he leased to the Cambridge University CC in 1848. It is still the home of Cambridge University cricket and still bears his name.
In his time, however, Fenner had several other claims to fame. Before he took on ground management he had become Cambridge's leading batsman, bowler, captain and secretary of the "Cambridge Town" and "Cambridge Town and County" Clubs. He was generally regarded as one of the best players in the country and was hugely influential in promoting Cambridge and Cambridgeshire cricket.
Both in and away from cricket he was a businessman, running a tobacconist shop from about 1836-61. He was in many ways an archetypal Victorian entrepreneur. Early on in his business he seems to have been acutely aware of the benefits to trade afforded by the University. Accordingly he solicited the custom of university cricketers and clubs in respect of a supply of cricket equipment. He was later to boast that he was sole supplier of such equipment to the University.
This is a very brief and incomplete summary of Fenner's life. There is a fuller picture of him in "Fenner's Men". I am hoping to gather as much further information on him as I can in order to write a biography. See gaps.