This is one of 13 films from the Worsley Collection, featuring the village of Hovingham and the surrounding area from the 1930s.  The maker of these films, Sir William Henry Arthington Worsley, was the fourth baronet.  Sir William was a keen cricketer, as evident from the films, and captained Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1928-29. His feats on the cricket field were fairly modest – scoring 722 runs at an average of just under 16, with a highest score of 60, and taking 32 catches – although...

This is one of 13 films from the Worsley Collection, featuring the village of Hovingham and the surrounding area from the 1930s.  The maker of these films, Sir William Henry Arthington Worsley, was the fourth baronet.  Sir William was a keen cricketer, as evident from the films, and captained Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1928-29. His feats on the cricket field were fairly modest – scoring 722 runs at an average of just under 16, with a highest score of 60, and taking 32 catches – although the county lost just twice whilst he was captain. He later became President of Yorkshire from 1960 until his death in 1973, and President of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) in 1962. The donor of the collection, Sir Marcus Worsley, passed away in December 2012. For more on the collection, and the Worsley family see the Context for Personalities In Hovingham Village (1930s). 

 

Hovingham Hall was designed by Thomas Worsley himself in the 1750s. The design reflects his passion for horses, with its main entrance leading directly into a Riding School.  In addition to the grounds of Hovingham Hall the family estate includes 3,500 acres of farmland and 1,000 of woodland, plus much of the village of Hovingham.  The film shows cricket being played in front of the house, where it has been since at least 1858 when a Hovingham team, 22 strong, took on an All England team .  This tradition has continued with Yorkshire County Cricket Club having occasionally played here – though not in First Class matches – and gracing the field with the likes of Herbert Sutcliffe, Len Hutton, Freddie Trueman and Geoff Boycott.  Marcus Worsley maintained the cricket ground on the lawns, and village cricket is still played there.  He also encouraged music and opera to be staged in the Riding School. 

 

In some respects the title given to this film is misleading, given that much of the cricket it shows is being played at Lords and Scarborough.  All of it, however, provides extremely rare and unique film of the Hovinghan Cricket Club, and the Yorkshire, England and Australian cricket teams in action. 

 

At the beginning there is wonderful film of a typical village green cricket match.  In his A Social History of English Cricket, Derek Birley traces the beginnings of cricket proper back to the sixteenth century, although it had its forerunners which go way back into the murky waters of history.  Originally it was played by those of a fairly lowly station, although the only free time to play it was after church on Sunday – which was compulsory by law – and sport was for long outlawed on that day because it was felt that it encouraged immorality.  This was not least because most sport, and especially the popular blood games of bear baiting and cock fighting, attracted so much gambling – and was also promoted by pubs.  Cricket came late onto the scene, but it too fell foul of the law.  Yet with the Restoration, following the more severe puritanical period of the Protectorate under Cromwell,  the law become more relaxed.  The aristocracy had the leisure time to play the game, and the money with which to gamble on it.  Richard Holt notes that, “cricket was the first team-game in which the upper classes were expected to exert themselves without the aid of a horse.” (References, p 25)  It was they that took it forward through its not entirely disreputable growth in the eighteenth century, on to become the ‘civilising’ game it purported to be in the nineteenth – both Derek Birley and John Major provide fascinating accounts of this history.

 

In the early days it would have been played on village greens, or commons land (allowing for the steady enclosure of open land being taken over by land owners), before the first recorded inter-county match between Kent and Surrey in 1709.  It would also have been played on the grounds of country estates, as is the case here.  The first written cricket rules, drawn up by the Duke of Richmond in 1727, were designed to regulate games played at country houses.  It was out of these games  that the first clubs emerged, and so in many respects the village is the natural home of cricket. In fact Richard Holt claims that village cricket is the oldest team sport to have survived.   Mike Higgins notes that with the emergence of travelling amatuer cricket clubs in the 1840s – I Zingari being perhaps the most famous – some owners of country estates enlarged their houses to accommodate cricket matches.   The film offers a rare glimpse into the kind of local cricket match that has become almost synonymous with English country life, with its deck chairs and picnics, as it would have been between the wars.

 

The match between Hovingham and Yorkshire, in 1931, was presumably a friendly Sir William Worsley had arranged after he had stopped playing for Yorkshire, with Herbert Sutcliffe among others making an appearance.  Yorkshire had an excellent team at this time, losing just one of the thirty three first class matches they had that season and finishing county champions, as they did for the next two years, and seven times in all in that decade.  The following year, 1932, Percy Holmes and Sutcliffe put on a record opening stand of 555 against Essex at Leyton, with Sutcliffe the seasons top scorer.  The film moves seamlessly from Hovingham to the North Marine Road Ground in Scarborough.  Again there are many faces, “personalities”, here for cricket historians to put names to: one who stands out, in his glasses, is Bill Bowes, standing at 6 feet 4 inches – see his Ashes Tour of Australia 1958-1959. 

 

Bill features in the last match shown, at Scarborough in September 1938, which was not against Yorkshire but against HDG Leveson-Gower's XI.  This was a team put together to play touring teams by ex-Surrey and England cricketer Sir Henry Dudley Gresham Leveson Gower, who at the time was one of the organisers of the Scarborough Festival.   HDG Leveson-Gower's XI won the game comfortably with eight wickets to spare, with Bill Bowes getting  5 wickets for 42 in the Australian’s second innings.

 

The extensive film of the second test of the Ashes series at Lords in late June 1930 is especially noteworthy.  As the caption notes, it highlights Duleepsinhji, only the second Indian born cricketer to play for England – playing in twelve tests.   British Pathé has some film of the first, second and final tests of the series, but none seem to feature Duleepsinhji (who wasn’t selected for the first).  The first Indian born cricketer to play for England was his uncle Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, an innovative and brilliant batsman whose selection caused much controversy at the time – his Test debut was on 16 July 1896.   In all eleven cricketers of Asian extraction have played for England (with a further five born in India).  Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji followed in his uncle’s footsteps, and was described in his Wisden Obituary as being “among the best batsmen ever to represent England, and certainly one of the most popular.”  Due to Ill-health his first-class career was limited to just eight seasons, retiring aged just 27; but in that time he scored 15,485 runs, including 50 centuries, at an average of 49.95.  He was also a remarkably good slip fieldsman, taking 256 catches.   He in turn was soon followed by a third Indian to play for England, Nawab of Pataudi, between 1932 and 1934.  He has the distinction of being one of few cricketers to have played Test cricket for two countries, and the only Test cricketer to have played for both India and England.

 

This was his first test against Australia, and if not for a rash stroke after hitting Grimmett twice to the boundary, Duleepsinhji may well have gone on to make many more than his 173 (at the time a record for an England player in an Ashes match at Lords).   The report on the test provided by Wisden states that, “Batting for four hours and three-quarters he gave a magnificent display. When the occasion demanded it he exercised restraint and at other times hit beautifully all round the wicket, having twenty-one fours among his strokes.” Australia won this test at Lords and the Ashes series.   Duleepsinhji went on to become High Commissioner of India in Australia and New Zealand, and was made Chairman of the Public Service Commission in the State of Saurashtra after his return to India.  He died at the early age of 54.  The Duleep Trophy is named in his honour.

 

It is most probably Clarrie Grimmett, who was to eventually get him out (caught by Bradman), that can be seen bowling to him, followed possibly by the fast bowler Alan Fairfax.  Grimmett is seen by many as one of the all-time great spin bowlers, and has been credited with inventing the so-called ‘flipper’ (where back spin makes the ball bounce slower and travel further).  This film shows off well his lolloping run up and low arm action.  In fact he was born in New Zealand, but emigrated to Australia at the age of 23 (he didn’t play for Australia until he was over 30).  His record is remarkable, being the only bowler to have taken 200 Test wickets in fewer than 40 Tests.   When Australia played Yorkshire in that same year, 1930, he took 10 wickets for 37 runs off 22.3 overs.  And, amazingly, in his entire career he never bowled a wide or a no-ball.

 

But this tour is best remembered as the one in which the 21 year old Don Bradman made his name.  He scored 254 in the game at Lords, and, in total for the five tests in the series, 974 runs at an average of 139.14, including four centuries, two double hundreds and a triple.  No wonder, despite the near impossibility of making such comparisons, he is still regarded by many as the best batsman ever.

 

References

 

Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum Press, 1999.

John Major, More than a Game: The Story of Cricket’s Early Years, Harper Perennial, 2008.

History of Hovingham Hall

Sir Marcus Worsley  Obituary, Daily Telegraph

Out of Asia, cricinfo

Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji, Cricketer of the year 1930, Wisden

England v Australia 1930, Wisden

HDG Leveson-Gower's XI v Australians 1938, cricket archive

Spiro Zavos, ‘The best ever spinner born in NZ’, The Roar