Meeting date: 02 April 2005
Guest Speaker: Stephen Saunders
Grace
Grace delivered by the Rev. David Brown
“Loving Father, we pray for your blessing on our gathering today as we look forward with great anticipation to another season of the Summer Game, to an exciting series for the Ashes. We also give grateful thanks to the members of the Hambledon Club who, over 250 years ago, contributed so much to the development of the game. Amen”
The Menu, by Dick Orders
Duck a l’Orange Terrine, served with Melba toast
Stuffed Filet of Sole set on a parsley, lemon & garlic sauce
Roast Turkey, with a Cranberry jus, served with seasonal vegetables and Dauphinoise potatoes
A selection of English Cheese & Biscuits
Coffee & Mint
Apologies for Absence
Apologies had been received were received from: the Pardoe family, Peter & Bobby Tomkins, Douglas Miller (in Japan), Cyril Cantrill, Bob Beagley, Victor Malik (from California – hopes to be here one day), David Rayvern Allen, Clive Barnett, John Fingleton and Cy Rogers.
In sending his apologies, Alistair Maclennan wrote: “Alas, we will not be able to be present at the April lunch this year. Please give the gathering our apologies, together with all our good wishes for a very happy meeting at the beginning of a season in which, dare we say it (?) England may regain the Ashes.”
In sending his apologies, Roy Clarke also sent 5 more quiz questions to challenge the assembled company:
1. Who scored a century in a County Championship match on his 50th birthday? (Most people naturally assume that it must have been Jack Hobbs, but it wasn’t).
2. Who is the only player to have scored a Test Match Century at Sheffield?
3. Who was the first player to score more than 300 runs in a Test MATCH? (Not necessarily in one inning.)
4. A few years ago, Brian Lara scored 375 runs in a Test Match innings. However, he was not the first to score exactly 375 in a Test MATCH. Who was?
5. In First-Class cricket, what is the highest score made by a right-handed batsman, batting on a turf wicket, and who made it?
Everyone wished Roy well and recovery from his recent ill health.
John Grimsley, in tendering his apologies, wrote: “Everyone at Bowral sends their regards. There is also a possibility of an inaugural UK Bradman dinner to be held sometime in the autumn. More news in September. The meeting wondered where it is planned for this to be held!”
The Meeting
Ashley Mote extended a special welcome to our guests for the day and explained what the club is all about. Continuing in memory of a group of people 250 years ago, The Hambledon Club meets twice a year, at the beginning and end of the English cricket season, to celebrate and recall the memories of those great men. The club was re-established in 1998, following the previous meeting in September 1796, maintaining the annual subscription at the previous level of 3 guineas. It is believed the club holds the longest record of unchanged subscriptions and it is hoped we may be mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records if Norris McWherter had made the necessary entry before he died last year.
Elections
The existing committee had expressed a willingness to continue. The meeting unanimously agreed that they should continue.
President Ashley Mote
Steward Dick Orders
Treasurer Neil Jenkinson
Secretary Penny Taylor
It was also agreed that the annual subscription would remain at 3 guineas.
Ashley introduced the Speaker, Stephen Saunders – Collector extraordinaire!
“I have been asked to talk to you about my experiences as a collector of cricket items, in particular relating to Hambledon and Hampshire.
It all started in 1973, when the Post Office issued a set of three stamps featuring W. G. Grace, to mark the centenary of the County Cricket Championship. I was living in Emsworth at that time and I drove out to the Post Office here to have a first day cover post-marked Hambledon. I now wish that I had done several!
This issue made me wonder what other stamps had been issued featuring cricket and so my first hunt started. I visited libraries and stamp dealers and eventually built up a full collection of “cricket stamps”. Subsequent to my research, specialist dealers in cricket stamps appeared, so that eased my task as I had them send me each new issue as they appeared. So the real thrill and challenge of collecting diminished.
I was born and bred in Portsmouth and even as a youngster had a great affection for Hambledon and visited this pub often. So much so, that for the 21st, my sister gave me the print entitled Hambledon 1777. Note the word “entitled”.
This was the trigger for my second collection. We had moved house and had several bare walls, so I started to think about other cricket prints. Again a lot of research was required and I soon realised that both sources of information and sources of supply were extremely limited.
I used to visit various art galleries that dealt in sporting prints and on one occasion I walked into a gallery during a lunch break and happened to see the watercolour that is behind me. There was no way I would pass that by. It is, of course, John Nyren, painted by Frank Reynolds RA. You are probably familiar with it, having bought our President’s book!
It is interesting to think that in those days (the late 1970s) the prints from Vanity Fair were so cheap that, initially, I did not consider them worth collecting. When I realised that the field was so limited, I changed my mind and built up a complete set. The collecting has certainly got to me and I ended up with far too many prints.
As I seemed to have exhausted both my research and the supply, as well as the wall space, the challenge had gone and I began to lose interest.
So what next? I decided to keep the works relating to Hampshire and to my knowledge, there are not that many. One of these and probably the most difficult to find is that of Daniel Day and he is hanging here beside Nyren. Quite appropriate, as he also ran a pub. The Antelope in Southampton and the famous cricket ground of that name, which was at the forefront of cricket in Hampshire in those days. In contemporary reports, it was usually referred to as Day’s ground.
Anyway, I stripped the walls, emptied the drawers, and sold the rest, bar one. I had hoped someone would ask which one! It is a pen and ink drawing of Hammond and Bradman and reads at the bottom – ALL A TOSS-UP (and may somebody win at Lords), Lords Test 1938. It gives a good example of the thrill than can be got from collecting.
We had moved to our current house in Kent, where a previous occupant had been Lady Walpole. In London one day I passed a bookshop which stated in the window that they could provide a print of any famous person. So, I thought it would be nice to hang one of Lady Walpole in the house. While they were searching, I was looking around the shop and saw a pile of drawings stacked on the table. I had a look through them and saw this one. None of them had been priced, as they had only just come in from the estate of E. H. Shepherd (of Winnie the Pooh fame). They were very reluctant to name a price, but, when pressed, said £54. Done. And they found Lady Walpole too!
I have been a member of Hampshire County Cricket Club (and still like to call it that) for over 40 years and remarkably, despite several moves, still had my Handbooks from the 1950s and 602. Wouldn’t it be great to have a full set? Challenge number three and by far the toughest. I am still seven short. So if any of you have some from the 1880s please let me know.
The natural extension to this was other books on cricket in Hampshire. As I started expanding into the area I was getting very confused as to those books that I had and those that I did not have. So I listed all my books, together with those which I knew of, but had not located. This became the basis of the “Bibliography of Cricket in Hampshire” that I published in 1997. For the statisticians amongst you, I have just over 300 books and brochures on Hampshire cricket, of which 66 relate to Hambledon, including several recent volumes by members of this club.
I think that it is relevant, here, today, to comment a little further on the Hambledon section of my collection. This is an area where I can be tempted outside the bibliographical area. Obviously, the pride and joy are the Reynolds behind me. Two other items that are rare and I think will interest you are the model of the Stone made by the famous W. H. Goss Company and the old-fashioned cricket bag with the Hambledon bats and wicket crest.
I know that all of you are here because, like me, you are interested in (even fascinated by) John Nyren and the Hambledon of this day and several of you have written books on the subject. My turn may yet come!
At a book fair in Maidstone in Kent recently, there was a scruffy hard covered scrapbook, with pages browned and loose and on the spine individual letters had been cut out and pasted on, to form the work Hambledon. I took a look inside. Time did not allow me to look too closely or to read too much. I just knew that it had to be bought.
Amongst a treasure trove of items, there is wheat from Broadhalfpenny Down, picked on 12th August 1913, and from Windmill Down, picked the following day. There is a sketch of the bracket over the fireplace in the bar year, as seen that year, together with the fixture list for 1913. There is a photograph of Edward Walley-Tooker and Master Hyde Walley-Tooker from the Daily Chronicle in 1908. There is a menu for the dinner to celebrate the bi-centenary of the birth of John Nyren, held here in 1964. Our Steward might be interested in the article stating that carpets depicting the Bat and Ball inn sign were being snapped up in New York.
So I could go on – so many press cuttings and numerous postcards. There are also many items on Guy Salisbury-Jones and the Hambledon vineyard.
I have, however, saved the best to last. This scrapbook was compiled by C. I. S. Wallace, who, I believe was an avid collector of Cricketana and he was communicating with Richard Plantagenet Nyren – the letters are there. He was the great-grandson of Richard Nyren, John Nyren’s brother – the family tree is there.
This Richard Nyren lent Mr. Wallace two significant items. One was a copy of Pycroft’s “The Cricket Field” with copious notes written in it by Henry Nyren, John Nyren’s son, in 1878, about his family, his father’s book, his friends, and other fascinating titbits. The other was Henry Nyren’s diary, with further family details. Mr. Wallace dutifully transcribed these notes into the scrapbook.
Let me whet your appetite with just a few quotes:
– My grandfather “Old Richard” had a tavern with a farm attached to it; he had 40 sheep and 8 cows besides heifers and pigsties.
– “The Cricketer’s Tutor”, my father is the author of, but Charles Cowden Clarke, as an act of friendship, re-wrote the whole of it in better language.
– John (Nyren) was an outfitter at Portsea. He & his schoolfellow & fellow apprentice James Neale (who married his cousin Mary Nyren) bought their master’s business. They went on board King’s Ships of War …etc.
– My mother had 23 girls making beds, mattresses, shirts, waistcoats & else.
– He (John Nyren) was left-handed & strong in the arms & made the ball spin to some degree
– it was a single stick suck-up that he and the sheep lad Gypsy boy practiced. The Gypsys ….taught my father to play the flute and the fiddle as well.
There is so much more and mention of so many relations and friends, that it is a study in itself.
I think that we are indebted to Mr. Wallace (and also the Maidstone Book Fair!) for providing us with a lot of new and fascinating information, which would otherwise have been lost to us.
However, let us not forget our Club. I wonder how many of you have looked at our website. I did and found that there was a guestbook, with two entries in it. My curiosity got the better of me. One of the entries was from a lady in Minneapolis, saying that she believed that she was descended from Richard Nyren. With Ashley’s agreement, I contacted her. I have now received from her 25 pages of detailed genealogy, starting from Jaspar Nyren, in 1706 and showing that she is a descendent of France, John Nyren’s sister.
I think I am about to start on challenge number four!”
Thanks
Ashley Mote thanked Stephen for the fascinating account of his personal obsession and insight into the Nyren family, without whom we would not be here today.
He also thanked Dick and Lesley Orders and the entire team in the kitchen for another absolutely splendid lunch.
Next Meeting
In celebration of 21st October 2005, the 200th Anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelson’s great victory at Trafalgar, it has been agreed, with Ronnie Broome, Executive Officer on HMS Warrior, to hold a Grand Charity Match to raise money for Youth Cricket and the RNLI. Our target is £3,000, so please do your utmost with the enclosed sponsorship forms.
The match, between the Hambledon Club XI and the Ancient Mariners XI, will be played at Broadhalfpenny Down, on Saturday, 1st October 2005. The Laws and dress of 1805 will apply. The Programme and details of the clothing are attached.
Any other information gratefully received by the Secretary!
11.00 am Grog
1st Innings
1.30 pm Lunch, with Claret and Port
4.30 pm 2nd Innings
6.30 pm Dinner
Places for a total of 70, to include 22 players, 4 officials, and 44 members of the Hambledon Club – SO BOOK EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
Cost: £10 for lunch and £25 for the evening meal
Hambledon CC Youth
The meeting raised £150 in the traditional collection at the lunch.
Answers to Roy Clarke’s additional Quiz Questions
1. George Gunn
2. Clem Hill – in 1902, during the only Test Match ever played at Sheffield
3. R. E. Foster – on the 1903/4 MCC Tour of Australia
4. Andrew Sandham – in the West Indies in 1930
5. This is still the score of 452, made by Don Bradman in Australia in 1930. The point is that when Hanif scored 499, he was batting on a matting wicket, while Brian Lara, is, of course, left-handed.