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Amateurs and Professionals in Victorian County Cricket

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Keith A.P. Sandiford
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Extract

Although sport and recreation are vital segments of human life and culture, they have generally been neglected by social historians. Serious scholars still know too little about these important subjects even in England, where a spectacular sports explosion occurred during the nineteenth century. Cricket is perhaps the most English of all games and has long been regarded as an important national symbol. Any careful study of it is therefore likely to throw useful light on the English mores and character. By focusing on such complex themes as status, class-distinctions, social mobility, paternalism, and snobbery, this paper will try to fit Victorian county cricket into a broader socio-cultural context. This study of amateurs and professionals will attempt to provide some insights not only into the basic economics of Victorian cricket (which deserve more attention than they have received hitherto), but also into the intricate relationships between masters and servants and the interesting English attitudes towards professionalism in sport.

Betting, corruption, and professionalism had been integral elements in English cricket during the Hanoverian age. The Victorians discarded the first two and kept the third, while for a long time trying to exclude all three from soccer. In the end, they failed and had to accept professionalism in Association football in 1885. Curiously, none of this soul-searching occurred in cricket where professionalism was always quite simply regarded as a necessary evil. First class cricket, in fact, sprang directly out of professionalism. It was the touring professionals who taught the Victorians how to play as well as sell the game. Without the work of the All England and United Elevens during 1845-70, county cricket might never have evolved as it did.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 32 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1983

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References

1 This article has been made possible by a grant from the Research Board of the University of Manitoba. It has also profited from the valuable suggestions of my colleagues, Professors Peter Bailey, John Finlay, John Kendle, and Morris Mott.

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