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Scorebook Chronology
SAMUEL BRITCHER
Details
SAMUEL BRITCHER
A Complete List of All the Grand Matches of Cricket that has been played in the year 1792. London: Cane and Glindon, [1792]. 8vo (215 x 135mm). 28p. Title woodcut. (Short outer margin to third leaf causing partial loss of players' names, more on verso than recto, title with short tear and light crease along inner margin.) Early 20th-century green boards, preserving original plain blue wrappers, uncut (corner bumped, wrappers torn).
Provenance: F.S. Ashley-Cooper (1877-1932, bookplate; two inserted letters to him from E.G. Hammond, dated Stratford/Avon, 15 January and 18 March, 1922, and another letter from J. Britcher, Tonbridge, 11 November, 1928). The two letters from Hammond suggest that Ashley-Cooper tried but failed to acquire the family's collection of Britchers. The first letter, 2¼p., mentions the death of his father, Ernest Hammond, to whom A.L. Ford had recently paid a visit (Ford 'would doubtless remember what volumes my father had in his library of cricket books'). He apologises for having 'had no opportunity of going properly into the things left by my father, although I remember seeing what is probably the volume you refer to'. Hammond's second letter gives particulars of the Brighton v Middlesex match, 20-23 September 1792, in which his great grandfather, John Hammond, played: 'Britcher ... gives the scores in his book and I am pleased to be able to give you the particulars overleaf'. But he adds the unwelcome news that he is 'not at present thinking of disposing of any of the items'. J. Britcher has no knowledge of an ancestor called Samuel: 'I do not remember having heard of a Samuel Britcher in our family at all, but I will try and find out from some of the older members .... If you care to let me know exactly what it is you are hoping to find'.
THIRD YEAR OF ISSUE. ONE OF ONLY THREE COPIES RECORDED in David Rayvern Allen's census (Britcher's Scores, 2003, p. 135). Lord's retains the Hammond copy, and Leicestershire Record Office hold the other. Many of the matches feature the 'Mary-le-Bone' side. Britcher was official scorer to the Club, and since he even titles himself 'scorer' on the title-page, it can be assumed that he recorded many if not all of these matches himself. His decision to print the scores, beginning with the 1790 season, was fortunate for posterity. As MCC's early records were destroyed by fire in 1825, the survival of the printed scorebooks, however few in number, has been crucial to cricket history. His chosen printers or publishers were themselves obscure. The only other contemporary works known with the imprint of Cane and Glindon are The Everlasting Misery of the Wicked (1793), a sermon, and a broadsheet summoning the parishioners of the Parish of St. Anne Westminster to a meeting (1793). However, the print is of ample size and generously spaced with 26 matches on the 28 pages; the title-page vignette is a charming decorative touch to an otherwise factually-oriented book. A REMARKABLE UNSOPHISTICATED COPY, UNCUT AND PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Allen 9; Allen Samuel Britcher: The Hidden Scorer, p. 8; Allen, Britcher's Scores, pp. 35-41; Padwick 869.
A Complete List of All the Grand Matches of Cricket that has been played in the year 1792. London: Cane and Glindon, [1792]. 8vo (215 x 135mm). 28p. Title woodcut. (Short outer margin to third leaf causing partial loss of players' names, more on verso than recto, title with short tear and light crease along inner margin.) Early 20th-century green boards, preserving original plain blue wrappers, uncut (corner bumped, wrappers torn).
Provenance: F.S. Ashley-Cooper (1877-1932, bookplate; two inserted letters to him from E.G. Hammond, dated Stratford/Avon, 15 January and 18 March, 1922, and another letter from J. Britcher, Tonbridge, 11 November, 1928). The two letters from Hammond suggest that Ashley-Cooper tried but failed to acquire the family's collection of Britchers. The first letter, 2¼p., mentions the death of his father, Ernest Hammond, to whom A.L. Ford had recently paid a visit (Ford 'would doubtless remember what volumes my father had in his library of cricket books'). He apologises for having 'had no opportunity of going properly into the things left by my father, although I remember seeing what is probably the volume you refer to'. Hammond's second letter gives particulars of the Brighton v Middlesex match, 20-23 September 1792, in which his great grandfather, John Hammond, played: 'Britcher ... gives the scores in his book and I am pleased to be able to give you the particulars overleaf'. But he adds the unwelcome news that he is 'not at present thinking of disposing of any of the items'. J. Britcher has no knowledge of an ancestor called Samuel: 'I do not remember having heard of a Samuel Britcher in our family at all, but I will try and find out from some of the older members .... If you care to let me know exactly what it is you are hoping to find'.
THIRD YEAR OF ISSUE. ONE OF ONLY THREE COPIES RECORDED in David Rayvern Allen's census (Britcher's Scores, 2003, p. 135). Lord's retains the Hammond copy, and Leicestershire Record Office hold the other. Many of the matches feature the 'Mary-le-Bone' side. Britcher was official scorer to the Club, and since he even titles himself 'scorer' on the title-page, it can be assumed that he recorded many if not all of these matches himself. His decision to print the scores, beginning with the 1790 season, was fortunate for posterity. As MCC's early records were destroyed by fire in 1825, the survival of the printed scorebooks, however few in number, has been crucial to cricket history. His chosen printers or publishers were themselves obscure. The only other contemporary works known with the imprint of Cane and Glindon are The Everlasting Misery of the Wicked (1793), a sermon, and a broadsheet summoning the parishioners of the Parish of St. Anne Westminster to a meeting (1793). However, the print is of ample size and generously spaced with 26 matches on the 28 pages; the title-page vignette is a charming decorative touch to an otherwise factually-oriented book. A REMARKABLE UNSOPHISTICATED COPY, UNCUT AND PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Allen 9; Allen Samuel Britcher: The Hidden Scorer, p. 8; Allen, Britcher's Scores, pp. 35-41; Padwick 869.