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ABSTRACT
The maintenance of social status was important in cricket in the early nineteenth century as the upper classes participated increasingly in a game where they competed with their social inferiors. They could only play as amateurs; gentlemen did not get paid. This was not a problem for most but it was for some. Playing cricket had to be supported financially (outside of the village level) and this paper examines the manner in which Richard Cheslyn was able to play the game while maintaining his status as a gentleman between the 1820s and 1850s. Cheslyn was born the heir to a landed estate in Leicestershire and brought up accordingly. However, by the time he came of age the prospect of his inheritance was in doubt and disappeared entirely soon afterwards. Forced to seek alternative forms of support, he found a partial answer in cricket. An enthusiastic (if not first-rate) player, he was able, for a period, to finance his participation in the game and maintain his status and lifestyle through organising matches and gambling. When all else failed, he was rescued through a network of influential friends, gained in large part from his role in Leicestershire cricket.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Robert Colls, This Sporting Life: Sport & Liberty in England, 1760–1960 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020), 113.
2 For the ideology of amateurism, see Norman Baker, ‘Whose Hegemony? The Origins of the Amateur Ethos in Nineteenth Century English Society’, Sport in History 24, no. 1 (2004): 1–16.
3 See, for example, Dean Allen, ‘England’s “Golden Age”: Imperial Cricket and Late Victorian Society’, Sport in Society 15 (2015): 209–26, and Peter Cain, ‘Education, Income and Status: Amateur Cricketers in England and Wales c.1840–c.1930’, Sport in History 30 (2010): 351–73.
4 John Pearson, The Serpent and the Stag (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), 129.
5 There is no record of Richard playing cricket at university but this may be due to the paucity of such records from this period.
6 See S. Dorothy Brompton and Patricia N. Hening, Diseworth: The Story of a Village (Diseworth Publications, 2000), 25.
7 Ibid., 18.
8 https://cricketarchive.com/Archive. The Archive claims to be ‘the most comprehensive, searchable and trusted cricket database in the world.’ It gives access to ‘700,000 scorecards on 14,000 grounds and details of more than 1.2m players.’ It is by no means comprehensive on the early nineteenth century and its adjudication on which were first-class matches and which were not in the era before the county championship is sometimes hard to follow. Nor do its scorecords always correlate with those in contemporary newspapers.
9 https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/260/260895.html (further references to scores and other details from Cricket Archive only give the general address as a citation). See also Edgar E. Snow, A History of Leicestershire Cricket (Leicester: Edgar Backus, 1949), 33 and Leicester Chronicle, 1 and 12 September, 1821.
10 F S. Ashley-Cooper, Nottinghamshire Cricket and Cricketers (Nottingham: Henry B. Saxton, 1923), 70.
11 Derek Birley, A Social History of Cricket (London: Aurum, 1999), 51–6; Eric Midwinter, Class Peace: An Analysis of Social Status and English Cricket 1846–1962 (Cardiff: Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, 2017), 27–31.
12 Snow, A History of Leicestershire Cricket, 31–2; Snow devotes a page to ‘Dick’ Cheslyn and his cricketing career, but gets many details wrong.
13 Birley, A Social History of Cricket, 49–50.
14 Stake money differed from gambling; Colls, This Sporting Life, 66.
15 Reverend James Pycroft, The Cricket Field: or, The History and the Science of Cricket (Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1854), 120–1. According to Snow, A History of Leicestershire Cricket, 32, Cheslyn and Pycroft became friends when the latter was at the Collegiate School, Leicester in the 1840s. For Budd, see Birley, A Social History of Cricket, 61, 65.
16 He may have been seeking an heiress to marry, his circumstances in Leicestershire being too well known to allow of success. If so, this represented another unsuccessful attempt to find an income.
17 Birley, chapter 8. Nor did Grace aspire to the gentleman status that Cheslyn sought to maintain.
18 See John Fisher, ‘The Cheslyns: the Decline and Fall of a Gentry Family in Nineteenth Century Leicestershire,’ Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 94 (2020): 187–98.
19 Derby Mercury, 7 December 1825. He was following a family tradition: Brompton and Hening, 26. A legal qualification would have been useful if Richard had ever inherited Langley Priory.
20 Leicester Journal, 22 March, 1833. Captain William Cheslyn saw 23 years active service, including the Peninsula and Waterloo.
21 Leicester Chronicle, 8 January 1825 and 18 November, 1826, for promotions to Lieutenant and Captain in the Leicestershire Yeomanry Cavalry. Star, 11 November, 1826; ‘Richard Cheslyn, gent, to be Cornet by purchase, 7th regiment of Light Dragoons.’ Also the London Gazette, Part I, 1828, 582.
22 Cricket Archive; Stamford Mercury, 13 August and 3 September, 1824; Sheffield Independent, 11 September, 1824; Leicester Chronicle, 30 July, 1825.
23 See Birley, A Social History of Cricket, 56–65. Also E. D. Cuming, ed., Squire Osbaldeston: His Autobiography (London: Bodley Head, 1926), Douglas Sutherland, The Mad Hatters (London: Robert Hale, 1987), 25–35, and Colls, This Sporting Life, 224–5.
24 Cricket Archive; http://wikiwand.com/en/Roundarmtrialmatches; Birley, A Social History of Cricket, 64–7. Roundarm, which never became the norm in bowling, was an intermediate step towards overarm, which did.
25 A note at the bottom of the game’s scorecard asserts that ‘On the first day, 112 pounds was taken at the gate, at 6d. per person.’ This would indicate a crowd of some 5,000 (https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/0/445.html).
26 The Times, 24, 25, 26 and 27 July, 1827; Leicester Chronicle, 1 August, 1827.
27 Colls, This Sporting Life, 76.
28 Pycroft, The Cricket Field, 249–50.
29 Globe, 21 August 1827; Leicester Chronicle, 8 September, 1827; Morning Post, 21 September 1827; Hampshire Chronicle, 1 October 1827; Saint James's Chronicle, 27 March, 1828.
30 R.S. Surtees, Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour (Bradbury: Agnew & Co, 1853).
31 Cricket Archive; Bell's Life in London, 9 and 22 July, 1832.
32 Letters to The Times, May 26, 1834; June 11, 1835.
33 Edgar E. Snow, Country House Cricket Grounds of Leicestershire and Rutland (Derby: ACS Publications, 1998), 18–19.
34 Snow, Leicestershire Cricket, 37–45.
35 A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: A history of Leicester, 1780–1850 (Leicester: Leicester U.P., 1954).
36 Nottingham Review, 3 July, 1829; Leicester Chronicle, 11 July, 1829.
37 Leicester Journal, 3 September, 1830.
38 Snow, Leicestershire Cricket, 59.
39 Snow, Country House Cricket Grounds, 36.
40 Star, 24 March, 1831; The Times, 25 March, 1831. For Howe, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Curzon-Howe,_1st_Earl_Howe.
41 For Hartopp (1809–1884), see Peter S. Shipley, ‘The Leicestershire Gentry and its Social and Cultural Networks c. 1790–1875’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 2011, esp. 214–5.
42 The debt lingered long after the deaths of both Cheslyns. See Nottinghamshire Guardian, 10 December, 1862 and 16 December, 1869 for legal notices concerning the liability of Hartopp and the Cheslyns. See also Nottinghamshire Record Office, DD/474/28/1-2 for documents relating to mortgages and indentures, 1841–1859.
43 Leicester Chronicle, 19 February, 1831. This was in the context of the perceived need to meet disorder after the rejection of the First Reform Bill. The Duke of Rutland established an armoury at Belvoir Castle at this time. For the effectiveness of the Leicestershire Yeomanry, see Colls, This Sporting Life, 24–5, fn 89.
44 Leicester Journal, 23 September, 1831. Payne was noted for his massive gambling as well as his generosity as a host. He also kept ‘a smaller house he owned about two miles away with young ladies of what was then known as “easy virtue”’ for the use of his guests; see Sutherland, 35–6. Richard played for Sulby frequently in August and September between 1830 and 1835. For a guide to the scale of gambling, mostly on horses and cards, see Philip W. Wilson, ed., The Greville Diary, I (London: Heinemann, 1927), 45–57.
45 Leicester Journal, 7 and 15 October, 18 November, 1831; Morning Post, 22 October, 1831, 24 March and 24 April, 1832; Sun, 26 and 29 May, 1832, 26 July, 1832.
46 28 Leicester Journal, 8 March, 1833. The Castle was the residence of the Duke of Rutland, another ‘diehard’. For the entertainment of guests at Belvoir, see Wilson, Greville Diary, 28–30.
47 For such problems, see https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/leicestershire.
48 Leicester Journal, 3 October, 1834; Stamford Mercury, 10 October, 1834.
49 Leicester Journal, 11 September, 1835 and 24 June, 1836; Leicester Chronicle, 30 April, 1836.
50 Leicester Journal, 26 August, 1836; Snow, 47–9; Ashley-Cooper, Nottinghamshire Cricket and Cricketers, 62–3.
51 Ashley-Cooper, Nottinghamshire Cricket and Cricketers, 46; https://www.trentbridge.co.uk/news/2007/october/nottinghamshire-cricketers-part-1.html.
52 For example, in a report on a match between Leicestershire and Birmingham in Leicestershire Mercury, 18 July, 1846.
53 Ibid., 9 July, 1842.
54 For the economic and social shifts that made his approach successful, see Wray Vamplew, ‘Sport and Industrialisation: An Economic Interpretation of the Changes in Popular Sport in Nineteenth Century England,’ in Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad 1700–1914, ed. J.A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass, 1988), 7–20.
56 Leicester Herald, 17 June, 1837.
57 Snow, 37–9.
58 See, for example, M.A. Speak, ‘Social Stratification and Participation in Sport in Mid-Victorian England with Particular Reference to Lancaster, 1840–1870,’ in Mangan, 43–66.
59 Leicestershire Mercury, 28 June, 1845.
60 Leicester Journal, 28 May, 1841. See also Snow, Country House Cricket Grounds, 11–12, 15–16.
61 Leicestershire Mercury, 15 April, 1837. The exploits of the Marquess and friends were perhaps the origin of the phrase, ‘Painting the Town Red’; see https://www.johnmcquaid.co.uk/p/painting-town.html. The Marquess was always willing to pay for damage resulting from his drunken escapades; his friends had no fears of consequences.
62 For the elections, see https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol4/pp110-152; for Cheslyn’s interventions, see Leicester Chronicle, 15 and 29 July, 1837.
63 Leicester Chronicle, 9 September, 1837; Bell’s Life, 15 November, 1840; Leicester Journal, 10 September, 1841.
64 Derby Mercury, 19 January, 6 July and 14 September, 1842; 30 November and 14 December, 1842; 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29 November, 1843.
65 Nottingham Review, 10 May, 1844.
66 White’s Directory 1846, 76.
67 See the entry on ‘Impressed duty stamp’ at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressed_duty_stamp.
68 Leicester Journal, 7 November, 1845.
69 Leicestershire Mercury, 11 August, 1849.
70 Cricket Archive; Leicestershire Mercury, 30 August, 1845. The MCC won, with Cheslyn scoring 7 in the first innings, and despite Clarke taking thirteen wickets.
72 Snow, 49; Leicester Chronicle, September, 1851: ‘Mr Hartopp, universally acknowledged the best back-stop in the cricketing world.’
73 Cricket Archive; Leicester Journal, 4 September, 1846.
74 Ibid., 18 July, 1846.
75 Leicester Journal, 26 May, 1848. See Leicester Journal, 2 October, 1830, for the mass eviction of tenants who voted against the Marquis’ instructions.
76 Shipley, ‘The Leicestershire Gentry’, 105, for the large number of Anglican clergymen in Leicestershire; Leicestershire Mercury, 29 July, 1848, for the game. An earlier match, against Rugby (Leicester Journal, 26 May, 1848), saw five reverends among the opposition.
77 Leicestershire Mercury 29 July 1848.
78 Lord Burghley, later the Marquess of Exeter, was captain of Stamford. His first-class batting average was a little better than Cheslyn’s; see Cricket Archive and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cecil,_3rd_Marquess_of_Exeter. His father was another ‘diehard’ Tory.
79 Leicester Chronicle, 11 July, 1846.
80 Ibid., 5 September, 1846.
81 Leicestershire Mercury, 27 November, 1847.
82 Nottingham Review, 6 July, 1849.
83 For the Hassalls, see John Fisher, ‘Land Agency in Nineteenth Century Nottinghamshire: John Hassall of Shelford Manor, 1789–1859’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society 121 (2017): 193–208. For meetings of the Ashby de-la-Zouch Conservative and Agricultural associations at which both Cheslyn senior and Hassall senior were present, see Leicester Journal, 25 January and 15 March, 1839. The two families also attended the same balls at Ashby; see Nottingham Review, 28 September, 1837.
84 Leicestershire Mercury 10 November 1849; Nottinghamshire Guardian 8 November 1849; Derbyshire Courier 10 November 1849; Derbyshire Advertizer 9 November 1849; Derby Mercury 7 November 1849.
85 Leicester Chronicle, 18 January, 1851; Leicestershire Mercury, 13 September, 1851.
86 Leicester Chronicle, 30 July, 1825; Leicester Journal, 21 August, 1846, for the game MCC v Northern Counties; Leicester Chronicle, 6 September, 1851; ‘CRICKET. The County v the Town.’
87 Leicestershire Mercury, 4 March, 1854; for the death, ‘on the 25th ult., at Asfordbv, Melton Mowbray, in the 22nd year of her life, of consumption, Jane, the beloved and affectionate wife of Richard Cheslyn. Esq., leaving an infant family to mourn their early bereavement.’ For the children see The Times, 19 January, 1855 and the Leicester Chronicle, 19 January, 1855.
88 Nottinghamshire Guardian, 5 October, 1854; Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 8 February and 26 September, 1856.
89 Nottinghamshire Guardian, 8 July, 1858.
90 Midwinter, 27–9.
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John Fisher
John Fisher is a retired academic who taught at Monash and Newcastle Universities in Australia for many years. He has published several articles on South Nottinghamshire politics and land tenure relations in the nineteenth century. He is presently stranded in Shelford, Nottinghamshire but hopes to return to Australia next year.