The Lord's Opening Partnership

Church and Cricket in Calderdale, 1860 to c.1920.

Dennis O’Keefe

During the second half of the nineteenth century religionand cricket came together in the industrial area of WestYorkshire now known as Calderdale. Such an eventualityseemed remote during the first half of that century withclergymen opposed to - even fearful of - popular sports.This essay examines why clerical attitudes changed,allowing churches, chapels and Sunday schools to formcricket clubs. It argues, however, that the factors whichdrove the creation of church cricket and moulded its naturewere more a consequence of industrial society and thesituation of working men within that society than ofclerical influence and even less of Muscular Christianity.It further holds that it was the adaptation of churchcricket to this working-class culture rather than areaction against a clerical agenda of what Peter Bailey hastermed ‘play discipline’ that the marriage sooner or laterended in separation or divorce.

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In 1860, in the expanding industrial town of Elland inWest Yorkshire, a cricket club was formed by the teachersand scholars of Providence Independent Sunday School.1

Three years later this became Elland Cricket Club which,in 1878, played the Australian touring side, the mostprestigious match ever played in Calderdale, a sprawlingarea closely approximating to the former Ancient Parishof Halifax.

Calderdale was in many ways characteristic of thenineteenth century industrial North. The growth of itsindustry and population was huge but not untypically so.2

There was diversity: cotton dominant in the westernareas, especially around Todmorden, and in the eastaround the main town, Halifax, worsteds, carpets andlater engineering and confectionery provided mostemployment. In religious terms Calderdale, unlike forexample, neighbouring Bradford was not dominated byNonconformity, having a strong Anglican presence.

Providence Independent was one of the first of at least200 cricket teams and clubs formed in the area fromreligious organizations - almost a third of all thoseever created and more than their main rivals ofworkplaces and public houses combined.3 Of these, 170 hademerged by 1920 and, representing almost half of allteams appearing in the local leagues up to this point,illustrated their crucial contribution to the formativeyears of the popular game.4 The Nonconformists accountedfor the majority with the Methodists alone havingproduced at least as many teams as the Anglicans. Clubsoriginating from religious bodies still constitute athird of the current Halifax Cricket League.5

Why did the churches make this huge contribution topopular cricket when they did and what was the nature and

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significance of this? Keith Sandiford in his study of theVictorian game argues that clergymen, animated byMuscular Christian fervour, were unanimous in theirpassion for cricket and greatly contributed to the‘explosion’ of club cricket from the 1860s which was tolead eventually to leagues in the North.6 The case will bemade here, however, that in Calderdale the main motiveforce was to be found in industrial working-classsociety.

Testing Faith

Clergymen at the start of Victoria’s reign were rarelyenthused by cricket, especially in its popular form. Tenmiles north-east of Calderdale in the small town ofPudsey, near Leeds, during the 1830s, cricket was played

mostly in the lanes or small openings … a tub leg for abat, made smaller at one end for a handle … no umpires, andoften those who cheated the hardest won … Money was mostlyplayed for, and frequent uproar, confusion, and evenfighting took place.7

In Calderdale itself, in the village of Illingworth,three miles to the north of Halifax, the Yorkshire andEngland legend Tom Emmett recalled that, as a youngsterin about 1850:

There was a lot of rivalry among the boys who played on the‘Walk Top.' It got to the length of arranging a singlewicket match, and we played for 2d. ‘a man.’ … I sent theball … through the window of an adjoining combing-shed. Ithit a man named Harrowby, who was quite a character in thevillage. He came out covered with blood, and swore he wouldhave us before the magistrates.8

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With a background of industrial, political and socialunrest, such cricket involving gambling and disorder wasnot conducive to church support. In his study of thedevelopment of cricket in South Wales, Andrew Hignellfound that during the first half of the nineteenthcentury church and chapel would not countenance theplaying, let alone the sponsoring, of sport by the lowerorders.9 Indeed, suspicion remained after mid-century,especially within Methodism. In 1850 the Bible ChristianMagazine still considered ‘the ballroom, the card-table …the race-course, the bowling-green [and] the cricket-ground’ to be locations of sin.10

Around mid-century, however, a climate more favourable topopular sport slowly emerged. In the industrial North thefactory system was becoming more palatable to workers andChartism in Halifax, as elsewhere, ‘had undoubtedly lostits momentum’.11 Furthermore, leisure was increasinglyappealing to the middle classes, so that by the 1860s, asPeter Bailey put it, ‘the process of bourgeoisenleisurement was plain to all.’12

Anglican clergymen played an important role in renderingsport respectable and therefore acceptable. The Rev.Charles Kingsley is credited with the invention ofMuscular Christianity which ‘united godliness withmanliness’.13 Clergymen such as Leslie Stephen, aCambridge don, and public school headmasters EdwardThring at Uppingham and Edmond Warre at Eton promoted theteam sports newly-reformed by the public schools andOxbridge. As early as 1851, another clergyman, the Rev.James Pycroft, one of cricket’s first historians,informed us of the game’s metamorphosis from its darkPudsey days into a moral education:

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… there is no place so free from temptation - no such happyplains or lands of innocence - as our cricket-fields. Wegive bail for our good behaviour from the moment that weenter them. A cricket-field is a sphere of wholesomediscipline in obedience and good order, not to mention thatmanly spirit which faces danger without shrinking, andbears disappointment with good-nature.14

In the same year that Pycroft’s The Cricket Field waspublished, Horace Mann’s Religious Census was undertaken.In Calderdale it revealed that fewer than half of thepopulation attended a service.15 The results also showed anear-balance of Anglicanism and Nonconformity and,alarmingly, that working-class men attended in only halfthe numbers of their women.16 Simon Green argues that thisprovoked an inter-denominational competition for souls,fiercest for those of working men.17

As heads of families and the main wage earners, workingmen were already important. The reform acts of 1867 and1884 made them increasingly significant in electingparliaments, which were debating the position of theEstablished Church and questions closely associated withreligion such as education, drink and Irish Home Rule.Furthermore, redressing the perception that church-goingwas a feminine activity, Green holds, ‘became somethingof a local obsession’.18 Special efforts such as PleasantSunday Afternoons, men-only services and the provision ofrecreational facilities were undertaken to encourageworking men into the churches.

As regards providing cricket, however, many clergymenwere not as convinced as Pycroft of the game’s DamascusRoad conversion. As late as 1878, Frederick Gale – hardlya social or cricketing Jacobin – felt it necessary toreassure them:

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Dearly beloved parsons, if it should be your lot to be atthe head of a real cricketing parish, shut your ears to thenonsense which foolish people will try and din into themthat cricket promotes drunkenness and rioting … if youshould see a drunken man or two about a cricket ground, youwill probably find on enquiry that the offenders are thosewho are never sober from year’s end to year’s end.19

The conduct of players and spectators was not the onlyworry. There was a higher debate beyond even the neuroses1Notes? Elland Cricket Club, 5.2 The area’s population quadrupled from 41,220 in 1801 to 170,408 in1881. During the same period the population of Great Britain almosttrebled (10.69 million to 29.79 million). Calderdale was far moretypical of urban growth than, for example, Manchester (75,000 to502,000) or Bradford (13,000 to 183,000). Sources: Hargreaves, ‘Table1.4. Population of the township and parish of Halifax 1743-1851’,Halifax, 74: UK Population Census, 1881: Mathias, ‘Table 1 PopulationGrowth in Great Britain and the United Kingdom, 1801-1931; ‘Table 3:Growth of Towns’, First Industrial Nation, 415, 417. 3 Hardcastle, Lost, plus my own findings. 199 church clubs and teamshave been identified with 116 for works and 47 for pubs and WorkingMen’s Clubs. The precise numbers will never be known but forchurches, 225-250 seems reasonable.4 Of 437 teams identified 208 came from religious bodies. The figureis so high because clubs could have two or more teams and alsoswitched between leagues.5 Findings of David Normanton, President of the Towergate HalifaxCricket League.6 Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians, 36, 53-4.7 Lawson, Progress in Pudsey, 81-82. 8 Pullin, Old Yorkshire Cricketers, 54. 9 Hignell, ‘Favourit’ Game, 86.10 Currie, Methodism Divided, 132.11 Hargreaves, Halifax, 150.12 Bailey, Leisure and Class, 58.13 Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning, 207.14 Pycroft, Cricket Field, 41.15 Green, ‘Church of England’, 107.16 There was probably a small Nonconformist majority. Unfortunately the returns for the municipal borough of Halifax omit the Congregationalists, Particular Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians and Catholics. See Hargreaves, Halifax, 168.17 Ibid., 108.18 Ibid., 113.19 Gale, ‘The Clergy and Cricket’.

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of Victorian respectability. During the 1880s, with thequestion of Sunday schools and recreations simmering,there was a belief that sports, however acceptable inthemselves, should not be the concern of Sunday schoolteachers and that everything ‘not of a strictly religiousand educational character must be swept away, or at leastkept at arms length.’20

Such concerns were not limited to clergymen or Sundayschool teachers. The debate was well-illustrated atStones Wesleyan Mutual Improvement Society. This moorlandchapel above the village of Ripponden, close to theLancashire border formed a cricket club in 1884. Butseven years earlier recreation was still causing anxiety,Society members being warned that ‘leisure moments …passed unimproved; be as the serpent, Poisonous anddeadly too’.21 Two years later, however, a shift wasevident with a member reluctantly advocating churchprovision of recreation to retain their young people anddivert them from ‘Immorality’ which was notably found in‘the Public House [with its] Music … dancing, andgames.’22 By 1891, the Society was calling for its owncricket side, to ‘keep the members more together insummer time, and find them with one of the healthiest ofall recreations.’23

Opening Up

Some Anglican clergy did not agonize as did the workingmen of Stones Chapel, and from the early 1870s associatedthemselves with cricket. The Rev. W. J. Kindle was vice-

20 McLeod, ‘Sport and the Sunday School’, 118.21 W. F. Switcher, ‘Leisure Moments’, ‘Gazette’, 26 June 1877. 22 Ibid., ‘A Helper’, ‘Ought the Christian Church to supply counterAttractions and Pleasures to those of the World’, 21 October 1979.23 Ibid., piece by ‘A Suggestion’, 1891 (No precise date).

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president of the now secular Elland Cricket Club.24

Clergymen attended cricket club events undeterred evenwhen held in public houses. Ovenden Cricket Club’s annualdinner held at the White Lion Hotel in November 1873 wasattended by the Rev. J. G. Bailey, who proposed thetoast, expressing ‘his pleasure to see so many gentlemenpresent’ and the Rev. W. Gillmor who wished ‘to encourageany innocent and healthy amusement’ considering it ‘theduty of a clergyman to help on all such movements.’25

There is no evidence, that Gillmor, vicar of nearby StMary’s, Illingworth, introduced any such amusements.However, the clergy bestowed respectability on cricketwhile enjoying an evening’s hob-nobbing with thedistrict’s politicians and bourgeoisie. The Ovendenevening was attended by local notables including GeorgeHoldsworth Crossley of the carpet manufacturing dynastyand the brewer John Taylor Ramsden.

Other Anglican clergyman gave cricket a more activeblessing. One of the earliest was the Rev. Elijah Bagott,the first vicar of St Thomas, Claremount, a working-classdistrict serving the expanding factories of the HebbleValley, less than a mile from Halifax but rather isolatedby its elevated location. Bagott was the driving force inbuilding the church, consecrated in 1861.26 He doubtlesssaw cricket as a means of fostering the identity of thenew church as well as providing much-needed recreation.Bagott was president of two cricket clubs within theparish. The first was Shibden Vale Cricket Club.Established in 1869, it played on the Shibden Hall estateof John Lister, its founder and honorary president, whowas a renowned philanthropist and later Independent

24 Tenth Annual Report of Elland Cricket Club, The Halifax Guardian, 1March 1873.25 The Halifax Guardian, 8 and 15 November 1873.

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Labour candidate for Halifax.27 The second was the churchside, formed in 1873, which played initially on the landof Lister, who later became club president himself.28

Although undoubtedly in his interest to garner Lister’sfavour, Bagott appeared genuinely supportive of churchsport. He was connected with cricket over many years, andpresided at the cricket club’s 1884 tea party, at whichit founded a football club that did not play on Lister’sland. The church during his time also formed a Sundayschool cricket club, which almost certainly preceded thesenior club.

While clearly encouraging, there is no firm evidence thatBagott instigated the church’s cricket clubs. Thereexists a debate as to whether clergy or congregations -supply or demand - were the main driving force increating church cricket clubs. Sandiford stresses therole of clergymen. Richard Holt, however, found inBirmingham that in the majority of sports clubs theimpetus came from the congregation.29 Jack Williams, inhis study of church cricket between the wars, concludedthat insufficiency of evidence made it impossible todecide.30

At St Mary’s, Illingworth, cricket seems to have beenprecipitated by the arrival of a new curate, the Rev.William Davies, in April 1877.31 Three months later,cricket was recorded there for the first time. Daviesappears to have been in the Muscular Christian mould: heobtained a fourth at Oxford, but on 6 July 1878, hescored 35 not out for the church team.32 This, on a pitch

26 St Thomas' Church Jubilee, no page number. 27 ‘Shibden Vale Rules’.28 Lister was president at least from 1894, report of the club’sannual dinner, The Halifax Guardian, 17 March 1894.29 Holt, Sport and the British,138.30 Williams, Cricket and England,149-50.

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better suited to grazing sheep, would probably havemerited a century today. Although the club was notformally established until February 1884, five yearsafter Davies’s departure, at least 56 fixtures hadalready been played by then.33 By 1884, there is littledoubt that demand rather than supply was the motiveforce, with the church providing a base, including theground. The curate, Frederic Hughes, who had arrived in1881, was instrumental in establishing high standards oforganization and minute-keeping.34

Anglicans, in line with the accepted view, were generallyahead of the Nonconformists in supporting sport. Asimilar situation to that at Illingworth occurred in 1884at another St Mary’s in the old industrial village ofLuddenden in the Calder Valley. The vicar, the Rev. HenryRobinson, became president of the church’s new cricketclub, and his curate, the Rev. Fred Taylor, became itsvice president, both being recent arrivals.35 Taylorplayed in one of the club’s first fixtures, though hefailed to score.36

The evidence at a Nonconformist chapel, 13 years later,by which time church sport was largely accepted, providesa very clear, if somewhat unusual, case of a cricket clubbeing formed through the initiative or demand of laymen.At Outlane, on the border of Calderdale and Kirklees (thedistrict around Huddersfield) Bethel Methodist NewConnexion established its club in 1897. The chapel’sminister, Rev. Lea, raised no objections at the trustees’

31The Halifax Guardian, 28 April 1877. 32 Ibid, 13 July 1878.33 The Halifax Guardian and The Halifax Courier, various dates.34 O’Keefe, Start of Play,11.35 Robinson arrived in March 1881, Taylor in September 1883.Luddenden Church History, 43. 36 Scores of Luddenden St Mary’s v. Mytholmroyd 2nd XI, The HalifaxGuardian, 26 July 1884.

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meeting which ratified the club’s rules but that was theextent of clerical involvement.37

The club was proposed by a trustee and church leader, BenHoyle, who became a vice-president. Hoyle had almostcertainly played for a team named ‘Outlane’ in 1884.38 Aclub had existed under the names ‘Outlane Wellington’ orsimply ‘Outlane’ since at least May 1874, frequentlyplaying full fixture lists, often for two sides, until1892 and having taken part in the Huddersfield DistrictChallenge Cup in 1887.39 The club had also engaged aprofessional for at least the 1883 season.40 Several otherchapel members had also played for the club. Apparentlyfalling on difficult times - no fixtures being reportedbetween 1893 and 1896 - it was being resurrected underthe wing of the chapel. The ground, opposite the chapel,was rented from a chapel member.41 Effectively a cricketclub was being attached to a church rather than emergingfrom within it. The church was a haven, rather than acradle, for the cricket club.

The arrangement was something of a marriage ofconvenience, with potential advantages for the churchalso. The opening of a new chapel four years earlier hadbrought an increase in male membership, but this hadalready fallen back by 1897.42 This year was the centenaryof the Methodist New Connexion and cricket may have been

37 Meeting 8 April 1897, ‘Outlane Chapel Trustees’ Minute Book’. 38 ‘B. Hoyle’ played for Outlane v. Thurstonland. The Huddersfield ExaminerSupplement, 30 August 1884. Hoyle was 21 or 22 at the time.39 The Huddersfield Daily Chronicle, The Huddersfield Examiner and The HalifaxGuardian, various 1874 to 1892: The Leeds Mercury, 11 July 1887. 40 ‘Haigh (prof.)’ played against Cliffe End, The Huddersfield Daily Chronicleand West Yorkshire Advertiser, 28 August 1883.41 Thomas Hoyle, ‘Outlane Secretary’s Book’, 18 May 1900. 42 Hirst and Roberts, Methodism in Outlane, no page number. In January 1888there were 18 male members, by 1893 this had increased to 30, butfallen again to 24 by the time the cricket club was formed, ‘OutlaneChapel Members’.

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perceived as one opportunity to reinvigorate chapelidentity and provide a ‘manly’ attraction at a time whenthree-quarters of its membership were female.43 Two mendid join the chapel having first played for the cricketclub. But by the start of the 1909 season the club had108 members equalling the entire church membership for1908, of which only 31 were men.44 This also amounted to afifth of the male population in a village with fewrecreational alternatives to its many public houses.45

Despite this, Outlane demonstrated that, at the turn ofthe nineteenth century, the church remained a naturalhome or fallback within the community for socialactivities such as cricket.

Scholarly Cricket

The Education Act of 1870 greatly diminished theattraction of Sunday schools as providers of secularinstruction. Consequently, at the Conference of theYorkshire Sunday School Union, its chairman, Rev. J. P.Chown, stated that Sunday schools now

should be considered almost as juvenile churches … a foldfor the lambs precisely in the same degree as the Churchwas for the matured and full-grown sheep; and that thelambs … might be transferred in due course to that largerfold46

The problem was that the great majority of the olderlambs, especially the males, was likely to desert the

43 In 1897, of 94 chapel members, only 24 were male, ‘Outlane ChapelMembers’.44 Annual Report for 1909, ‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 30 September1901. ‘Outlane Chapel Members’, 1908. 45 Outlane had approximately 1,000 inhabitants, UK Population Census, 1901.46 The Bradford Observer, 8 April 1871.

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flock altogether. With a third of the population in themunicipal borough of Halifax in 1871 under 15, the stakeswere immense.47 It was at this time that cricket hadstarted at St Thomas’s Sunday school, Claremount.

In Calderdale, Anglican Sunday school membership peakedtwo years ahead of the national average, in 1908.48 Otherdenominations waned before this time. In Halifax, thewell-equipped Sunday school of Ebenezer PrimitiveMethodists and that of Northgate End Unitarians were indecline by 1891.49 The United Methodist Free Churches’Circuit saw a fall from 720 to 633 scholars between 1893and 1899 portending a corresponding fall in chapelmembership within a decade.50 The Wesleyans saw a declineby 1900. There were exceptions, most notably at KingCross Wesleyans where a larger school had to be built in1905.51 This chapel was renowned for its cultural andrecreational activities and had formed a cricket club in1878, though this had gone its own way by 1882.52

A cricket club was formed by Mytholmroyd Wesleyan Sundayschool, in 1894, to act as a bridge into the chapel. In1885 the chapel had 351 scholars on its books, rising to365 the following year.53 By 1888, however, some teachers‘expressed their dissatisfaction at the attendance’ ofboth scholars and teachers and two years later theminister presented a paper entitled ‘our elder scholars,can they be retained?’54 In 1893 it was reported that

47 Hargreaves, Halifax, 73, 127.48 In the Deanery of Halifax, enrolments increased from 17,498 in 1889to 18,668 in 1908. Hargreaves, ‘Religion and Society’, 286. 49 Ibid., 315, 368.50 Ibid., 369. 51 Ibid., 370.52 Burton. ‘Chapel Culture’.

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numbers had tumbled to 274 and at this meeting thecricket club was proposed.55

The context and wording of the proposal were significant.The current minister, the Rev. John Fordham, hadpresented a paper, ‘Sunday School work, its object & whatit ought to be’, which had led to a lively debate,immediately followed by ‘a long consultation … as toorganizing a Cricket Club in connection with the school …if we should have an application from the scholars’.56 The impetus, onthis occasion, came from the supply side. There wasconcern not only about falling numbers, absenteeism andbad behaviour among scholars but also about thereliability of teachers. Cricket was being employed topromote retention and improve behaviour. Membership wasdependent on regular attendance of Sunday school orchapel.

A new minister, the Rev. William Hothersall, thoughtaking no active part, became president, symbolising theclub’s integration into the chapel. Of five vice-presidents, four were existing or future trustees, thefifth a Sunday school teacher for 54 years.57 In theclub’s first year, two of the six Management Committeemembers were future chapel trustees.58 In addition toteaching, all but two of the 22 committee members,officers, captains, sub-captains and vice-presidents atsome point held other positions within the Sunday schoolor chapel, or both. The chapel took its cricket club veryseriously indeed. There was an increase in scholar

53 Annual Meetings of 1885 and 1886. ‘Mytholmroyd Sunday School MinuteBook’. 54 Ibid., 4 April 1888 and 31 March 1893. 55 'Mytholmroyd Teachers’ Minutes', Annual Meeting, 31 March 1893. 56 Ibid., My italics.

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numbers to 301 in 1902.59 However, this was only atemporary respite as numbers fell to 285 the followingyear.60 The cricket club, though, survived until 2005 andthe chapel continues still.

Falling membership in the area’s Sunday schools was amore general problem. In 1902, the Yorkshire Associationof Sunday School Unions reported ‘a terrible andincreasing lapse of the older scholars’.61 Later thatyear, a few miles west of Mytholmroyd along the CalderValley, a cricket club was founded by Inchfield BottomUnited Methodist Free Church Sunday School in Walsdenjust outside Todmorden. The area was a poor,overwhelmingly working-class district subject to thefluctuations of the cotton trade.

Two years earlier, at the Annual Conference of theHalifax Sunday School Union, one speaker had exhorted theSunday schools to provide ‘country rambles, gymnastics,cricket clubs and other forms of innocent recreations’,provoking a sobering question ‘as to how they were to becarried out with their present staff of teachers.’62 Thiswas a crucial point: teachers were already leaving indroves without adding to their burdens. At InchfieldBottom teachers were resigning on a regular basis, 15doing so between January 1900 and the decision to formthe cricket club in September 1902.63 And some of those

57 ‘Mytholmroyd Fixture Card, 1894; Mytholmroyd Wesleyan Centenary, 30-34; Greenwood, ‘Mytholmroyd Methodist Cricket Club’. 58 ‘Mytholmroyd Fixture Card, 1894’; Mytholmroyd Wesleyan Centenary, 30-34.59 Figures for 1903 showed 285 scholars on the books, but as this was a decrease of 16, the figures for 1902 must have been 301. The Halifax Guardian, 28 March 1903.60 Ibid.61The Halifax Guardian, 5 April 1902.

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who remained required bribing to attend their ownclasses.64

The chapel’s minister became only a vice-president andhad no active role in the cricket club. UnlikeMytholmroyd, Inchfield Bottom’s membership wasunrestricted, hoping perhaps to recruit to the Sundayschool and, more pragmatically, to be better able tofield full teams. Officers and committee did have tobelong to the Sunday school or chapel. The club survivedonly until 1910, being ‘disbanded, owing to lack ofinterest shown in the working of the same.’65 Membershiphad declined following an initial wave of enthusiasm andthe club struggled financially even more than otherchurch teams. But the root cause was indeed ‘in theworking’. Committee membership, originally twelve, hadbeen in constant flux and by October 1909 only six wereprepared to sit on it, with the day-to-day jobs beinglargely left to them.

This state of affairs mirrored the decline of the Sundayschool itself, which had continued to haemorrhageteachers as well as scholars. By 1926, morning Sundayschool had been abandoned.66 Employed to prop up theschool, the troubles of that school and the lack ofinterest from its chapel saw it fail. The lack ofcommitment contrasted starkly with what was achieved atMytholmroyd. But even at Mytholmroyd, cricket not Sundayschool, was the real beneficiary.

62 F. Robinson, the Rev. B. Davies, The Leeds Mercury, 2 April 1900.63 From an average total of about 20, ‘Inchfield Bottom TeachersMeetings’. 64 Ibid., 1 December 1901. The teachers were included in the ‘StarSystem’ devised to reward scholars for attendance and punctuality. 65 ‘Inchfield Bottom Teachers Meetings’, 15 November 1910.66 Trinity Methodist Church,13.

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Churchmen, Cricketers and Committees

Sport historians have reported differences in the socialcomposition and control of church clubs. DennisBrailsford saw cricket clubs as dominated by middle-classmembers.67 Holt found that church sports clubs inBirmingham, although predominantly working-class, wereestablished with the aim of middle-class control.68

Williams found that in Bolton between 1900 and 1939church cricketers were predominantly blue-collar workerswith a minority of lower-middle-class members, typicallyteachers and clerks.69

In Calderdale, the social composition of early churchcricket closely matched the findings of Holt and,particularly, Williams. Even considering shopkeepers andtradesmen as middle-class, an analysis of occupationsshowed that church cricket clubs at their foundation weretypically three-quarters working-class in composition,ranging from 62 per cent at Illingworth to 91 per cent atStones.70 The statements of clergymen and better-offparishioners, largely consisting of moralistic languagewould, though, suggest support for Holt’s view ofintended middle-class control. However, speechmakers wererarely involved in running the clubs.

There was one attempt at social manipulation. Followingthe ending of the church qualification at Illingworth StMary’s, the curate engineered a black-ball system bywhich committee members alone admitted members.71 Shortlyafterwards, the vicar announced his intention ‘to keep

67 Brailsford, British Sport, 90. 68 Holt, Sport and the British,137-38.69 Williams, 'Churches, Sport and Identities’, 118.70 UK Population Censuses 1871, 81, 91 and 1901.71‘ Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 1’, 17 October 1884.

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the club thoroughly respectable’, and only admit ‘thosewho would behave themselves in a decorous manner.’72 Thissomewhat bizarre statement revealed that the churchqualification had been employed, in part, to exclude aswell as include. There is no evidence, however, of anyonebeing black-balled.

Church clubs did have rules, and lots of them,prescribing on- and off-field conduct. It should not beassumed, however, that these were purely a bourgeois quidpro quo. Such regulations were at least as likely to stemfrom popular working-class organizations, especiallyfriendly societies, as from middle-class sources such asfactory rules.73 Sunday school clubs, with a higherproportion of adolescents, were particularly concernedwith behaviour.

The committees and officers of church cricket clubs didreveal a higher percentage of middle-class members thanthat of the overall membership. They were, though,largely directed by working men, with lower-middle-classmembers in clerical-type roles. The only officer of theSunday school club of St Thomas’s identified was thetreasurer, a carpet weaver who was probably also thesecretary for church’s senior team.74 Illingworth, at itsfoundation, had schoolteachers for its officers, withfive of the six committee members being working men,though elections at the next annual meeting raisedmiddle-class representation to half.75 Its two most

72 Speech of the Rev. George Oldacres at the club’s annual dinner, TheHalifax Guardian, 12 November 1887.73 Friendly societies were very strictly regulated and generally required their members to take office in rotation. They were immensely popular in the area. By the 1870s, between 75 and 80 per cent of men were members of friendly and kindred societies. Thompson,Respectable Society, 201.

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influential men were Nicholas Woodhead, a worstedoverlooker, and Harry Hustwick. Hustwick, the club’sdominant administrator and visionary for four decades anda commanding figure in local cricket, also worked in aworsted mill and though becoming a foreman and later aclerk held socialist convictions, subsidising the visitof the miners of Thornhill Cricket Club for a YorkshireCouncil fixture during the General Strike.76

Very similar pictures existed elsewhere. At Luddenden StMary’s the treasurer and secretary was a hoist minderemployed in the textile industry and of the four (out offive) committee members who can be identified, two weretextile workers, one a schoolteacher and one a grocer.77

At Outlane, in 1907, when minutes commenced, thecommittee and officers were strongly working-class.78 WithInchfield Bottom’s Sunday school side, of the original12-man committee, eight have been identified and all wereworking-class.79

The only partial, temporary, exception to the rule was atthe Sunday school club at Mytholmroyd Wesleyans. Theadministration of the new club was disproportionatelymiddle-class, though with a numerically equal working-class representation. Of the identified committeemembers, one was an assistant woollen manufacturer, one a

74 Womersley, ‘St Thomas’s Rules’: ‘Letter to John Lister’, thanking him for use of his land. 75 ‘Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 1’, 22 February and 6 October1884.76 Wood, A History of Thornhill Cricket Club, 14.77 ‘Luddenden Cricket Club Account Book’, 28 April 1884; UK PopulationCensus, 1881. 78 Of the ten members identified in the 1901 census, two were clerks,one a brewer’s ‘traveller’. Of the remaining seven, two were stonedressers, and the other five were woollen and worsted workers.‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 16 February 1908.79 ‘Inchfield Bottom Cricket Club Minute Book’, 15 December 1902; UKPopulation Census, 1901.

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clerk, and the treasurer was a fustian merchant. Thethree others were working men. Even here, the ‘TeamChoosing Committee’ was more in keeping with thecomposition of the team itself, both in terms of youthand occupation.80 By the following year, 1895, with theclub established, an increasingly young and working-classpresence emerged in the direction of the club. It seemsthat older men in the chapel, with experience inbusinesses, helped to get the club off the ground thenceded control to the younger members.

Clergy, Church Cricket and Leagues

A key to the understanding of church cricket inCalderdale is that by the turn of the nineteenth centuryit was taking place in leagues. Between 1891 and 1908 13leagues were formed in the area. The first of these, theCalder Valley League, was formed mainly for church andSunday school clubs as was the case with the two leaguesthat accommodated their second elevens: the Todmorden andDistrict League and the Hebden Bridge League.81 Threefurther church leagues were created.82 The leaguesstimulated a surge in cricket from all sources which saw92 new clubs emerging from religious organizations. Thiswas a clear case of demand rather than supply driving thegame. League cricket can also illuminate the relationshipbetween clergy, cricket and industrial society.

When sports were reformed through the public schools andOxbridge, a maxim was that they should be played for

80‘Mytholmroyd Fixture Card, 1894’; UK Population Census, 1891. 81 The Calder Valley League contained the only Roman Catholic club in Calderdale before the Great War: the Catholic Association from Todmorden.82 The West Vale Baptist League, 1901; the Halifax and District Church(Sunday School) League, 1907; and the Halifax and DistrictNonconformist League, 1908.

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their own sake and not for money or trophies. And in1878, 70 per cent of Anglican clergy were Oxbridge-educated, and a third of all cricket blues between 1860and 1900 were ordained.83 In Calderdale, from the firstgame recorded for its cricket club to the end of theGreat War, St Mary’s Anglican Church, Illingworth, allthree of its vicars and nine of its 12 curates wereeducated at Oxford or Cambridge.84

This Muscular Christian version of sport slowlyinfiltrated the Dissenting ministry with its tendencytowards a more establishment position. Kingswood School,founded by Wesley, provided an education for the sons ofwealthy ministers akin to that of the public schools.85 Sotoo did the Wesleyan Woodhouse Grove Academy near Leeds.86

The Nonconformist ministry was also increasingly college-trained.87 The Wesleyans’ third theological college wasopened at Headingley, also near Leeds, in 1869, by whichtime more than half of Wesleyan ministers were so-educated. Within Old Dissent, between 1880 and 1909,three-quarters of Congregationalist and Baptist clergywere college- or university-educated.88 From the mid-1850s, Nonconformists could also take degrees atOxbridge. They increasingly followed their Anglicanbrethren in playing the reformed sports. The Wesleyans’Richmond Theological College instituted games during the1860s.89 Methodist theological colleges were playingfootball tournaments by the 1890s.90

83 Inglis, Churches and the Working Classes, 41; Williams, Cricket and England,143. 84 Derived from Oakley, Story of Saint Mary’s Illingworth, mainly Appendices I& II, 122 and Crockfords.85 Brown, Nonconformist Ministry, 92.86 ‘Woodhouse Grove School’.87 Brown, Nonconformist Ministry, 59.88 Ibid., 82.89 Currie, Methodism Divided, 134.90 Brown, Nonconformist Ministry, 89.

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Clergymen, with their particular access to working men,were considered a major conduit for morally-improvingcricket. Sandiford has written enthusiastically about thenumbers of Muscular Christian clergymen and their role inthe take-off of club cricket, citing the Rev. John Napieras an example.91 Napier was at the fault line of twosporting cultures and so provides an insight into therelations of clergy and cricket in the area. Accordingto Sir Derek Birley, the North and Midlands were ‘lookedat askance by the southern-oriented cricket establishmentbecause they arrayed themselves in leagues in a vulgarcompetitive manner.’92 Leagues involved the payment oftalent money, expenses and even professionals andattracted tribal spectators. A version seemingly at oddswith the gentleman-amateur ethos of a clerical education.

Napier was a formidable cricketer, taking 3 for 54 and 4for 48 in 1888 playing against the Australian touristsfor his native Lancashire.93 He attended Marlborough,captaining the cricket team, and Cambridge, where onlyinjury denied him his blue. With such a background hemight have been expected to champion friendly cricket -cricket professed as being played for its own sake. Butin October 1890, he became Vicar of St Peter’s atWalsden, in the far west of Calderdale, where he playedfor the league club alongside its professional, becomingcaptain and a vice-president.

Napier became the founding president of the CentralLancashire League in 1893.94 Two years later he defendedleague cricket against a stinging attack from leadingamateur batsman A. N. Hornby with an almost belligerent,passion. Napier91 Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians, 36, 53-4.92 Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, 151.93 Gray, The Willow and the Cloth, 195. 94 Heywoods, Cloth Caps, 172.

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did not think Mr. Hornby in his criticisms had given fullcredit to league cricket ... Every club was stronger byreason of it, and [the counties] would be able to gleanmany [cricketers] from such clubs. Then Mr Hornby saidleague cricket encouraged betting. He (Napier) could nottell whether this was so or not; he discouraged it all hecould, but if it was so he could only say it was natural,for this reason — the games were full of excitement [butbetting] was not essential to league cricket ... Mr. Hornbyfurther stated that rowdyism had increased with leaguecricket, but that had not been his experience.... and hethought if Mr Hornby, while pointing out the dangers, hadalso marked some of its good points he would have donebetter. 95

Leagues formed within Calderdale itself had no Napierfigure. The lack of active clerical involvement waslamented at the meeting in September 1907 which createdthe (Anglican) Halifax and District Church League

Several members [of the clubs wishing to form the league]gave expression once more to the opinion that they were notbacked up in their efforts to organize the young men by theclergy. There was plenty of material, and only a littleorganization was necessary.96

Nonetheless, clergymen’s attitude to leagues and cupcompetitions was favourable. Some did take on honorificduties. For example, on the resumption of cricket afterthe Great War, the Rev. F. Drennan as President of theNonconformist League presented the trophies at theMackintosh Cup Final.97 Despite much politically correct

95 Todmorden Advertiser and Hebden Bridge Newsletter, Friday 11 October 1895.96 The Halifax Guardian, 7 September 1907. My italics.97 Victory of Northowram Wesleyans (later Northowram Hedge Top)against Pellon Baptists on 2 August, from Deadman, ‘Northowram HedgeTop Cricket Club’, no page number.

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rhetoric, clergy accepted this highly competitive form ofcricket.

The rapid movement of church cricket into leagues wasvery little a reaction against an alien sporting culture.It was certainly not a reaction against the church. Therewere two main reasons why church cricket, like allpopular cricket in Calderdale, came so rapidly to beplayed in leagues. Both were located within theexperience of working men within industrial society.

The first element was practical: the optimum utilizationof leisure time as re-processed by the factory system.The Rev. Wild, a vice-president of the Hebden BridgeLeague, when presenting the play-off cup in 1895 observedthat

one of the great disadvantages of playing with a juniorclub is that they very often fail to fulfil theirengagements, but by this League every club is forced tokeep its appointments, and so the League in this way does agreat and useful work and serves a very good purpose.98

The mills had brought hundreds of men of cricketing agetogether in the same place. The arrival of the Saturdayhalf-holiday then provided a common time for playing. Butwith factories still working until 1.00 pm and transportin hilly Calderdale rather under-developed before 1900,leagues provided not only a formal framework andcommitment but also incentives for starting fixturespromptly. The Hebden Bridge League, like factories,stipulated both starting and finishing times:

98 ‘Mytholmroyd CC The Early Years’. ‘Junior’ implies not youth butlower-standard cricket.

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Matches shall commence not later than 3 o’clock, but it isrecommended that an earlier hour should be agreed upon whenpossible, and play shall continue until 7 o’clock in themonths of June, July and August, and till 6.30 in othermonths. If any time be lost through either team not beingready to commence at the time appointed, the time so lostshall be made up.99

The second factor was the adaptation of the competitivenature of traditional popular sport to the new rationalversions of an industrial society. Cup competitions andleagues did not create the combative nature of working-class cricket, though they served to heighten it.Compressing a cricket match, even a ‘friendly’, into fourhours heightened the intensity. More profoundly,competition was endemic in working-class recreation, asPeter Borsay argues, ‘whether it be football, fishing orbrass bands’.100 This competition, through local rivalry,helped forge identities in the new industrial towns andvillages. This pre-dated cricket leagues. So did theengagement of professionals, with Illingworth St Mary’semploying one in 1889.101 Light convincingly argues that,in West Yorkshire, the link between the two versions ofsport was contest.102 Formerly both expressed andintensified through wagers, contest re-appeared in thepursuit of trophies: first knock-out cups, then leaguetitles.

This predilection for contest was reflected in thechallenge-match cricket in Calderdale. In 1863, the AllEngland XI in the first of several appearances in thearea played ‘22 of Halifax’, on the second day attractinga crowd of ‘not less than 10,000’.103 In 1874, W.G. Grace99 Guide to Halifax & District Cricket League, rule 8. 100 Borsay, A History of Leisure, 95.101 ‘Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 1’, 12 November 1888. ArthurChapman was engaged as both player and coach. 102 Light, ‘The Other Face of English Cricket’, 63-68, 74, 82-85.

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played for the United South against the United North atTodmorden, with around 2,000 spectators each day.104 Fouryears later the Australians played their challenge matchagainst ‘18 of Elland’.105 The county championship gainedappeal as its significance as a competition grew, helpingto fashion a Yorkshire identity. County games provedpopular when working men and women had the opportunity toattend, such as on Bank Holidays. In 1883 a crowd inexcess of 15,000 gathered at Old Trafford for the firstday of the Roses game.106 Halifax hosted three Yorkshirefixtures between 1888 and 1897.107 The success of the FACup, the arrival of the Football League in 1888 and thepopularity of rugby’s Yorkshire Challenge Cup (won byHalifax in 1878 and 1886) demonstrated the appetite forcompetitive sport.

Even prior to league cricket, this appetite was asevident in church cricket sides as in their secularopponents. They participated in disputes in ‘friendly’matches. In 1887, Illingworth St Mary’s fixtures againstneighbours Ovenden Albion and Bradshaw Mills endedacrimoniously with only off-field diplomacy preservingfuture fixtures.108 This keenness was merely imported intoleague cricket where, exhibiting denominationalimpartiality, the club’s second XI had disputes in 1894,against both Anglican Bradford St Andrews andNonconformist Horton Primitives.109 In 1908, Outlane (bythen United Methodist Church) had a player suspended by

103 The Halifax Guardian, 8 June 1863. Having 22 players evened up theboth contest and the betting.104 Heywoods, Cloth Caps, 63-9.105 Ibid., 13. 106Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians, 124. 107 Davies and Light, 180 Not Out, 1. The fixtures were againstGloucestershire (1888), Middlesex (1889) and Kent (1897).

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the league for misconduct.110 During that season its firstteam had two points deducted ‘for playing an illegibleman’, and its second team incurred a similar penalty in1913.111

The competitive edge was apparent within church cricketclubs. In contrast to the amateur ethos, which sought todistance itself from the taints of trade, church cricketclubs operated a type of piece-work in the form offinancial rewards and club prizes. Light has shown thatthe payment of ‘talent money’ had a long history in thegame, and in Yorkshire became a feature not only of clubcricket, but also of the county game.112 InchfieldBottom’s players received 3d from their team mates forscoring thirty runs or taking a hat-trick, and annualbatting and bowling prizes of 2/6d were made in cash.113

By 1920, Stones Wesleyans were giving 5/- for a 50 or ahat-trick, and 1/- for a stumping at a time when theannual subscription was 5/-.114 Annual awards weresubstantial, 15/- for the first team batting and bowling,and 10/- for the second eleven.

Fielding awards, being more subjective, could becontentious. Outlane MNC, in 1908, resolved that ‘umpiresdecisions with reference to the Fielding Prize be placedin envelopes and kept sealed until the end of theSeason.’115 The judging of the fielding mark caused

108 ‘Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 1’, 24 October and 5December 1887.109 Ibid., Annual Report for 1894.110 ‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 8 June 1908.111 The Huddersfield Examiner Supplement, 26 September 1908; The HuddersfieldExaminer, indicated in the published league tables after June 1913. 112 Light, ‘Cricket’s Forgotten Past’, 192-94.113 ‘Inchfield Bottom Cricket Club Minute Book’, Annual Meeting, 5October 1903.114 ‘Stones Wesleyan Cricket Club Minutes, 1914- 1941’, AnnualMeeting, 11 October 1920.115 ‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 6 April 1908.

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regular debate at Illingworth St Mary’s, even duringwartime, and fears of partiality led to a resolution thatcaptains request an ‘independant [sic] member to decide.’116

Immediately after the war, the first entry in the newminute book of St Mary’s Cricket Club at Luddenden wasregarding batting, bowling and fielding prizes.117 Clubsheld that competition improved playing standards andclergy frequently sponsored the awards.

This competitive element also appeared both within andbetween Calderdale’s churches themselves. This wasstrikingly clear in the case of church choirs which cameto the fore in parallel with church cricket in the lastthird of the nineteenth century. This saw the payment ofleading choir members, advertising for talent in secularnewspapers, attendance and performance-related paymentsand even the financial rewarding of voluntary members.118

Cricketing Ambition and Loosening Church Ties

The spirit of competition boosted the demand for churchcricket but it was also instrumental in loosening theties between church and club. After four seasons, theresolution to admit a restricted number of non-churchmembers at Illingworth St Mary’s, following an ardent andprotracted debate, was motivated by cricketingambition.119 The decision had been taken to enter theinaugural Halifax Parish Challenge Cup, the club lackedstrength in depth and was developing a new ground, stillon church land, which was an expensive business. The club

116 ‘Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 2’, 9 April 1915.117 Meeting of 16 April 1919, ‘Luddenden Cricket Club Minute Book’. Theclub was being revived after having had to finish in 1915,Hardcastle, Lost, 57.118 Green, Religion in the Age of Decline, 185-89.119 O’Keefe, Start of Play, 19-22.

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needed outside members and also their subscriptions whichwere usually the main source of income.

From another perspective, Williams has identified theexistence of religious ‘shamateurism’ with membersattending church in order to play cricket. Similarly,historians such as Light and Hugh Cunningham have arguedthat working men were prepared to pay lip-service to anyideological or behavioural strictures in order to enjoythe recreational facilities provided by religious orother voluntary organizations, until alternativesuppliers came along.120 Hugh McLeod, however, argues thatthis perspective underestimates the attachment ofworking-class players to the churches.121

At Illingworth, though causing disquiet to the clergy andothers by diluting the church membership, the push toallow in outsiders was not ideological but pragmatic. Theclub’s two most far-sighted and ambitious administrators,Nicholas Woodhead and, especially, Harry Hustwick, wereboth staunch church men. On the vicar’s death, 26 yearsafter the amendment of the qualification rule, Hustwickstated ‘how keenly the loss was felt and how greatly hispresence and lively interest in the welfare of the clubwould be missed in the future.’122 The cricket club wasstrongly represented at the funeral. Clergy continued tobe involved, rarely playing but joining selectioncommittees. Good relations with the church weremaintained but the ties, with some reluctance, slowly butsurely loosened. The running of the club was very much abusiness of the laity.

120 Cunningham, Leisure in the Industrial Revolution, 126; Light, ‘Cricket’sForgotten Past’, 150.121 McLeod, ‘Sport and the English Sunday School’, 114.122 ‘Illingworth Cricket Club Minute Book 2’, 3 October 1913.

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Three splits with clubs and their parent religious bodyare reasonably well evidenced in the area. Sunday schoolclubs required support. The one at Mytholmroyd Wesleyansreceived this from the chapel and flourished. But thiswas not so at Inchfield Bottom UMFC, which failed.Support could also come from outside. ProvidenceIndependent’s Sunday school club was backed by ‘localworthies’ such as Henry Sugden, Charles Ormerod andEdward and Henry Beaumont brothers, and became EllandCricket Club, effectively a representative of the growingindustrial town.123 This was also the case with a clubformed by the Young Men’s class of King Cross Wesleyanswhich secured financial backing from high-profile patronssuch as Alderman A. Ramsden and local MP J.H. Whitley,who became joint presidents, and a well-to-do family, theClarksons.124

The third case came through unusual, though not unique,circumstances as a consequence of the Great War. OutlaneUMC Cricket Club’s ground had been commandeered for foodproduction and was in danger of being turned permanentlyinto allotments, threatening the club’s very existence.Feeling constrained by having to make big decisionsthrough the trustees, the club resolved that ‘we takehold of the field at the end of this year 1919’.125 Italso sought to change the name to ‘Outlane Cricket Club’and for ‘the Trustees to renounce all claim on theClub.’126 The club saw a choice of splitting with thechurch or folding. Although the link had never beenstrong, the break was not antagonism to the church itselfand their relations remained cordial. The club continuedto use the schoolroom for meetings and to celebrate

123 Elland Cricket Club, 13.124‘King Cross CC, The Early Years’. 125 ‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 28 April 1919. 126 Ibid.

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winning a trophy, the Lumb Cup, in 1921.127 Chapel memberswere also to continue as club officials and vice-presidents.

Other clubs moved slowly down the secular path. Anobituary of December 1938 testifies that at least as lateas 1910, the club at Stones was ‘still officially linked’to its Methodist chapel.128 New rules at Mytholmroyd,which became Mytholmroyd Methodist Cricket Club in 1956,

127 ‘Outlane Cricket Club Minutes’, 19 Sep 1919. 128 Obituary of Miss Selina Barrett, President of Stones Wesleyan CC,The Halifax Courier and Guardian, 28 December 1938.

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showed that although the requirement to attend the chapelor Sunday school had gone, the minister remained clubpresident and that members should conduct themselves ‘asgentlemen affiliated to the Scout Road Methodist Churchand Sunday School’.129

129 ‘Rules of Mytholmroyd Cricket Club’, 1956.

References

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Conclusion

Religious organizations were the main source of popularcricket in Calderdale and especially in its crucialformative decades before the Great War. This occurredwith comparatively little active clerical involvement.Initially suspicion and later indifference were moreprevalent than enthusiasm. Although the emergence ofMuscular Christianity, the reformation of sports and thewidely-professed moral qualities of cricket made the gameincreasingly acceptable to clergymen, it wascongregational demand rather than clerical supply thatusually gave the impetus to the creation of church clubs.This view is strengthened by two factors. Firstly,despite Nonconformist clergy being less involved incricket than their Anglican counterparts, theNonconformists created the most clubs. Secondly, from1891 to 1908 the appearance of 13 leagues, which boostedall forms of cricket, saw the birth of 92 new churchclubs, almost 50 per cent more than were formed in theprevious 31 years.

The churches’ creation of cricket clubs was, in part, areaction to their anxiety to encourage working men intoworship and to retain their sons in the Sunday schools asa nursery for the church or chapel. There is, however,very little evidence in Calderdale that they succeeded inthese goals. What is more likely is that churches,despite the rivalry of workplaces and public houses, werestill the natural home in many communities for suchsocial activities up to the Great War. But cricket ratherthan the church was ultimately the beneficiary.

Church cricket clubs were composed predominantly of, andlargely run by, working men. Their competitive nature,

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illustrated by disputes, talent money and annual awardswas a consequence of the culture of working-classindustrial communities linking to the boom in sport. Thisand the organization needed to harness and maintaincricket in the limited space of a Saturday afternoon ledto the leagues. Despite leagues being anathema to thecricket establishment, whether through acceptance oraccommodation, they caused no evident concerns for localclergy. However, the weakening of links with the churchoccasionally did cause anxiety. The movement of the clubsaway from their parent church or Sunday school was not toany significant degree on ideological grounds, indeed itwas often done with reluctance. It was simply that theclubs’ ambitions, especially to be competitive,eventually took them out into the secular world.

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