1754 English cricket season

Last updated November 27, 2025

Details have survived of four eleven-a-side matches in the 1754 English cricket season, and two notable single wicket matches.^{[note 1]} Dartford was the pre-eminent club. The Leeds Intelligencer, forerunner of the Yorkshire Post, began publication; it has always been a noted source for cricket in Yorkshire.

Matches

date	match title	venue	result	source
1 July (M)	London v Dartford	Artillery Ground	Dartford won by 3 wkts	^[3]^[4]
notes	London made 78 and 50; Dartford replied with 55 and 74/7. The Daily Advertiser on Friday, 28 June, announced: "Wickets pitched at Twelve, and to begin play at One".

22 July (M)	Surrey v Sussex ^[5]	Guildford	result unknown	^[4]
notes	The match was advertised as: "Guildford, Ripley, Thursley and the lower part of Surrey against Bolney, Brighton and the eastern part of Sussex". The stake was 20 guineas a side.

24 August (S)	Woolwich v Dartford	Barrack Field, Woolwich	Dartford won	^[3]
notes	(see below)

26 August (M)	Dartford v Woolwich	Dartford Brent	Woolwich won	^[3]
notes	Both the above two games were mentioned in the same report by Read's Weekly Journal dated Saturday, 31 August: "Dartford won away & lost at home against Woolwich on Sat. & Mon., 24 & 26 Aug. respectively".

Single wicket

The Daily Advertiser on Friday, 28 June, announced for the same day a two-a-side game "behind George Taylor’s at Deptford". The players were Tom Faulkner and Joe Harris v John Capon and Perry.^[3]

Tuesday, 24 September. A single wicket game at Brompton in Kent between the well-known Thomas Brandon of Dartford and a player called Parr of Chatham. The stakes were five guineas each and Brandon won by 47 runs.^[6]

Other events

21–22 June (F–S). Midhurst & Petworth v Slindon on Bowling Green, Lavington Common.^[7] The former apparently won by eight wickets and the match seems to mark the swansong of Slindon as a great team as they are not mentioned in the sources thereafter. Sussex cricket as a whole went into decline for many years and, although a number of inter-parish games are recorded over the next decade or so, it is not until 1766 that Sussex county cricket teams again take part in important matches. This temporary demise of Sussex is probably explained by the death of the 2nd Duke of Richmond in 1750. He was the greatest patron of Sussex cricket, and of Slindon in particular. His co-patron and good friend Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet, had died in 1744.^{[ citation needed ]}

Notes

↑ Some eleven-a-side matches played before 1864 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources, but there was no such standard at the time. The term came into common use from around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised, and was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective. However, matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status.^[1] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant.^[2] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

↑ ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
↑ ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
1 2 3 4 Buckley, FLPVC, p. 2.
1 2 ACS, Important Matches, p. 23.
↑ G B Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935
↑ H T Waghorn, Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730-1773), Blackwood, 1899
↑ Timothy J McCann, Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century, Sussex Record Society, 2004

Bibliography

ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS.
ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS.
Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Cotterell.
Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell.
McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Sussex Record Society.
Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773). Blackwood.
Wilson, Martin (2005). An Index to Waghorn. Bodyline.