1765 English cricket season

1765 English cricket season

← 1764 1766 →

Few significant matches were reported in the 1765 English cricket season, but events at the Artillery Ground in August may have been almost the last straw where this infamous old venue was concerned. A more positive development was the clear indication of increased cricket activity in the north of England as Leeds played Sheffield. ^{[note 1]}

Artillery Ground in disrepute

On 19 and 20 August, the Artillery Ground staged a match between Surrey and Dartford. ^[5] Surrey won by an unknown margin. ^[6]

The match was played for 100 guineas per side, before a crowd estimated at 12,000. At close of play on the first day, a report condemned "the mob (many of whom had laid large bets), imagining foul play, several of whom were dangerously wounded and bruised". ^[6] A few days later, the St James Chronicle reported: "A young fellow, a butcher, being entrusted with about £40 by his mistress to buy cattle in Smithfield market, instead went into the Artillery Ground and sported away the whole sum in betting upon the Cricket players". ^[7] The reports are evidence that the Artillery Ground had fallen into disrepute, and it is a fact that few matches of importance were played there after 1765. Following the England v Chertsey match in September 1778, it disappears from the records. ^[8]

Leeds v Sheffield

A Leeds v Sheffield match was reported by the London Chronicle on Thursday, 5 September. It took place on Chapeltown Moor, near Leeds. Sheffield won "with great difficulty". As it was rated a "great match", and reported by a London newspaper, this shows that cricket was already well-established in Yorkshire only 14 years after it was first reported there. ^[9]

Chertsey v Richmond

Chertsey and Richmond met twice in 1765. ^[5] The dates are uncertain but approximately 9 and 16 September. The first match was on Laleham Burway (result unknown), and the second on Richmond Green. Chertsey won the second match by 106 runs, having scored 130 and 116 while Richmond made 48 and 92. The source says: "Chertsey headed 94" which is incorrect according to the given team totals. The report also said Stephen Harding scored 24 in four balls with a five, two sixes and a seven. The Edmeads brothers, Richard and John, scored 108 between them in the whole match. ^[6]

Other events

There was a "threes" game on Friday 30 August at Moulsey Hurst in which Surrey beat Kent "after a smart contest". The source is the Gazetteer & London Daily Advertiser on Wed 4 September. ^[7]

A notice in the Salisbury Journal on Monday 16 September might have interested the members of the Hambledon Club: The Cricket players of the parish of Portsea (in Hampshire) will play the game of Cricket with any parish in the said County for 20 guineas each match, home and home (sic). It is not known if the challenge was taken up. ^[7]

Notes

1. Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources. ^[1] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It 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. ^[2] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status. ^[3] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant. ^[4] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

1. "First-Class matches in England in 1772" . CricketArchive. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
2. Wisden (1948). Preston, Hubert (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (85th ed.). London: Sporting Handbooks Ltd. p. 813. OCLC   851705816.
3. ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
4. ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
5. ACS 1981, p. 23.
6. Waghorn 1899, pp. 57–59.
7. Buckley 1935, pp. 43–44.
8. "Matches played on the Honourable Artillery Company Ground, Finsbury" . CricketArchive. Retrieved 10 December 2025.
9. Buckley 1937, p. 4.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   85045528.
• ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   10586869.
• Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Birmingham: Cotterell & Co. OCLC   23450280.
• Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Birmingham: Cotterell & Co. OCLC   23469107.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, &c. From 1730–1773. Edinburgh: Blackwood. OCLC   1086375331.

Further reading

• Altham, H. S.; Swanton, E. W. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914) (5th ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin. OCLC   894274808.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. London: Aurum Press. ISBN   978-18-54107-10-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN   978-04-13278-60-9.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. London: HarperCollins. ISBN   978-00-07183-64-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Wilson, Martin (2005). An Index to Waghorn. London: Bodyline Books (limited edition, by subscription only).