on the losing side, Stocks made a little piece of history for his club against Ware at Hatfield Park. Played on Thursday and Friday, 6 and 7 August 1835, the Ware batters dominated the early stages of the match, posting a commanding total of 238 runs, an exceptional score in this era of the game. Among the carnage, Stocks picked up four wickets. Hatfield’s reply didn’t get off to the best of starts, with Charles Sibley out for a duck, swiftly followed by Thomas Farr for one. Batting at three, Stocks steadied the ship, and his innings of fifty-three runs was the first recorded instance of a Hatfield CC batter scoring a half-century. His efforts, as already stated, were in vain, with Hatfield conceding a first-inning advantage of 82 runs to Ware. Stocks took another four wickets in the second innings, but ultimately his teammates fell 61 runs short of their target. A successful month, at least from a personal perspective, was rounded off at Hatfield Park on 25 August, with six wickets against Finchley. After this burst of activity, Hatfield CC all but disappeared from the newspapers for the next five years; however, on the rare occasions that news emerged, Stocks was usually to the fore. Against Ware at Ware Park on 6-7 September 1838, he was Hatfield’s top scorer in the first innings with 25 runs (no details of the bowling were printed) as they defeated the home side by 105 runs over two innings. The only report during this period to provide any hint of the wicket takers’ identity came courtesy of the Essex, Herts and Kent Mercury, which reported on Bishops Stortford’s visit to Hatfield Park on 2 July 1839. Even here, the details are less than comprehensive, with the bowler’s name only being provided for clean bowled dismissals. With Hatfield winning by an innings and thirty runs, and Stortford bowled out for twenty-five in both innings, Stocks took at least five wickets in the first (with three unknowns) and three in the second (with four unknowns). Into the Light From here on in, as we enter the 1840s, information is a touch more forthcoming. For the Stocks, the decade began on a sour note, with the death, aged 78, of Thomas Sr, who was buried at St Etheldreda’s on 11 May 1840. It is unlikely that Thomas had spent his entire working life as a drummer with the militia, and an educated guess would be that he was also a cordwainer (shoemaker) by trade. The basis of that bold claim lies in the fact that all five of his sons who reached adulthood made their living in this profession. Charles and Joseph traded in Old Cross, Hertford, Richard from Back Street (now Church Street), Hatfield, while Thomas Jr carried on his craft in the shop above 32 Fore Street. As for William, a lifelong 142
bachelor, his whereabouts at the time of his father’s death are uncertain, but there is every chance that he was still living in the family home, wherever that may have been. What is known is that the following year, he and his mother could be found in Fore Street (seemingly next door to Thomas Jr as they follow each other in the 1941 census) in the home of Joseph (another shoemaker) and Rebecca Toogood. In this world of coincidences, Joseph Toogood’s sister, Sarah, married into the Cubis family, who feature in the story of Ernest Elliott. Returning to cricket, Stocks began the decade with a couple of performances of note. The first of these occurred in a peculiar fixture at Hatfield Park on Wednesday, 15 July 1840, when XI gentlemen of Cambridge, Harrow, and Oxford, played XI of the Hatfield Junior Club. The gentleman’s XI was probably organised by (the future Rev.) Valentine Grantham Faithfull (1820-1894), who qualified twice, as an old Harrovian and also because he was studying at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, when the match was played. Hatfield Junior Club, which was to all intents and purposes the club’s 2nd XI, was strengthened by the inclusion of Stocks and Thomas Hammond (1810- 1851), arguably the club’s two strongest players. Stocks essentially won the match single-handedly, excepting the contribution of extras (26 byes and 19 wides) to the ‘players’ total of 155. Stocks’ total of 46 narrowly outscored the 45 extras, and with at least five wickets to his name (the bowler for the two catches and a stumping being unidentified), the 2nd XI won by 20 runs. This was no mean feat as the ‘gentlemen’ included at least five players who had represented the County of Hertford. A month later, on 27 August 1840, Stocks was again in the thick of the action when Hatfield annihilated Ware at Hatfield Park by an innings and 74 runs. Between them, Hatfield’s opening bats, Stocks and Francis Archer 1806-1847), with 33 and 48 runs respectively, outscored the combined totals of Ware’s innings (31 and 36). Regrettably, no details of the bowling performances were provided by the Essex & Herts Mercury, as Stocks was sure to have been among the wicket takers From the surviving records, 1841 appears to be the season of Stocks’ playing career. However, this depends on a hunch being correct. Unusually, details of fixtures involving the County of Hertford for this year are in plentiful supply, and as previously hinted, they provide grounds to assume that Stocks and others did indeed play for the county. Records of five matches survive, two of them against Hatfield. All three of the county XIs selected to play in the non-Hatfield games included Stocks and Hammond, and two 143
of them also had Faircloth. None of these names was included in either XI that faced the Hatfield sides, who included William Stocks, Thomas Hammond, and William Faircloth on their team sheet. The season began at No Man’s Land on 15 June 1841, with a County of Hertford XI that faced the Harrow Town Club, possibly including as many as six Hatfield CC players. Definitely in the team was Valentine Faithfull, who was to play his solitary game of first-class cricket, for Cambridge University v. MCC at Lord’s, a fortnight later, and Edward Daniell. It can also be said with a fair amount of certainty that William Stocks, William Faircloth (1819-1901), and Thomas Hammond (1810-1851) played. Number six is a long shot, but it was not inconceivable that a non-initialled Chapman was possibly Hatfield’s John Chapman joining his teammates. The reason for so many Hatfield players being selected? The Harrow Town XI included Robert Grimston, Edward Grimston, and Henry Anderson, all of whom would ordinarily be lining up for the county. In the match that ended as a draw, Stocks was the most impressive of the Hatfield contingent, taking five wickets in Harrow’s first innings, and two in the second, and also contributing 11 runs with the bat. When the county was next in action, on 7 July, Stocks, Hammond, and Faircloth had retained their places, although the latter two may have wished that they hadn’t. Bearing in mind that horsepower was the only means of transportation available, it was a long journey for the Hertfordshire men, as they travelled to meet Clapton, a major force in Middlesex cricket in the nineteenth century. In a match that was ultimately curtailed by rain, Stocks could be satisfied with his performance, taking five wickets in Clapton’s innings and top-scoring in Hertfordshire’s with 21 out of a disappointing total of 77 runs all out. For the record, Hammond and Faircloth both recorded ducks, with neither player taking a wicket. Before the next outing for the county, Hatfield delivered another lesson in cricket to Ware at Hatfield Park on 26-27 July. Considering the margin of victory when the clubs met in 1840, combined with that of this match and a further one the following month, which Hatfield won by an innings, the backers of Ware CC must have had more money than sense. One of the reasons that so little ‘competitive’ cricket was played at this time was that it was played for wagers. On 25 July 1841, Bell’s Life reported that this match was to be played for a stake of 20 sovereigns. Since sovereigns were gold coins, it is difficult to place a value on them for 1841, but at current prices (2025), the losing side would have to pay the victors approximately £15,000! In fairness to Ware, the position after the completion of the first 144
innings wasn’t a complete disaster, but it was by the time the second innings had been completed. Batting first, Stocks held the innings together with 34 out of a total of 92 before bowling Hatfield into a commanding position by taking six wickets to give his side a first innings lead of 38 runs. From this point onwards, Ware fell apart in spectacular style. Stocks added a credible 22 to his first innings knock, but Faircloth (67) and Hammond (58) were the star performers as Hatfield racked up a total of 253 to set Ware a target of 292 to win. It is no surprise that they failed to secure an unlikely victory, but the manner of their surrender was shocking. Their cause suffered further when two players returned home. Even so, being dismissed for 12 and losing by 279 runs wasn’t a great performance. Stocks was back in action with the County of Hertford, accompanied by Faithfull and Hammond, on 12-13 August at No Man’s Land, in the return fixture against Clapton, that turned out to be a somewhat one-sided affair. Stocks’ bowling action has previously been described as ‘underarm’, and the match report published in Bell’s Life adds a further dimension to it. The epitaph that he ‘delivered his balls in the old-fashioned ‘high, home, and easy’ style,’ if interpreted correctly, would classify Stocks as a ‘lob’ bowler. In short, this meant that he attempted ‘donkey drops’, i.e. hoping to pitch the ball on the stumps from as great a height as possible, preferably with the ball descending behind the batsman standing at the crease. An action that falls foul of two of the current laws of cricket is difficult for modern cricketers to comprehend; however, it should be noted that, even after the introduction of overarm bowling, there were still lob bowlers operating in firstclass cricket until 1921, with Trevor Molony of Surrey (1897-1962) the last proponent. Opening the batting, Stocks would have been disappointed at being bowled out for a duck, but boy, did he make amends with the ball. Replying to Hertfordshire’s total of 117, which was indebted to Robert Grimston’s innings of 64, Clapton had no answer to Stocks’ lobs, which accounted for seven of their batters, all of whom were clean bowled. With a first innings advantage of 66, Herts piled on the pressure with a second innings total of 131 (Stocks 18), setting Clapton an unlikely target of 198 runs for victory. They failed to learn lessons from the first innings, and Stocks was again their main tormentor, taking a further five wickets, making it twelve for the match, resulting in Hertfordshire winning by the handsome margin of 139 runs. The culmination of the season was the double header between the County of Hertford and Hatfield, beginning at No Man’s Land on 23-24 145
August. Hatfield would have been pleased with how the contest began, with Hammond taking six wickets and Stocks four, to dismiss the county for 55 runs. From here on in, things went downhill fast for the visitors. Batting at number three, Stocks came to the wicket with only four runs on the board, smashed his first ball to the boundary, but could then only add two singles to the total before he was caught. A half-time deficit of two runs wasn’t the end of the world, but the county racked up the runs in the second innings, and Hatfield fell 71 runs short of their victory target of 154. When the clubs renewed hostilities a fortnight later in the Marquess of Salisbury’s park, it was an entirely different state of affairs, with a man-ofthe-match performance from Stocks. In the first innings, he took four wickets, and followed this up with 53 runs to give Hatfield a 71-run lead at the halfway stage. Stocks’ day continued to go from strength to strength, and he claimed a further six wickets in the second innings to leave Hatfield requiring twelve runs for victory, which they achieved for the loss of a solitary wicket. As far as the recorded history of the club is known, this made Stocks the first Hatfield player to have two half-centuries to his name, and, as a measure of his dominance of the statistics, he had taken four of the six known occurrences of a bowler taking five or more wickets in an innings. For the remainder of the decade, information on the plight of Hatfield CC is patchy at best; however, Stocks continued his run of success against Ware in 1842. First up was an ill-tempered match at Hatfield Park on 21-22 August, which was left unfinished after the Hatfield players walked off the pitch in protest at a decision by the Ware umpire, and refused to return. Before this little tête à tête, Stocks had been the highest scorer in Hatfield’s innings with 26 runs and taken three wickets in each of Ware’s visits to the middle. All was quickly forgotten, and a week later, all was sweetness and light when the return match was played on Ware Marsh in a spirit of ‘utmost harmony.’ At least day one was played on the marsh, for heavy rain rendered the pitch unplayable (the dangers of playing on a marsh, perhaps), and proceedings resumed for day two at Ware Park. Stocks had good reason to be in a harmonious mood, taking six wickets in both innings, and, once again, was Hatfield’s most successful batter with 25 runs in his first visit to the crease (we will gloss over his duck in the second), to set up a narrow one-wicket triumph. The morsels of information from the remainder of the 1840s throw up a few more highlights. In a rare three-day match against Ware in August 1846, Stocks produced his best-known knock to date with 62 runs. It may have been an even better day for Stocks, but unfortunately, it was one of 146
those reports that did not attribute bowlers’ names to dismissals of catches or leg before wickets. In Ware’s first innings, he hit the stumps twice with five wickets left up for grabs. Against Hertford in Hatfield Park on 24-25 August 1847, there is less room for doubt, with Stocks clean bowling five batters with only two unknowns. Although his performance in the return match at Ball’s Park the following week did not warrant any praise, he was described by the Hertfordshire Mercury as one of Hatfield’s best players. More significantly for the Stocks family is the information that William was joined in the team by his nephew, Frederick. Stocks’ final performance of note for the decade arrived with a trip to Bedfordshire when Hatfield played Luton on 31 July-1 August 1849. All looked rosy for the visitors after the first innings had been completed, with a 24-run advantage to defend. A low-scoring wicket then transformed into a road, and runs suddenly became easy to come by. Despite Stocks taking five wickets, the home side punished the bowlers and set Hatfield a daunting target of 200 runs for victory. Stocks single-handedly led the charge with a club record 74, but with no meaningful support, they fell to a 23-run defeat. Admittedly against incomplete records, particularly in the bowling department, at this point in the club’s recorded history, Stocks was responsible for four of the eight half-centuries scored and nine of the fifteen five-wicket hauls. Away from the cricket field, the second half of the 1840s was a period of sadness for the Stocks family. William’s brother, Charles, was buried at St Andrews Church, Hertford, on 2 July 1845, which was followed by the funeral of his spinster sister, Sarah, at St Etheldreda’s on 31 January 1847. Next to be laid to rest was his mother, Elizabeth, who was also buried at Hatfield’s Parish Church on 25 February 1849, one day short of the 81st anniversary of her baptism in the same church. This brought about a change for William, leaving the abode of the Toogoods and moving the short distance to Market Place, Fore Street, which was to be found between the East Indian Chief and the Salisbury Arms Tap, both of which served as the clubhouse of Hatfield CC at some time. There was still time for more sorrow with the death of brother Joseph. While the cause of death for Elizabeth was left unreported, Joseph fell victim to the cholera epidemic that swept the country in 1848 and 1849. The Beginning and the Beginning of the End Officially, William Stocks’ exploits in Hatfield’s colours described so far didn’t happen. By the late 1940s, these matches had long been forgotten. 147
Then ancient scorebooks, some dating back to 1851, were brought to the club’s attention. With no one able to contradict it, the club adopted 1851 as its official founding date. The first match recorded in the books, dated 15 July 1851, against South Herts at Hatfield Park, was, ironically, the last major performance of Stocks’ cricketing career. This can be said with a fair amount of certainty, as the remainder of his playing days are well documented. That Hatfield won the match on the first innings, and would have won over two innings had time allowed, was in no small measure thanks to Stocks, whose bowling was described by Bell’s Life as being ‘very effective throughout the game,’ taking five wickets in both innings, making ten for the match. Stocks was now forty-four and reducing his number of appearances on the cricket field. There was a late resurgence in 1854, and a report of three matches played that season appeared in Bell’s Life on 10 September. It praised his performances and reputation, including a six-wicket haul against King’s Langley. ‘It will be seen by the scores that the club is chiefly indebted for its success to the admirable play of Messrs William Stocks, William Faircloth, and Smith. The former was well known in Hertfordshire some twenty years ago as a first-rate underhand bowler of the old school and a steady forward player. Though he has laid aside the bat and ball for some years, his rest seems only to have imparted to him fresh vigour, for in the match against Luton his style of batting was likened to Pilch’s, and his bowling against Kings Langley was pronounced quite equal to what it was in the days of yore.’ To be compared in style to Fuller Pilch (1804-1870) was indeed high praise. An unfamiliar name today, Pilch was not only considered the leading batter of his age but was also described as the greatest batsman ever known until the appearance of W G Grace. An early pioneer of batting, the main characteristic of his style was his forward play (using a shot that was known as ‘Pilch’s poke’), which is regarded as an early manifestation of modern batting. Stocks played in Hatfield’s first two fixtures of the 1855 season, home and away against Herts Militia, and, although he opened both the batting and bowling for his club and was said by the Herts Guardian to have ‘played in a manner to maintain his well-known local reputation,’ the 10th of July 1855 was to be the last time he played competitive cricket. There is little to say about William’s life after cricket. He continued to ply his trade as a cordwainer, and at some point between 1851 and 1861, he vacated Market Place to move into lodgings in Fore Street, in the home of 148
Ann Bassett, a widowed confectioner. It would be nice to think that Ann was somehow related to the famous sweet makers, Bassett’s, but there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case. His two remaining brothers passed away in quick succession. Thomas was buried on March 10, 1874, and Richard on December 28, 1875. The shoemaking business of Thomas was taken on by his son, Frederick, who continued to do so until his own death in 1908. Following the death of Mrs Bassett in 1877, William moved into lodgings with Joseph Powers, a labourer from Cambridgeshire, in Church Yard, Hatfield. It was here that William passed in the early days of 1882, and he was buried at St Etheldreda’s on 8 February 1882. 149
150Fuller Piich - Crickets first great batsman
Bonus Legend No. 2. 1851-1900 – Frederick WoolleyBy necessity, the story of Frederick William Woolley's life and times must be brief, much like his life. Arguably a better bowler than Charles Lambert, the premature end to his playing career prevented him from achieving legendary status. It is also short because little is known about his family background; in the past, it was not customary to record the father's name for children born out of wedlock, as was the case with Frederick. Parish birth records callously note his father’s occupation as ‘illegitimate’. The story could have been even shorter if not for some persistent research after a curveball was raised by Frederick’s grandmother, who used a different name in census returns than what appears on other records. Nevertheless, crossreferencing with her children’s baptismal records confirms they are the same person. His grandfather, William Woolley, died before the UK began compiling census returns. Little is known about him, except that he was baptised in St Etheldreda’s Church, Hatfield, on 29 December 1793 and was employed as a groom. Frederick’s grandmother, Ann, was born in St Albans circa 1786, and, in the absence of a marriage in the Hatfield Parish records, it must be assumed that William and Ann tied the knot in the St Albans area, which makes sense as weddings were traditionally held in the bride’s parish. Hatfield, though, was home for the Woolleys, with the earliest known address in Providence Court. Long since removed from maps of Old Hatfield, Providence Court was approximately where the current-day Arm and Sword Lane lies, which takes its name from the old Arms and Sword Yard that ran parallel to Providence Court from Park Street to what is now the Great North Road, on opposite sides of the Great Northern (which, as with the road, was not built until the railway came to Hatfield in 1850). The couple’s first child, a daughter, who would become the mother of Frederick, was christened Jane Frances Woolley at St Etheldreda’s on 12 May 1816. She was joined by siblings Charles (bap. 20 May 1820), Martha (bap. 12 May 1822), William (bap. 27 July 1825), and Henry (bap. 12 August 1827). What we can establish from this is that Jane’s father was probably still alive when she was aged eleven, but he was dead before the 1841 census was compiled. Frederick was born in Hatfield in 1837 and baptised at St Etheldreda’s on 7 January 1838. He was not in Hatfield for long, as on 11 October 1839, his brother, Alfred, was baptised at St Nicolas Church, Harpenden, with the father's identity again unrecorded. There is, of course, no way of knowing 151
if Frederick and Alfred were full or half-brothers. On 6 June 1841, the day of the first UK census return, Jane and her two sons were recorded as living in Bowley, Harpenden. This is probably a mistranscription. While Bowley isn’t on any maps, there was once a tiny hamlet called Bowling Alley! Now fully consumed by the growth of Harpenden, Bowling Alley was to be found south of the town and east of the common. Also in the house was thirteen-year-old Mary Luck, who, as Jane would not have been able to afford to employ a domestic servant, may give a clue as to the father of one or both of her sons. If nothing else, it adds credence to the assumption that their abode was Bowling Alley, for out of a population of 164, Luck was the surname of 17 inhabitants. Jane was neither in the mood to settle down and get married nor to forgo the pleasures of male company. On 12 February 1842, she returned to St Nicholas for the baptism of Edward, her third child to have been born outside of holy matrimony. The temptation to dwell on the myth of Victorian values will be resisted except to suggest that attitudes towards unmarried mothers were far more liberal in the 19th century than between, say, 1945 and 1990. Jane was not the only member of the Woolley family to enjoy such relationships. In 1844, her sister Martha had an illegitimate son of her own, Francis. By the time of the 1851 census, the family were living with Frederick’s grandmother in Providence Court. The curious thing here is that Granny Ann was now calling herself Jane! Conditions must have been cramped, for in addition to Frederick, his two siblings, mother, nephew, and grandmother, the household included Jane Jr’s younger brother, Henry, and nephew, Francis. At least money wouldn’t have been a major concern. The two Janes were earning their crust as laundresses, Henry was a bricklayer, while thirteen-year-old Frederick was gainfully employed as a baker’s assistant. In 1851, there was no minimum age for compulsory education. When it was introduced following the Elementary Education Act of 1870, it was set at 10 years old. Enter Woolley, the Cricketer The first time the name Woolley appears in connection with Hatfield Cricket Club’s 1st XI was in a match against Colney Hatch on 18 July 1856. The scorecard published in Bell’s Life on 10 August listed Hatfield’s number three as H Woolley. If this were not a printing error, it would likely have been Frederick’s uncle, Henry. Why might this be a misprint? In Cricket in Hatfield: 18th and 19th Centuries, H J Gray attempted to identify every per152
son mentioned in the old scorebooks and accounts in his possession. Yet, he does not mention Henry, or any Woolley with the initial H. If it was Henry, it is odd that he batted high in the order and bowled against such strong opponents (the Colney Hatch XI included three of the famous Walker brothers of Southgate), yet then did not play again. On a more positive note, Frederick was definitely in Hatfield XI that faced Clapton, another strong opponent, on Thursday, 9 July 1857. From the brief details of the match that survive, it can be seen that Woolley scored 15 runs; however, no information is given of any bowling performances. This is a shame, as the side also included Stephen Soames (1826- 1908), with whom Woolley forged a formidable bowling partnership. A fast bowler, before he joined Hatfield, Soames had played first-class cricket while studying at Trinity College, Oxford, and later made four appearances for the MCC. Eleven days later, with the visit of No Man’s Land (Wheathampstead) to Hatfield Park on 20 July, Woolley’s potential as a bowler was clear for all to see. In the absence of Soames, Hatfield opened the bowling with the youthful attack of nineteen-year-old Woolley, and David Siggins (or Siggens) (1839-1902) from Bengeo, Hertford, who was fast approaching his eighteenth birthday. In his opening spell, Woolley snapped up two quick wickets before returning and removing three of the tail. Five wickets was not a bad return for his first known effort with the ball, with four of them clean bowled and the other leg before wicket. The second time of asking was almost as successful, with Woolley removing four of the No Man’s Land batters, although this time he required some assistance from his teammates, with three of his wickets the result of catches. It was a busy week for Hatfield and Woolley, and just four days after the No Man’s Land match, they were in action again with the return fixture against Colney Hatch. This time, it was Woolley’s batting that came to the fore, and with 31 runs, he was the top-scorer in Hatfield’s first innings total of 106 all out. Once again called upon to open the Hatfield attack, for the second game in succession, he dismissed the opposition’s number one for a duck. Woolley picked up a second wicket shortly afterwards, but had no answer to the immovable object that was Frederick Walker, whose 69 not out dominated both the innings and the match. Woolley added a third wicket, but he was unable to repeat his heroic feat with the bat in the second innings, and with Colney Hatch only losing two batters in pursuit of their victory target, he was unable to add to his tally of wickets. After Hatfield’s next fixture, against Clapton at Hatfield Park on 4 Au153
gust, there must have been hope that Woolley would turn out to be an exceptional all-round talent. His performance with the ball in a ten-wicket trouncing has not been recorded for posterity, which is a shame because he excelled with the bat, although his 48 runs were overshadowed by William Faircloth, who scored 54. Unfortunately, this was as good as it got for Woolley with the bat and was destined to end his career without a half-century. It is handy, therefore, that he was able to let his bowling do the talking for him. Woolley’s first season of competitive cricket came to a close when Hatfield entertained Ware at Hatfield Park. With the wickets shared around, on this occasion, he had to be content with five wickets for the match. It wasn’t quite time to pack away his kit for the winter yet, as there was still the club’s traditional end-of-season wind-up match to be played, which in 1857 was between eleven of the club and twenty-two of the town. As strange as this may sound, it was a common sight in the nineteenth century for imbalances in playing strength to be evened out by allowing the weaker side to field more than eleven players. On occasion, this led to some extraordinary bowling statistics. In normal circumstances, Woolley’s six wickets would have received the plaudits; however, Frederick Stocks outdid him by taking eight. It was always going to be tough for Woolley to replicate his form in his second season, and from what can be seen, he had a quiet 1858. Judging his performance accurately, however, is difficult as many fixtures from that season have only the barest of details surviving. He had also moved down the pecking order with the return of Stephen Soames, and, fresh from making his first-class cricket debut for Oxford University, Charles Musgrave Harvey (1837-1917) decided to spend part of his summer in Hatfield. In one match for which a fuller picture is available, Woolley more than held his own in the esteemed company of the first-class cricketers, Soames and Harvey. Defending a first innings total of 106 against Hertford at Hatfield Park on 7 July, it was presumably the first-class pairing that opened the bowling; however, a breakthrough was a long time in coming. After Woolley was introduced to the attack, the innings was turned on its head, and after the openers had been removed, nobody else managed to reach double figures. Woolley had taken four wickets to Harvey’s five, but it was, alas, all in vain, with Hertford eventually crowned the victors by eight runs on the first innings. Unfortunately, the patchy information about Hatfield CC’s on-field performances persisted, but Woolley delivered a couple of notable performances. In fairness, overall, Hatfield would have been disappointed following 154
a drubbing at Clapton on 30 June 1859, but at least Woolley could find a degree of satisfaction with his own contributions. It was a bad day at the office in the batting department. The side was bowled out for a paltry 48 runs, but it could have been a whole lot worse had it not been for Woolley’s dogged 19 while witnessing carnage at the other end. Woolley and Soames were instrumental towards a brace of victories in July against Hampstead and Enfield. In the former, Soames took five wickets and Woolley three in a 22-run triumph, and it was roles reversed in the latter, Woolley taking six and Soames three, as Hatfield won comfortably by 47 runs. The Enfield match also witnessed a rare success with the bat for Woolley, who supported William Faircloth (50) and Frederick Stocks (38) with a score of 21. In the club’s final outing for the 1959 season, Hatfield exacted revenge against Clapton, with a half-century from Albert Tregaskiss completing the hard work of Woolley and Soames with the ball to see Hatfield home by 62 runs. Annoyingly, the scorecard reproduced in the Hertfordshire Mercury did not attribute catches to the bowlers; however, H J Gray’s description of the match tells us that the pair shared eight wickets (the other two were run outs). Whether or not that translates to four wickets each can only be guessed. In 1860, few match facts emerged, and no games in which Hatfield were involved were reported by the local press. On the positive side, all three known matches resulted in wins for Hatfield, with Woolley and Soames excelling in two of them. On 31 July 1860, Francis Grantham Faithfull (1832-1892), a former Hon. Secretary of the club who had moved to East Hertfordshire, brought an eleven from the Broxbourne area to Hatfield Park. It wasn’t a joyful homecoming, as Hatfield won by 99 runs, largely thanks to Woolley and Soames taking five wickets each. Clapton provided the opposition for the remaining fixtures, the second of which, at Hatfield Park, was especially successful for Woolley. In the first innings against the North London side, Woolley and Soames shared the wickets between them again. In the second innings, Woolley was successful once more; this time, William Faircloth was his partner in crime. Extra-Curricular Activities At this point in history, cricket matches were few and far between, with clubs generally arranging a handful of fixtures each season, often fewer than six. Consequently, keen cricketers were not tied to a single club and would sniff out a game wherever they could. Woolley was no exception, and in the latter years of the 1850s, his name could be found on the team 155
sheets of the fledgling Hatfield New Town CC. From a historical perspective, it is disappointing that no indication was given as to the location of their home ground. He was not alone in this endeavour, as a glance at a couple of matches played in 1859 showed that Woolley was one of five players from Hatfield CC in each eleven. There is no question that the New Town club performed at a lower level than its more established neighbour, but Woolley was also testing himself against stronger opponents. In 1858 and 1859, he was selected in the elevens raised by the sometime Hatfield CC player Robert Dimsdale (1828-1898), which played return fixtures against Hertford in both seasons. Home for Dimsdale’s XI was in the grounds of Essendon Place, the home of his father, Charles John Dimsdale (1801-1872), the fifth Baron Dimsdale. It is impossible to verify conclusively one way or another; however, it is possible that Woolley was selected to play for the County of Hertford against Rickmansworth on 25-26 August 1857. As is so often the case, the player under scrutiny was not given an initial. The obvious question to ask is, could a nineteen-year-old in his first season as a player come to the attention of the selector(s)? Possibly yes. What is assumed to have been Woolley’s second game was against No Man’s Land, which happened to be the home ground of the County. By happy coincidence, two of Hatfield’s opponents on the day, William Westell and John Lines, were also in the XI that played at Rickmansworth. Another argument in favour is that no search has thrown up any other cricketers by the name of Woolley playing in Hertfordshire at the time. If it were Frederick, he had a reasonable game, which is more than can be said for the County as a group. Woolley clean bowled three of Rickmansworth’s men, and as it was a scorecard that failed to credit bowlers for catches, etc, there are five wickets up for grabs. The County’s nightmare with the bat was evident in the news that their top scorer hit ten runs in the first innings and a marginally better 15 in the second. In these circumstances, Woolley’s score of 13 was more than acceptable. Leading the Line As the new decade dawned, little had changed at Woolley’s home on Providence Court. The inhabitants remained the same, with the only significant change being Frederick’s career. He had left his bakery job behind, having learned a trade and was now earning his living as a painter. While he wasn’t a budding Rembrandt, he was certainly involved in the decoration business. As far as extant records allow, the return visit of F G Faithfull’s XI to 156
Hatfield Park on 15 July 1861 marked the end of the road for the Woolley/Soames partnership. They certainly went out on a high, with Faithfull’s men dismissed for 46 runs in their only innings, with the dynamic duo sharing the eight wickets that didn’t involve run outs. It was another miserable afternoon for the East Herts team, losing by 57 runs on the first innings. Hatfield were 129 runs ahead after their second innings, with no time available for a single ball to be bowled in the final innings of the match. How would Hatfield cope with the loss of Soames? Well, it took seven days to find out. Against North London at Hatfield Park, Woolley immediately found an opening partner who could step into the void, sharing all ten wickets with William Walby (1838-1885) to end the Londoners’ first innings for 56. Hatfield were equally successful in the second innings, without the need for a contribution from Woolley; this time, William’s younger brother, James (1843-1916), and William Faircloth did the damage. Frederick scored 21 runs in the season finale against North London on 19 August; however, the match was more memorable in the Woolley household because batting at number eleven was Frederick’s younger brother, Edward, making his debut. All things considered, the future looked rosy for the club. With both matches against Enfield falling victim to the weather, Hatfield won all three of their completed fixtures. Usually, such a brash statement would be followed by a fall, but not on this occasion, with Hatfield winning all five of 1862’s encounters. They kicked off proceedings on 30 June by making the journey to Broxbourne, whose XI included Francis Faithfull, and were rewarded with a 94-run victory. It was a decent start to the year for Frederick, who opened the batting and top-scored with 37, and followed this with four wickets. After a lean period, Woolley’s batting was experiencing a revival of fortunes, and he followed this knock with 20 against North London at Clapton on 28 July. Hatfield’s next fixture, at Hatfield Park on Monday, 11 August 1862, produced without question the finest all-round performance of Woolley’s playing career. It was all the more impressive because the entire eleven of their opponents on the day, Eton Ramblers, had either played first-class cricket or represented the MCC. With the visitors batting first, despite Stephen Soames making a guest appearance, it was Woolley who dominated proceedings, dismissing six of the Rambler’s men, who were all out for 122. Today, that doesn’t sound overly impressive, but it was a respectable score for the time, yet Hatfield made light work of it. Woolley followed up his Herculean effort with the ball to total 42 runs, the second highest of his career, and the best of the match. This enabled Hatfield to take a 38-run 157
advantage into the second innings, and when time was called, and with five wickets down, Ramblers were still adrift. For the final match of the 1862 season, the visitors to Hatfield Park were either Welwyn, The Node, or C F Reid’s XI, such was the ambiguity of opponents at the time. Whatever the correct name may have been, it was Woolley who produced the man-of-the-match performance, albeit slightly less impressive than against Eton Ramblers. Frustratingly, this was one of those games where the newspaper report failed to identify the successful bowler unless the mode of dismissal was bowled. Conditions for batting were difficult, and runs were hard to come by. Mr Reid’s men went to the crease first, and Woolley clean bowled three of them, with four wickets unaccounted for. Since Woolley bowled unchanged throughout the innings, there is a strong likelihood that he was responsible for one or more of them. In reply to the rather small total of 51, Hatfield’s batters fared even worse. It didn’t help that Woolley was one of three men to be run out; however, without his 14 runs, Hatfield would have been further adrift than the tworun deficit they suffered. Things didn’t get better for the men wielding willow. Woolley removed both of Welwyn’s openers for ducks, which set the tone for the innings. Woolley finished with at least five wickets to his credit (with two unknowns), and Hatfield had been set a target of 37 runs for victory. There then seemed to be a transformation in the pitch, and Hatfield knocked off the required runs for the loss of two wickets. As far as records allow, Frederick was at his wicket-taking peak in 1863. After a quiet start to the season against Hertford in Hatfield Park, he was back on form two weeks later in the return fixture, played at Hartham Common on Tuesday, 7 July. In the first innings, Woolley had the upper hand, taking at least six wickets. The trouble for Hatfield was that, in John Hughes, Hertford possessed arguably the finest bowler in the county, who proceeded to remove eight of Hatfield’s men, to give Hertford a decisive first innings lead of 15 runs. Woolley did his best to drag his side back into the reckoning by hitting the stumps a further three times, with five unknown wicket takers. With press reports again thin on the ground, there is no record of his performance in the defeat of North London in the next match. Still, we do know that against St Albans on 28 July, he took twelve wickets in the game, with six in each innings, although it was not enough to prevent another loss. After this, Hatfield travelled to Clapton on 3 August for the return fixture with North London, and it proved to be a very fruitful visit. Hatfield piled on the runs in their only visit to the crease, eventually bowled out for 170. Hatfield’s bowlers made light work of their task, dismissing 158
their hosts for 35 and 50 for an impressive win by an innings and 85 runs. Although Woolley helped himself to five wickets in the second innings, the plaudits on this occasion belonged to James Walby, with eight in the first and five in the second. There now followed a lean couple of years for Woolley on the cricket pitch, but, to be fair, a lot was going on off the field. The funeral of Frederick’s grandmother, Ann (aka Jane), on 25 February 1865 at St Etheldreda’s, precipitated a period of upheaval in the Woolley household. We cannot be sure of the exact timeframe, but at some point, Frederick and his mother left their longtime home at Providence Court and moved to Hatfield Newtown, where they were joined by Frederick’s nephew, Thomas (b. 1860), the son of Alfred and Harriet Woolley. Frederick’s sister-in-law had died aged 31 in early 1864, and Alfred left Hatfield soon afterwards to take up employment as a servant in Hanover Square, Westminster, leaving their son, Thomas, in the care of his grandmother. Frederick evidently took Thomas under his wing, for a few years later, the 1871 census listed the eleven-yearold Thomas as a painter. Despite the suggestion that Woolley’s form had declined, his reputation remained intact, which perhaps proves, if nothing else, that statistics do not tell the whole story. Press reports of Hatfield’s first two fixtures in 1866 provided no details on wicket takers, so there is no record of his performance. However, he must have been doing something right, as he earned a place in the most high-profile fixture of his career. Scheduled to take place in Ball’s Park, Hertford, on 18,19,20 June, three Hatfield players – Woolley, James Walby, and William Walby – were selected to play for twenty-two of the Hertford Town Club & Neighbourhood against the United South of England Eleven. All first-class cricketers, the United South team was chosen from a narrow pool, with nine from Surrey and two from Middlesex. Of particular interest is Surrey’s Henry Jupp, who, in 1877, was a member of James Lillywhite’s squad that toured Australia. This was the first English side to do so, and Jupp played in the first two (retrospectively) officially recognised Test Matches, both played in Melbourne. In a team of twenty-two, it was always going to be a challenge for a bowler to make an impact, and Woolley’s plight was not helped when the first day’s play was lost as a result of incessant rain. The biggest loser was Hertford CC. Accounting for inflation, in 2025 terms, the Hertfordshire Mercury estimated that the club missed out on £5,175 of revenue. The assumption is that the professional players of the United South would have been remunerated for their participation. It also didn’t help that John Hughes 159
bowled almost unchanged from one end. The Hatfield contingent didn’t cover themselves in glory, mind you, other than Hughes and Frank Silcock; neither did anyone else! On the bright side, the twenty-two beat the eleven by 16 runs based on the first innings. Twenty-two fielders (confirmed by the report) had their advantages. His next match was played at an iconic ground that is sadly long lost. North London CC had left Clapton behind and was now playing on the former site of the Metropolitan Cattle Market, appropriately named the Islington Cattle Market Ground, which became the home of Middlesex CCC, before they took up residence at Lord’s. Located a short walk from Finsbury Park station, it was a much less arduous journey than traipsing across to Clapton, and ironically, in days gone by, the Hatfield players used to walk past the cattle market to catch a connecting train when playing against the same opponent. The new surroundings were to Woolley’s liking, and with at least five wickets, he helped set up a victory for Hatfield. A few weeks later, on 22 August, Woolley ended his season in fine style with another man-of-the-match performance against Hertford. Thankfully, it was a comprehensive scorecard that appeared in the Hertfordshire Mercury, for it was one of the best bowling performances of his career, and for once, John Hughes had to play second fiddle to his Hatfield counterpart. Woolley ran riot in the first innings with seven wickets to dispose of Hertford for 23 runs, which, in the words of the match report’s author, was ‘a smaller number than we ever saw placed to their account before.’ Not satisfied with this, he then proceeded to collect a further six victims in the second innings, making it thirteen for the match. A decade after the ‘was he or wasn’t he’ uncertainty surrounding Woolley’s participation in the County of Hertford XI in 1857, there was no such ambiguity about his selection for the county eleven that faced the Moor Park Club at Gorhambury, the family seat of Lord Grimston, on 7 September 1867. The Grimston family had long been the de facto custodians of the county club, and at some point in the 1850s had decided to stop playing home matches on No Man’s Common and move to the more palatial setting of their own park. Woolley justified his selection to take six wickets (possibly seven, as the report inexplicably omitted the bowler for one of the wickets) as Moor Park slumped to 55 all out. Facing a first innings deficit of 45 runs, the visitors produced an even lower total at the second time of asking to leave Hertfordshire a target of nine runs for victory, which they managed for the loss of one wicket. Sadly for us, the Herts Guardian neglected to print the second innings scorecard. 160
As far as records allow, Woolley made his final appearance for the County of Hertford on 24-25 August 1868 against I Zingari, a wandering club founded by a group of Old Harrovians in 1845. But it was no ordinary wandering club. Seventeen of its fixtures, including two against Australia, were granted first-class status, and between 1867 and 2005, Wisden reported on all of its matches. Having built them up, now to knock them down, for this was a weakened XI, with the club simultaneously touring Ireland. It does, however, show their strength, as of the eleven that opposed Hertfordshire, eight of them: Charlton Gore ‘CG’ Lane (Surrey), Courtenay Edmund Boyle (MCC), Robert Allen ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald (Middlesex), William Henry Parnell (MCC), Henry Bloomfield Kingcote (Kent), Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane (Middlesex and Surrey), Arthur Frederick Payne (MCC), and Walter Edward Grimston (Cambridge University), had played first-class cricket, while another, Spencer William Gore (Surrey) was soon to do so. Robert Fitzgerald was also the current Secretary of the MCC. From the scraps of information available, Woolley was in form ahead of his county appearance, taking thirteen wickets in a match for the second time in two years, with Islington Albion the unfortunate victim on this occasion, in an innings defeat on 29 July. In the game proper at Gorhambury, Woolley didn’t get much of a look in, save for a catch, with, inevitably, John Hughes hogging the bowling honours. Hughes took seven wickets in the first innings and eight in the second to ease Hertfordshire to victory by an innings and 18 runs. All was not lost for Woolley. Given the early conclusion of the first match and an eager crowd, the players agreed to a second game, though it was unlikely to provide a positive result. Hertfordshire piled on the runs, eventually bowled out for 208, but there was never going to be enough time remaining in the day for the bowlers to complete the job. Woolley gave it his best shot, and when stumps were drawn, I Zingari were 30 for six, and Woolley had taken five of the wickets to fall. Two days later, Woolley enjoyed another fruitful day’s cricket at the Islington Cattle Market Cricket Ground. This time, it was Islington Albion acting as hosts, and despite ending up on the losing side, Woolley would have been pleased from a personal perspective, taking eight wickets in the only innings of Islington. The End of Times Frederick Woolley’s final major contribution, for which we know, came on the opening day of the 1869 season. Middlesex Rangers, a new opponent, made their first visit to Hatfield Park on 18 May and restricted Hatfield 161
to a first innings total of 84, of which Woolley contributed a respectable 13. The Rangers’ reply did not get off to the best of starts, losing three early wickets, all of which were caught and bowled by Woolley. Hatfield were then frustrated by a fifth-wicket partnership which had Rangers seemingly coasting to a first innings lead, before Woolley led a fightback by taking three further wickets, all clean bowled; however, the visitors managed to nudge ahead decisively by three runs at the halfway mark. In a match with few high scores, Woolley’s 12 not out was the best of Hatfield’s second knock, and although they managed to set a target of 70 to win, time was against them, and the result was settled on the first innings. From a position of regularly taking five or more wickets, Woolley’s career rather peters out from this point. This appears to be a combination of him making himself available less, maybe he couldn’t afford to take time off from work, and a changing of the guard. The Lambert brothers had begun to play, and William, in particular, was a regular wicket-taker. The biggest surprise from this period is that Frederick did not make himself for Hatfield CC’s historic first appearance at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Monday, 21 August 1871. To suggest that he chose not to play is a sound assumption because he would surely have been selected ahead of Woolley, who did play against a twelve raised by George Lambert, under the name of St John’s Wood Ramblers. Having said that, it is not impossible that he was due to play and arranged for a last-minute replacement himself. With no disrespect intended, Frederick’s second cousin, James Woolley (b. 1850), was not of the same calibre as his teammates. It should come as no surprise that, in the finest tradition of the Woolley women, James was illegitimate. For the benefit of those unsure of the relationship between second cousins, i.e. most of us, here goes. James’s mother, Eliza, was the daughter of Frederick’s grandfather, William’s brother, Joseph. Eliza, Frederick’s first cousin once removed, went to Brighton to find employment and came back with a little bundle of joy. Although James made a handful of appearances for Hatfield, athletics was his strongest pursuit. Within the pages of this book, the period from 1870 to 1872 is the only period during which two of the featured legends’ playing careers overlapped. In all probability, it happened more often; however, the only two recorded instances of Woolley and Charles Lambert playing in the same XI were against Hertford on 31 July 1872 and 14 August 1872, and on both occasions they were joined by George and William Lambert and Edward Woolley. With cruel irony, these were the final two appearances of Frederick 162
Woolley. The fact that Woolley was still opening the bowling suggests that he was still at the top of his game. In the first match, played at Ball’s Park, Hertford, he removed Hertford’s opener George Skerman, who was no mug, for a duck in the first innings. He followed this with two further wickets and then took two of the four wickets to fall in Hertford’s second innings. A fortnight later in Hatfield Park, although he only took one wicket, perhaps fittingly, it was the result of a catch by Charles Lambert. Passing the flame… Also fitting was that when he left the cricket field for, perhaps, the final time, he did so as a not-out batter. It may be that we are writing off Woolley’s career slightly prematurely. All that can be said is that he did not play in the only Hatfield CC fixture of 1873 for which there is knowledge. The deaths of few Hatfield cricketers have garnered much attention in the local press. His early death may have been a factor, but such recognition was awarded to Frederick Woolley. No cause of death was given, but even by contemporary standards, thirty-seven was young. It reflects both how highly he was regarded by his peers and his relative poverty that a nineteenth-century equivalent of crowdfunding funded his funeral. He was buried at St Etheldreda’s on 16 November 1873. Today, the weathered condition of the epitaphs makes it impossible to determine whether the funeral fund raised enough money for a gravestone. A CRICKETER’S FUNERAL On Sunday last, the remains of Frederick Woolley were deposited in the Hatfield churchyard in the presence of a large concourse of people. He was for many years connected with the Town Cricket Club, and a number of his old friends and fellow cricketers assembled on the occasion to testify to the respect and esteem in which he had always been held by them. Among those present were the veteran umpire George Hammond, William Parker, Messrs William and James Walby, James Cox, Frederick Hankin, Frederick Stocks, Crosby Stallabrass, etc, etc. The friends of the deceased desire to thank all those who have so kindly contributed towards the funeral fund. Hertfordshire Mercury - 22 November 1873 None of the Woolley siblings reached old age. Alfred Woolley returned to Hatfield from Westminster and died in 1878, aged 39, but the saddest case was that of Edward, whose funeral was conducted at St Etheldreda’s. He was last seen playing for Hatfield in 1874, after which he became the landlord of the White Swan Inn, which once stood on the junction of Bell 163
Lane and the Great North Road in Bell Bar. In 1877, he married Fanny Manne, but the couple remained childless. In 1884, he took an ill-fated decision to visit Margate, Kent. Choosing to stay in an apartment in Albert Terrace, a short stroll from the railway station and located in a prime location next to the beach, presumably, he was hoping for some rest and recuperation. A report of the inquest that appeared in the Herts Advertiser describes what happened next better than I could. His body was returned to Hatfield, where he was buried on 23 August. MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF A HERTS PUBLICAN IN MARGATE An inquiry has been held at Margate into the circumstances attending the death of Mr Edward Woolley, aged 43 years, landlord of the White Swan Inn, North Mymms, who died in the Cottage Hospital. The evidence disclosed a somewhat mysterious set of circumstances. A lodging housekeeper named Millington stated that the deceased took apartments at her house. He was shown into the dining room about a quarter to twelve o'clock at night, and in about ten minutes she heard him open the window, and then heard a heavy fall. It was discovered that the deceased had jumped from the window and had broken his leg. In reply to questions, he said he had jumped from the window to escape from a man who wanted to kill him. The deceased appeared to be quite sober at the time. Other evidence showed that whilst at the hospital deceased became very violent and was held down in bed. Subsequently, his wife arrived from Hatfield, but he did not recognise her. The deceased had a poker in his hand when he jumped from the window. Mr James Northcote, a licensed victualer of Hatfield, deposed that he had known the deceased several years, and although he took a “tidy drop,” was a man of sober habits. Mr Charles Dawson, of Hatfield, gave similar evidence. The most mysterious part of the case was contained in the evidence of a visitor named Hicks residing next door to the house at which the deceased took apartments. Mr Hicks stated that he heard the fall and heard the police convey the deceased to the hospital. After the police had departed, he heard a female voice whisper, “Quick! Quick! Let me down!” and then he heard footsteps running down the street. The footsteps were close to his window. He also called his landlady’s attention to the whispering, but she did not reply. A police officer stated that the deceased told him that whilst he was in the dining room, someone opened the door and said, “He’s alright now, he’s asleep. Bring a knife, Alice; he’s got some money, and we’ll have it.” Medical evidence was to the effect that the deceased was suffering from delirium tremens, but the jury returned the following verdict: “That the deceased died at the Cottage Hospital, Margate, through shock to the system produced by jumping out of a window at No. 3 Albert Terrace, and breaking his leg, which caused delirium.” Herts Advertiser - 30 August 1884 Jane Woolley outlived all of her children. After Frederick’s death, she 164
took in a lodger for a while; however, by the time of the 1891 census, when she was seventy-five, she was living on her own and still making ends meet as a laundress. And then she disappeared from official records. Maybe she died alone and forgotten, with no immediate family left to identify her. There were still some Woolleys in Hatfield, but any relationship would have been distant. It is hoped that she didn’t end her days in the Hatfield Union Workhouse, which in 1894 was found to have many shortcomings: ‘the female infirmary, located in some old cottages, was cramped, badly ventilated, and with toilet facilities consisting of just a single commode; toilets elsewhere included an earth closet with no deodorising earth provided, and a water closet with no water; no hot water was piped to any of the buildings and the only fixed bath was in the tramps' ward; there was no nurse on duty at night, and no direct way of summoning help from the wards at nighttime.’ The full report, conducted by the British Medical Journal, makes grim reading. 165
166Hatfield’s Parish Church, St Etheldreda’s, which appears in the stories of all five legends.Gorhambury House - The backdrop for Frederick Woolley’s final two matches representing the County of Hertford.