Lost 17, Abandoned 1

Black clouds gather over the county ground in 2016, a season in which Derbyshire failed to win a single county championship match.

Much has been written about the history of Derbyshire County Cricket Club by more knowledgable writers than I, but I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at the disappointing 1920 county championship season from a local angle, considering the contrasting fortunes of three cricketers from this area; Thomas Forrester of Pilsley, Allen Turner of Heath, and Guy Jackson, born at Ankerbold. One was at the end of his time with the county, one apparently didn’t quite make the grade, and the third was at the start of a successful cricket career.

There is a good deal of information about the careers of all Derbyshire players available online, particularly at the DCCC Heritage website, for those who wish to know more.

The 1920 Season

Notorious in the history of the club, the 1920 season saw Derbyshire lose 17 of their 18 county championship matches, the other match being rained off. The side, struggling to rebuild after the war, lost heavily and were especially poor in the batting department. More details of the season can be found in the excellent Old Ebor blog here:https://oldebor.wordpress.com/category/derbyshire/

The batsmen of the team have lost their form – is it true that they have also lost their nerve? The bowling is reduced to one slow to medium bowler… The worst feature of all, however, is the absence of a single young player to whom we can turn with hope or confidence… What can be done to avert the perpetuation of such tragedies as have been enacted in the first three matches? (Derby Daily Telegraph – Tuesday 25 May 1920).

Tom Forrester 1873-1927

Image: heritagederbyshireccc.com

Thomas Forrester played two matches in the 1920 season, 15-17 May against Yorkshire at Bramall Lane, and 19-20 May at Queen’s Park, Chesterfield, against Lancashire. Both were 3-day matches which lasted less than 2 days.

Thomas Forrester (sometimes Forester) was born in Clay Cross in 1873 but raised in Pilsley. He began his working life as a schoolteacher, and came to prominence whilst at teacher training college in Birmingham, subsequently playing for Warwickshire for about three years.

He joined Derbyshire in 1902 and played three seasons for the county as an amateur. He retired due to pressure of work but rejoined the county team in 1910 and became established as a regular. A capable left-hand bat and right-arm bowler, in 1912 he took 7-18 against Nottinghamshire. In WWI he was awarded the DSO and rose to the rank of major.

By the start of the 1920 season Major Tom Forrester was 45 years old, and the match at Chesterfield proved to be his last, as he broke down after bowling 20 overs and was unable to bat at all. This loss of one of the old hands was a blow to the Derbyshire team.

Major Tom Forrester was later landlord of the Willow Tree at Pilsley. He died in Nottingham in 1927.

Allen Turner 1891-1961

Allen Turner was born at Heath in 1891. He worked as a clerk for Hardwick Colliery Co. and played football and cricket for the colliery teams. He was given a chance to play for the struggling county side for the match against Leicester at Derby 11-13 August. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that ‘ Still another recruit will be introduced in the Derbyshire side for the last home match…. This is Turner, a medium fast bowler, of Hardwick Colliery, who has been spoken of as one of the best bowlers in the Derbyshire League.’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 11 August 1920). He only bowled 13 overs, but took a wicket and made 2 runs in each innings. Derbyshire collapsed in their second innings and lost the match by an innings and 14 runs.

Turner was also selected for the match against Nottingham at Trent Bridge 26-28 August which Derbyshire lost by 197 runs. Although he bagged a pair batting, Allen Turner’s bowling performance was perfectly respectable, with 3-66 and 2-28, a five-wicket haul, which makes me wonder why he never played for the county again.

Guy Jackson 1896-1966

The name Jackson instanly identifies our man as a member of the wealthy family associated with the Clay Cross Company. Guy Rolf Jackson was the son of the chairman, and had a privileged upbringing coming to prominence as a cricketer playing for his school team, Harrow.

Painting of G.R. Jackson: meisterdrucke.com

After distinguished service in the war, G.R. Jackson made his county championship debut for Derbyshire in July 1919, shortly after his 23rd birthday. He was to go on to have a long career with the county, playing some 280 first class matches and captaining the team 1922-30.

Captain Jackson was a fine left handed batsman, but in 1920 he was out of form. In the nine county matches he played between May and July his top score was 14, and he was out for a duck six times. his average for the season was 5.11, and this was perhaps why he did not feature in any more matches that season. It was said that he had stood down to give his cousin Anthony Jackson a game or two. It would be two years before he scored his first century in a county championship match, at Cardiff in June 1923, when he was run out after making 102.

Captain Jackson lived at Higham Cliffe for many years, and died at Chesterfield Royal Hospital on 21 February 1966.

And Finally…

The performances of Derbyshire in county cricket team in 1920 are probably best forgotten, but there was at least one positive. This season saw the debut of one of their great wicketkeepers, Harry Elliott (1891-1976) of Scarcliffe. He played for the team for 27 years, and also for England 1927-1934. He later became a test umpire.

Lings

OS 1″ Sheet 112 1897

Lings = Heather

The area in North Wingfield township known as Lings was in the manor of Williamthorpe, and lies on the northern edge of North Wingfield’s parish. It is on the border with Grassmoor, and it is easy to imagine that this higher ground on the south-eastern edge of the grassy moor was once covered with heather.

Three Farms became One

By the mid 17th century there were three farms at Lings, of 38, 64 and 93 acres, occupied by tenants of the Hunlokes of Wingerworth Hall. The land belonging to the smallest farm was distributed between the other two farms before 1779, and, after the death of the tenant Mr Francis Browne in 1862, much of the land of the other smaller farm was transferred to the one remaining farm, which increased to about 140 acres. Farming families in the larger farm over the centuries included Brelsford, Ashmore, Bacon, Holmes and Wright.

The last of the Browne family at Lings was Mr Francis Browne who died in 1862. His family claimed to be the descendants of a Civil War Royalist, and made an unsuccessful claim to the vacant Viscountcy of Montague.

When Mr Francis Browne’s youngest son, William Nichols Browne of Brimington (who was born at Lings), gave an interview to the Derbyshire Times in 1901, he recalled that Lady Hunloke (perhaps in jest) referred to his father as ‘Montague’. (Derbyshire Times 16 February 1901).

For more on the Browne family see our facebook post https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1384464651564492&id=492150250795941

Lings Colliery

In the 1780s Joseph Butler started a colliery at Lings, which provided coke for his furnaces at Wingerworth and Killamarsh. Coal raised at Lings Colliery was coked before being transported down an incline to a wharf at Ankerbold. The furnace at Wingerworth was blown out in 1816 and the colliery at Lings probably closed shortly afterwards. In the early 1830s there were still coal pits near Lings Farm but it is not clear whether they were being worked, or by whom. The tramroad to Ankerbold had disappeared completely.

In June 1841 work commenced on the second colliery at Lings, this time by the Wingerworth Colliery Company. Coal was taken down to the Midland main line near Clay Cross Station (in Tupton) by a new incline ‘The Duke’s Incline’ managed by the Midland Railway Company. In 1851 there were four households living at Lings Pits.

After some accidents, safety on the Duke’s Incline was improved in the 1860s when a stationary steam engine replaced the self-acting system. The incline was abandoned altogether in the 1870s when the Midland Railway was granted powers to build a network of new junction lines. Lings Colliery was closed in the 1890s.

Lings Farm and Colliery, OS 6″ XXX.NE, 1900. The map was surveyed 1897-8, and it was around this time that the colliery was abandoned.

Lings Rows

Lings Row, a large development of of thirty-six cottages (six blocks of six cottages), was built on a field called ‘Little High Flat’ in the second half of the 1840s. On the 1851 census 34 of the 36 cottages were occupied, and fifty men and boys living here were coal miners. Today Deincourt Crescent occupies the site.

A sketch of the housing on Chesterfield Road made by the parish clerk in 1906.

At around the same time that Lings Row was built, two blocks of cottages were built end-on to Chesterfield Road, nearer to North Wingfield Green, on a field named West White Ley (or Leas). These were called Lings Cross Rows. Top Cross Row was made up of a block of six cottages, and Bottom Cross Row was a long block of sixteen cottages. Between 1861 and 1871 another block of six cottages was added to Top Cross Row, making twelve in all. To the north, on the boundary with Grassmoor, another two rows of nineteen cottages called Speedwell Row, were built in a triangle on the corner of a field near Windwhistle Farm called Platt’s Close, circa 1850.

Speedwell Row 1917 OS 25″ XXX.3. The dotted line marks the boundary between North Wingfield parish and Grassmoor (in Hasland parish).

Pubs and Chapels

The Miners Arms, situated opposite Lings Row, began as a butcher’s and grocer’s shop and beerhouse named ‘Clover Tree’ belonging to Charles Todd. It was established there before 1858. By 1861 Todd’s public house was known as ‘The Miners Arms’, and by the 1880s the Miners Arms had become ‘The Alma Hotel’. The public house was closed and demolished at the end of 2005, and there is now high-density housing on the site.

Sketch of Lings Row Chapel, opened 1905 (Derbyshire Courier 18 April 1903)

Lings Row (Salem) Chapel was built in 1864. This was replaced by a new building (pictured here), on an adjacent site, around the turn of the century, with accommodation for 400, and the two chapel buildings stood side-by-side, as can be seen on the parish clerk’s sketch, above. The new chapel suffered from subsidence and was closed and offered for sale by the trustees in 1926 “for freehold or dismantling” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 28 September 1926). It was sold and demolished in 1929. The old chapel was put back into use and eventually closed in 1962.

A Professional Footballer

In 1928 the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported, “Chesterfield have signed on Fred Beedall, an inside-right, from Lings Row Primitives, a local club. He is 17 years of age, stands 5ft 8in. and is reported to be well endowed physically” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 9 March 1928). He later became a half-back.

Fred Beedall (1911-1976) played for Chesterfield FC for about six years, although he did not make his league debut until 1932.

In 1901 and 1911 members of the Beedall family lived on Lings Row, Top Cross Row, and Bottom Cross Row, and a local newspaper rather unkindly referred to the Beedalls at North Wingfield as a ‘clan’. Members of the family were still living on Top Cross Row in 1939.

In 1934 Fred Beedall moved to Torquay United, but in 1938 he was placed on the transfer list. He returned to Chesterfield, and in 1939 he was living on Jawbones Hill, and working as a crane driver.

Picture from the Derbyshire Times 20 August 1932.

A Bad Reputation

It was reported that the residents of Alma Row and other residents of North Wingfield wished to be dissociated with the Lings Row radicals who, on polling day in 1906, threw mud, blue water, and worse, at the Unionist candidate Mr Locker Lampson and, indeed, any unfortunate passer-by they suspected to be a Unionist supporter.

Derbyshire Times 3 February 1906.

Thanks to Cliff Williams for information on The Duke’s Incline.

Over and Out

Grassmoor’s 10 years in the Derbyshire League, 1893-1903

Back Row: back row G. Hayes (scorer) – A. Fletcher – W. Heathcote – E.J. Bigland – W. Dennis – J. Newton – G. Gee (umpire)
Middle Row: H. Cooper – G. Godfrey – W. Godfrey (captain) – W. Peters – W. Wilkinson – C. White
Front Row: W. King – R. Gee – A. Bedford

As the cricket season draws to an end I take a look at Grassmoor Works Cricket team in the 1890s, inspired by the above team photograph. If the players are accurately named, think that the photograph must have been taken before 1896 (despite the 1899 caption), as it includes Mr Edward J. Bigland, who was headmaster of Grassmoor National School 1882-1896, and Mr William Peters who went to play for Bolsover in 1896.

I am not sure when Grassmoor Works first had a cricket team, but the team was in existence before August 1869, when 11 men of Grassmoor Works played 22 of Calow and district at Calow Feast. They were clearly a good team. A large crowd saw the Grassmoor men score 110 and then bowl out the Calow men for 31. To add insult to injury, 10 of those 31 runs were extras. Although none of the men playing for Grassmoor that day are in the above photograph, there was a member of the sporting Bedford family playing for Grassmoor.

The Barnes family, owners of Grassmoor Colliery, were keen cricketers, and Mr Alfred Barnes was, of course, president of the works cricket club. In the 1880s one of Mr Barnes’s sons was captain of the first team, and his nephew also played occasionally for the team. Mr Bernard Lucas, who owned the land where Grassmoor recreation ground was situated, was one of the vice presidents of the cricket club.

Derbyshire Courier 15 Jan 1887. From the above report in the Derbyshire Courier, it seems likely that the recreation ground was made in 1887. A map of 1883 shows only fields here.

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OS 25″ Derbyshire XXV.15 1897 and 6″ XXV.SE 1921. The later map names the cricket ground, divided off from the recreation ground, and shows a building on the southern boundary, which I take to be a pavilion. Note that in the intervening years Hobley Lane has been renamed Chapman Lane.

The Derbyshire League

At first many cricket matches seem to have been arranged on an informal basis, but cricket associations, leagues and competitions were quickly formed in the booming Derbyshire coalfields. At the end of 1889 the Derbyshire League was started, with the first season commencing in 1890. The league was limited to nine or ten clubs, and intended to be just one step down from county level cricket. Most of the original founding clubs were based in the Amber Valley and Alfreton areas, and the league’s AGMs were held at Alfreton.

By 1890, before they joined the Derbyshire League, Grassmoor’s team seems to have been too good for many of their opponents. In September 1890 they played a North Wingfield team, and after making 101 for 5, bowled North Wingfield out for 14. The star players of this era included the batsman and captain Mr William Godfrey, the bowler, Mr Arthur ‘Tat’ Bedford, and the all-rounder Mr William Peters. All three are on the above photograph.

In 1893 Grassmoor Works and Chesterfield Town cricket teams joined the Derbyshire League, and although Ilkeston, Riddings, Blackwell, and Butterley were still members at that date, the shift began towards the league being dominated by the clubs in North East Derbyshire, and the AGMs were later transferred to Chesterfield. By 1899 there were 10 clubs in the league: Grassmoor Works, Bolsover Colliery, Chesterfield Town, Clay Cross Park, Pilsley Works, Staveley Works, South Normanton, Tibshelf Colliery, Creswell Colliery, and Ilkeston Manners Colliery.

At least five of the cricketers on the photograph played for Grassmoor in their first season in the Derbyshire League. Now matched against a limited number of clubs of a similar standard, Grassmoor found wins harder to come by, but still acquitted themselves well. Two of Grassmoor’s players, Mr William Godfrey and Mr William Dennis, were also selected to play in a representative match at Chesterfield, a mark of distinction. Despite the quality of the team, it was Pilsley who won the league in 1893, and Grassmoor finished in sixth place. Until 1896, Pilsley and Butterley were the only names on the cup, and Grassmoor regularly featured in the bottom half of the league table.

Competition for the best players was fierce, and in 1893 Grassmoor acquired the services of Mr George Burton to aid their campaign. The Derbyshire Times reported “Grassmoor have got together splendid eleven, which includes some of the most prominent young players in the district. George Burton, who has been in Cardiff for two seasons, has thrown in his lot with this club” (Derbyshire Times 13 May 1893).

The transfer of players from one team to another was a constant problem, and at a league meeting in 1895 it was ruled that “any player must have played at least four matches during the previous season, or reside within a radius of four miles from the club house for at least nine months in the year”. It was hoped that this would prevent clubs from bringing in professionals (Derbyshire Times 19 October 1895).

Billy Foulkes, remembered today as a footballer, was the cause of the Butterley team withdrawing from the Derbyshire League in the summer of 1897 following a dispute about his eligibility to play. He was a gifted all round cricketer. He took 5 wickets for 13 runs against Grassmoor in July 1897.

Foulkes “was a punishing bat and played for Derbyshire County XI in 1900, beside being a wonderful slip fielder. Everything that came to those huge hands seemed to stick. As a Sheffield United goalkeeper he was regarded as one of the finest keepers in England and was an international against Wales in 1897. He also won an English Cup final medal in 1898-9 and again in 1901-2… He never really grew up, and did the most outrageous things. One day he carried a donkey out of a costermonger’s shafts up the steep narrow flight of stairs in a Blackwell Primrose Hill house, and deposited it in the bedroom of an ailing friend “Fer comp’ny like”. It took about half the row to get it down again.”

(W.E. Godfrey’s notebooks, Chesterfield Library).

At the league’s AGM in October 1895 Bolsover Colliery’s cricket team was admitted in to the Derbyshire League, which had now increased to 12 clubs. Bolsover soon became a major force in the league under the aegis of Mr John Plowright Houfton (1857-1929), who had become general manager of Bolsover Colliery in 1890. Mr (later Sir) J.P. Houfton was a keen cricketer, and was later a committee member of Derbyshire County Cricket Club and president of the Derbyshire League from 1898. In the summer of 1896, Bolsover’s first season, one of Grassmoor’s best players, Mr William Peters (on the above photograph), moved from Grassmoor to Bolsover.

The Grassmoor team struggled on, but it was observed in 1897 that they were not up to the required standard. They finished bottom of the league in 1898 and 1899, but managed to reach sixth place in 1902. Their final season in the Derbyshire League was 1903, when their neighbours Pilsley were league champions for the fifth time.

In 1904 Grassmoor Works joined the Derbyshire Minor League, and won that league at their first attempt.

In 1904 the Minor League cup was presented to Mr Samuel Peters of Grassmoor, whose father had once played for the Grassmoor team.