Richard Newland
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Richard Newland (born 1718; christened 2 March 1718 at Slindon, Sussex; died 29 May 1791 at Bath) was a famous English cricketer in the mid-Georgian period who played for the famous Slindon Cricket Club under the patronage of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and for various All-England teams.
Newland was an outstanding all-rounder who batted left-handed (his bowling hand and style are unknown). He excelled at both single wicket and the eleven-a-side game. In the 1740s he was "the most famous player in England" [1].
Two of his brothers, Adam (born 1714) and John (born 1717), also played for Slindon but little is known of them apart from what appears in the match reports. The Newland brothers were the uncles of Richard Nyren, who later became famous as the team captain at Hambledon. Their sister Susan married Richard Nyren senior of Eartham, which is near Slindon [2].
The earliest recorded mention of the Newland brothers is in a letter dated Thursday 9 July 1741 from the Duchess of Richmond to her husband. She mentions a conversation with John Newland re a Slindon v East Dean match a week earlier at Long Down, near Eartham, Sussex [2].
Richard Newland played for All-England against Kent in the famous match at the Artillery Ground in 1744 [3]. In Cricket, An Heroic Poem (1745) by James Love, which commemorated the match, Newland is described as "the champion".
[edit] References
- ^ H S Altham, A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin, 1962
- ^ a b Timothy J McCann, Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century, Sussex Record Society, 2004
- ^ Arthur Haygarth, Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744-1826), Lillywhite, 1862
