1826 English cricket season

In the 1826 English cricket season, the recovery of inter-county cricket continued and William Clarke made his debut appearance in first-class cricket.

Honours

• Most runs – Tom Marsden 227 @ 227.00 (HS 227: he had just the one first-class innings)
• Most wickets – William Lillywhite 27 (BB 9–?)

First-class matches

• A total of 7 first-class matches were recorded in 1826, including four inter-county matches.^[1]

Events

• The Lord’s pavilion, gutted by fire in July 1825, was rebuilt in time for MCC’s annual dinner on Thursday 11 May.
• Inter-county cricket flourished again, mainly through the efforts of the Sussex county organisation based on the Midhurst club. Sussex played matches against Kent and a combined Hampshire/Surrey team.
• 24 to 26 July — Yorkshire's first great player Tom Marsden scored 227 for Sheffield and Leicester v Nottingham at the Darnall New Ground in Sheffield. A report said that Marsden batted over eight hours, approximately 4½ hours on the 25th and 3½ hours on the 26th.
• 5 May — a significant event that would in time accelerate the spread of cricket throughout England was the passage of an Act of Parliament that authorised creation of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway and effectively began the "railway boom".
• 31 December — death of John Small, the great Hambledon batsman

First-class debutants

The following players made their first known appearance^[2] in first-class cricket during the 1826 season.

• John Antrobus (cricketer)
• Atkinson (Middlesex cricketer)
• William Barber (Yorkshire cricketer)
• Thomas Barker (Nottinghamshire cricketer)
• Thomas Box
• Peter Bramley (cricketer)
• Briden (Middlesex cricketer)
• A. Brooks (Middlesex cricketer)
• William Clarke (cricketer)
• James Cobbett
• Henry Davis (cricketer)
• James Dearman
• William Dench
• David Edwards (Cambridgeshire cricketer)
• Thomas Gamble (cricketer)
• George Goad (cricketer)
• Charles Goodall
• Francis Gordon
• Guyett (Middlesex cricketer)
• Charles Jarvis (cricketer)
• George Jarvis
• William Jenkins (cricketer)
• Harry Jones (Middlesex cricketer)
• John Kettleband
• Lord Sussex Lennox
• Arthur Malkin
• Tom Marsden
• George Murrell
• C. Musgrave (MCC cricketer)
• John Noakes (cricketer)
• George Owston
• Guy Prendergast (cricketer)
• Charles Prickett
• George Rawlins
• Edward Royd Rice
• W. Shelton (Leicestershire cricketer)
• George Smith (Nottingham cricketer)
• William Squires
• George Thackeray
• George Thorpe (Nottinghamshire cricketer)
• Emmanuel Vincent
• Henry Warner (cricketer)
• Robert Webb (cricketer)
• Whitbourn (1826 cricketer)
• William Woolhouse

References

Bibliography

• Haygarth, Arthur (1862). Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826). Lillywhite. 

Additional reading

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709 – 1863. Nottingham: ACS. 
• Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). George Allen & Unwin. 
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum. 
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. HarperCollins. 

External links

• CricketArchive – 1826 first-class matches list
• CricketArchive – 1826 other matches list