The History of Cricket: 1971 - The Monster Bat Controversy by John Leach

DateLine: 21st November 2005

 

Anyone who has studied the history and statistics of cricket up to the advent of roundarm bowling will agree that the single greatest controversy that the sport had to deal with pre-roundarm concerned the width of the bat. The Laws of Cricket innocuously state that the bat shall be no more than four and one quarter inches wide at its broadest part. What this statement does not reveal is the tremendous row that erupted when someone tried to use a bat that was fully as wide as the wicket itself!

 

The incident is shrouded in controversy even now. There are still questions asked about who exactly introduced the monster bat and when it happened; and about who challenged it and when. About the only thing we can be certain of is that the maximum width was stipulated in the 1774 version of the Laws of Cricket, having been absent from the 1744 version.

 

The Match
It is generally agreed that the match in question was Chertsey v Hambledon (or Surrey v Hampshire, if you prefer) at Laleham Burway on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 September 1771. Hambledon’s team included captain and all-rounder Richard Nyren, opening fast bowler Thomas Brett and master batsman John Small senior. Playing for Chertsey was another good all-rounder Thomas “Daddy” White (c.1740 – 1831), who hailed from Reigate, Surrey.

 

H T Waghorn in WCS states that:
On Monday (i.e., 23 Sept) began to be played on Laleham Burway, near Chertsey, in Surrey, a great cricket-match depending, the Hambledon and Chertsey Clubs (the latter being allowed to pick four men), which was decided on Tuesday evening in favour of the former. Great sums were depending on this match, which was very strongly contested by both parties, the winners heading their opponents only by a single notch, viz:– Hambledon, both innings 218 Chertsey, both innings 217

 

According to G B Buckley in FL18, although he defers to WCS re the main details, the match was for £50 a side and had to be be played out at Chertsey: the wickets to be pitched at 10. His source was the St James Chronicle dated Thurs 19 September.

 

There are no newspaper reports of the game beyond what Mr Waghorn found re the team totals and certainly nothing to suggest that a great controversy had taken place.

 

Our main evidence for what occurred is based on a book written two generations later by the son of Hambledon's captain; and by a piece of paper dated Wed 25 September 1771 and signed by the three greatest Hambledon players.

 

The Whites
Not for the last time in the 18th Century, there was confusion about players called White. A number of Whites were active in the 1790s and statisticians have a nightmare trying to differentiate them, their difficulties increased by the player called Knowles who used White as a pseudonym (or vice-versa!).

 

Differentiating between the Whites of the 1760s and 1770s is relatively easy but previous historians have made hard work of it. There were two. One was Thomas “Daddy” White of Reigate who played in various Surrey and All-England teams, often against Hambledon, until he retired in 1779. He has a biography in S&B (p.40) and lived to a ripe old age. He is the one who was responsible for the monster bat controversy, though his motives are unclear. His namesake contemporary was “Shock” White, who may or may not have been called Thomas. He was first recorded as playing for Hampton (a Middlesex team) in 1761, so he was perhaps older than “Daddy” White. Ironically, this appearance for Hampton was against Chertsey at Laleham Burway! He was latterly a resident of Brentford, also north of the river Thames in Middlesex. He was twice mentioned by the Daily Advertiser in 1773 as “Shock” White of Brentford. Furthermore, while “Shock” played at Tothill Fields for Westminster versus London on Wednesday 18 August 1773, “Daddy” was simultaneously playing for Surrey v Kent at Sevenoaks Vine! “Shock” White had nothing to do with Surrey or Chertsey or outsize bats; yet he has often been blamed for the incident.

 

This is one aspect of the controversy that we can be absolutely certain about. Despite several books saying that Thomas “Shock” White introduced the huge bat, it was Thomas “Daddy” White who did it and “Shock” White was a completely different player. It is not clear who originally confused the two Whites, but it wasn’t John Nyren, son of the Hambledon captain.

 

John Nyren's Evidence
In his Young Cricketers Tutor (1833), John Nyren refers to the incident by saying: “Several years since (I do not recollect the precise date) a player, named White, of Ryegate (sic), brought a bat to a match, which being the width of the stumps, effectually (sic) defended his wicket from the bowler : and, in consequence, a law was passed limiting the future width of the bat to 4¼ inches.” In a footnote, Nyren adds that: “I have a perfect recollection of this occurrence; also, that subsequently, an iron frame of the statute width, was constructed for, and kept by the Hambledon Club; through which any bat of suspect dimensions was passed, and allowed or rejected accordingly.”

 

One or two writers have taken Nyren at his word re the footnote. John Nyren was born at Hambledon in 1764 and so he was a young boy of about seven when the infamous match took place. It is questionable if Nyren was actually present as Hambledon to Chertsey in those days was a long journey. When he says he has “perfect recollection” he is surely referring to his recall of his father talking about the incident in, no doubt, heated terms. I was seven when I first watched Test cricket but I admit my actual recollections are memories of comments made by my father re certain incidents rather than a reliable eye-witness account of the incidents themselves, which in any case I have subsequently read about or seen recordings of.

 

Nyren certainly could recall the iron frame. It was surely shown to him and he will have handled it and watched his father demonstrate its use.

 

As Ashley Mote says in his book, John Nyren’s The Cricketers of my Time, Nyren was a plagiarist and there is no doubt that large chunks of his work were taken sometimes verbatim from earlier works. He seems to have adapted someone else's much earlier words when he talks about “a player, named White, of Ryegate”. The Brett Declaration

 

The MCC has in its possession a paper, evidently written by Thomas Brett and signed by himself, Richard Nyren and John Small senior. This document, which is in effect a slip cut from a larger sheet of paper, may be called the Brett Declaration for want of a more appropriate name. It amounts to an item in the minutes of a Hambledon Club meeting, though it may have been a separate document that was subsequently discussed at a club meeting. John Goulstone in HMM suggests it is a forgery but this is introducing a conspiracy theory to circumstances where the solution is surely the obvious option. The Brett Declaration states:
In view of the performance of one White of Ryegate on September 23rd that ffour (sic) and quarter inches shall be the breadth forthwith. this 25th day of September 1771 Richard Nyren T Brett J Small

 

Goulstone thinks a 19th Century forger took the words “a player, named White, of Ryegate” from Nyren and wrote “one White of Ryegate” on the forged declaration. It was the other way around. Nyren, the plagiarist, must have seen the declaration many times and had the phraseology in his head. Goulstone is also curious that White’s first name is not used in either source. Nyren knew full well which White it was and he knew that White was called Thomas, but he simply adapted Brett’s words. Thomas Brett also knew that White was called Thomas but was still incensed enough about the incident to refuse to call him by his given name. That is only natural. Brett’s anger can be seen in his use of the word “performance”. He is using that word in its most derogatory sense.

 

Goulstone expresses strong doubts about whether Thomas Brett would have written the declaration. Brett was still a young player and, according to Nyren, Brett’s judgment of the game “was held in no great estimation”. Maybe so. On the other hand, Thomas Brett was the best bowler in England apart from the great Lumpy Stevens. So why was it Thomas Brett who wrote this historic document and not his captain or the club’s senior batsman, who both merely signed it; or indeed some senior and preferably noble official within the Hambledon Club’s hierarchy?

 

Mr Goulstone has missed a few points here and the most crucial one is the doctrine of Sir Neville Cardus that the game and its players have always reflected their times. This was the anything goes world of Georgian England, not the stuffy protocol one of Victorian England. Aristocrats in those days were notorious for enjoying themselves while having some other fellow deal with any issues that might arise. The classic case is Lord’s. Why is it called Lord’s and not Winchilsea’s or Lennox’s? Because when the “jolly good chaps” decided they wanted their own private venue, they didn’t want to soil their hands with the necessaries. No, they got one of their bowlers, Thomas Lord, “an enterprising fellow, don’t y’know?”, to do the work for them.

 

When the Hambledon players came back from Chertsey shouting the odds about White and took their objections to the Duke of Dorset or whoever, is it not reasonable to assume that Dorset told them to: “Put it in writing and get one of your fellows to make this damned gauge thing that you’re wanting.”? The club members yawned but agreed that Brett had a point and so Dorset added: “Yaas, one shall have it in the Laws when one gets around to having one’s scribe write them up. I say, dashed beastly business, don’t y’know?”.

 

As for why Brett had the point and not, as Goulstone insists, one of the more senior (i.e., older) players. Although Tom Brett was still only 24, he was unquestionably the club’s main and therefore senior bowler. This was not Victorian England and Brett did not not need to know his place if he was demonstrably the best bowler around. No doubt he had the ball in his hand when White walked in and so he was the one who furiously objected to the umpire and then summoned his captain for support. In short, he raised the issue and the club, both members and players, told him to see it resolved. So he wrote the Brett Declaration (and he did write it: compare his signature with the words of the declaration) when he returned to Hambledon a couple of days later. Nyren signed it first as he was the club captain. Then Brett signed it himself. Why did Small sign it too? Because Nyren was Hambledon’s #2 bowler and so at this point it looks like bowlers whingeing because a batsman has got the better of them. Having Small sign it confirms the approval of other batsmen (and Small was no mere “other batsman”); more importantly, Small’s signature showed that if the world’s greatest batsman would happily use a bat that was subject to a prescribed limit, then everyone else should use it too. Small’s support was absolutely vital to having the rule accepted.

 

The Motive
But why did White do it? There are three possible reasons and again we must remember Sir Neville’s doctrine when we think about what could and did happen in Georgian times.

 

First, he did it for a prank because he knew the Laws of Cricket written in 1744 said nothing about the width of the bat; just as they also said nothing about the bowler’s arm action, incidentally. Perhaps there were a few volatile characters on the Hambledon team and White thought he would “wind them up”. If that was his intention, he seems to have succeeded because it looks as if some of the Hambledon people went ballistic!

 

Second, and given the times I seriously doubt this, he was deliberately cheating. Not legally cheating as the Laws were silent on the issue, but morally cheating in terms of acting against the spirit of the game. The action in itself seems too outrageous to have been done with any serious intent unless there was a third motive.

 

Third, and this is the one that seems to have escaped all previous writers on the subject. Thomas White realised that there was a loophole in the law and it may well have been a sore point for many years that players were using different-sized bats. It may have become an issue that no one would assert themselves to address: remember the notorious torpor of Georgian aristocrats. So White forced the issue. He knew that people who are angry will resolve to take action. White selected his target with reason as he knew the Hambledon Club was the one with the clout to enforce a change in the Laws.

 

The New Bats
In 1771, the straight bat was still new. Until the 1760s, batsmen still used a club shaped like a modern hockey stick because that shape was most suitable for playing a delivery trundled (i.e., rolled) along the ground. It is believed that pitching the ball began in the 1760s and it is quite possible that the proponent, and certainly the great exponent, of this radical development was none other than Edward “Lumpy” Stevens, the master bowler of the age. He is known to have studied the flight of the cricket ball and to have worked out the variations of pace, line, length and spin that a bowler could employ depending on the ground and atmospheric conditions. The hockey stick was ineffective against Lumpy’s new and startling repertoire so a new type of bat was introduced. It is possible that the straight bat was invented by John Small senior, who certainly manufactured them in years to come. Even if he did not invent them, he was the first to truly master their use.

 

But whereas a hockey stick shape has practical limitations that would constrain the creation of one of monster proportions, a straight bat does not have such constraints and it is entirely feasible that a straight piece of wood might as easily be 12 inches wide as 4¼ inches wide. In 1744, when the existing Laws were written, the bat was always a hockey stick. The issue could not arise until the bat changed shape, never mind width.

 

The fact is that an official limit on the bat’s width would have come sooner or later. Whatever “Daddy” White’s motive was (windup, cheating, forcing the issue) he did force the issue and the new limit was already in place, via the Hambledon Club's iron frame, before the Laws were rewritten in 1774.

 

Sources
It seems that every cricket history book ever written contains some reference to this controversy. Only a few like PWT seem to realise the difference between Thomas "Daddy" White and "Shock" White. Few go into any real detail about the whys and wherefores of the big bat incident and I don't think anyone has considered the connection with the advent of the straight bat only a few years previously; neither has anyone else considered that White may have been forcing an issue rather than cheating or joking. The sources I have referred to are:
A Social History of English Cricket by Derek Birley; Cricket: History of its Growth and Development by Rowland Bowen; Cricket Scores 1730 – 1773 by H T Waghorn (WCS); Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket by G B Buckley (FL18); From the Weald to the World by Peter Wynne-Thomas (PWT); Hambledon: Men and Myths by John Goulstone (HMM); John Nyren's ''The Cricketers of my Time'' by Ashley Mote (CMT); Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 by Arthur Haygarth (SB40); Start of Play by David Underdown; The Glory Days of Cricket by Ashley Mote (GDC); The Hambledon Cricket Chronicle by FS Ashley-Cooper (HCC)

 

(Article: Copyright © 2005 ACS)