The Cricket Society

The Cricket Society is a charitable organisation founded in 1945 as the Society of Cricket Statisticians at Great Scotland Yard, London. It has grown steadily to be the largest body of its kind in the cricket world. The Cricket Society now has over 1,500 members in the United Kingdom and the cricket playing countries of the world. Its current President is John Barclay.

Activities

The Wetherall Awards began in 1967 and presently several Awards are presented at the Society's Autumn Lunch, among them:-

Most promising male cricketer
Most promising female cricketer
The Ian Jackson Award for Services to Cricket
The Sir Jack Hobbs Silver Jubilee Memorial Prize
The Charlotte Edwards Award
The Don Rowan Trophy
The Perry Lewis/Kershaw Memorial Trophy

The Cricket Society instigated an Annual Book of the Year Award in 1970 that now, in association with the MCC, hosts an Awards Evening in the Long Room at Lord's each spring.^[1]

In 2020 the Society instituted the Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship, which is given to an individual or institution that has contributed a significant body of work to the history of the game. Recent winners include Ramachandra Guha in 2022 and Clem Seecharan in 2023.

Throughout the calendar year, The Society holds monthly meetings, featuring famous names from cricket, for members and guests at diverse locations in Central London, usually the Union Jack Club or the Civil Service Club.

Through its Charitable Trust, it raises money to coach underprivileged children in the skills of cricket. They link up with various organisations such as the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation to achieve these aims.

The Society has a cricket team which plays at a number of venues each season. It also holds meetings for the members in London (as detailed above), Bath, Birmingham and Durham at which invited speakers address the audience. These activities are held to maintain an interest in cricket and both inform and entertain its members and guests through the off-season.

The Cricket Society publishes a journal, bi-annually and a regular news bulletin, 6 times per year, for its subscribed membership.

The Society commissioned E.W. Padwick to compile a comprehensive bibliography of cricket literature under the title A Bibliography of Cricket. The first edition, published in 1977 by the Library Association had 8,294 entries.^[2] A revised edition, published in 1984, extended this to over 10,000 entries (ISBN 978-0853659020). A second volume, published in 1991 as Padwick's Bibliography of Cricket, Volume 2, was compiled by Stephen Eley and Peter Griffiths and covers works published between 1980 and 1990 (ISBN 978-0853655282).

The Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year

The Cricket Society began naming a book of the year in 1970. Since 2009 the award has been made in partnership with MCC.^[3] It carries a prize of £3000, which is presented at an awards evening each spring in the Long Room at Lord's.^[4]

1970: "My Dear Victorious Stod": A Biography of A. E. Stoddart by David Frith
1971: Nottinghamshire Cricketers 1821–1914 by Peter Wynne-Thomas
1972: Thanks to Cricket by J. M. Kilburn
1973: Sort of a Cricket Person by E. W. Swanton
1974: The Story of Warwickshire Cricket 1882–1972 by Leslie Duckworth
1975: Learie Constantine by Gerald Howat
1976: On Top Down Under: Australia's Cricket Captains by Ray Robinson
1977: Spinner's Yarn by Ian Peebles
1978: Sir Donald Bradman: A Biography by Irving Rosenwater
1979: The Best Loved Game by Geoffrey Moorhouse
1980: Barclay's World of Cricket by E. W. Swanton and John Woodcock
1981: P. G. H. Fender: A Biography by Richard Streeton
1982: Phoenix from the Ashes by Mike Brearley
1983: Australian Cricket: The Game and the Players by Jack Pollard
1984: C.B.: The Life of Charles Burgess Fry by Clive Ellis
1985: The Art of Captaincy by Mike Brearley
1986: Hedley Verity: A Portrait of a Cricketer by Alan Hill
1987: Pageant of Cricket by David Frith
1988: The Players: A Social History of the Professional Cricketer by Ric Sissons
1989: A La Recherche du Cricket Perdu by Simon Barnes
1990: History of Indian Cricket by Mihir Bose
1991: Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro by Alan Hill
1992: England Expects: A Biography of Ken Barrington by Mark Peel
1993: Beyond Bat & Ball by David Foot
1994: Arlott: The Authorised Biography by David Rayvern Allen
1995: David Gower: A Man Out of Time by Rob Steen
1996: Bradman: An Australian Hero by Charles Williams
1997: The Glory Days of Cricket: The Extraordinary Story of Broadhalfpenny Down by Ashley Mote
1998: The Chronicle of W. G. by J. R. Webber; W. G. Grace: A Life by Simon Rae (shared)
1999: The Social History of English Cricket by Derek Birley
2000: Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson by Gideon Haigh
2001: At the Heart of English Cricket: The Life and Memories of Geoffrey Howard by Stephen Chalke
2002: A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport by Ramachandra Guha
2003: The Ross Gregory Story by David Frith
2004: Jim: The Life of E. W. Swanton by David Rayvern Allen
2005: Red Shirts and Roses by Eric Midwinter
2006: Cricket's Burning Passion: Ivo Bligh and the Story of the Ashes by Scyld Berry and Rupert Peploe
2007: George Lohmann: Pioneer Professional by Keith Booth
2008: No award with this date. Before 2008 the award was for books published in the year of the award; after 2008 the award was for books published the previous year.
2009: Life Beyond the Airing Cupboard by John Barclay
2010: Of Didcot and the Demon: The Cricketing Times of Alan Gibson by Anthony Gibson
2011: Slipless in Settle by Harry Pearson
2012: Fred Trueman: The Authorised Biography by Chris Waters
2013: On Warne by Gideon Haigh
2014: The Great Tamasha: Cricket, Corruption and the Turbulent Rise of Modern India by James Astill
2015: Field of Shadows: The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany 1937 by Dan Waddell
2016: Fire in Babylon by Simon Lister
2017: A Beautiful Game: My Love Affair with Cricket by Mark Nicholas
2018: Connie: The Marvellous Life of Learie Constantine by Harry Pearson
2019: Steve Smith's Men: Behind Australian Cricket's Fall by Geoff Lemon
2020: The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus by Duncan Hamilton; The Final Innings: The Cricketers of Summer 1939 by Christopher Sandford (shared)
2021: The Unforgiven by Ashley Gray
2022: Who Only Cricket Know: Hutton's Men in the West Indies 1953/54 by David Woodhouse
2023: An Island's Eleven: The Story of Sri Lankan Cricket by Nicholas Brookes
2024: The Tour: The Story of the England Cricket Team Overseas 1877-2022 by Simon Wilde

Current officers

President: John Barclay
Vice-President: Chris Lowe
Vice-President: Charlotte Edwards
Vice-President: Vic Marks
Vice-President: Sir Tim Rice

Executive Committee

Chair: Peter Hardy
Vice Chair: Raf Nicholson
Secretary: Geoffrey Levett
Treasurer: Phil Reeves
Membership Secretary: Matthew Stevenson
Derek Barnard
Nigel Hancock
Barry Kitcherside
Nick Tudball
Annie Chave

Presidents since 1945

1• 1945-1946 F. A. Mackinnon, The Mackinnon of Mackinnon
2• 1947-1959 Hubert Preston
3• 1960-1961 H. S. Altham
4• 1961-1962 Lord Birkett
5• 1963-1968 A. A. Thomson
6• 1969-1973 Lt-Gen Sir Oliver Leese
7• 1974-1975 A. M. Crawley
8• 1976-1983 E. W. Swanton
9• 1983-1998 G. H. G. Doggart
10• 1998-2008 C. D. A. Martin-Jenkins
11• 2008-onwards J. R. T. Barclay

Chairs since 1945

1• 1945-1946 A. Weigall
2• 1946-1947 Capt. J. A. Bayliss
3• 1947-1953 G. A. Copinger
4• 1953-1960 A. R. Whitaker
5• 1960-1965 Dr R. W. Cockshut
6• 1965-1966 L. E. S. Gutteridge
7• 1966-1983 C. C. W. Box-Grainger
8• 1983-1992 R. N. Haygarth
9• 1992-2003 D. Allsop
10• 2003-2008 W. R. Allen
11• 2008 I. R. Jackson
12• 2008-2012 D. E. Barnard
13• 2012-2021 N. Hancock [1]
14. 2023 - to date P. M. Hardy

References

^ "The Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year". The Cricket Society. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
^ Barclay's World of Cricket - 2nd Edition, 1980, Collins Publishers, ISBN 0-00-216349-7, p588
^ "The Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year". The Cricket Society. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
^ "Book of the Year shortlist announced". MCC. Retrieved 9 July 2018.