District Teams: The Grand Matches of 1802
and 1803: Playing for 500 guineas a match:
Kent dismissed for 5 (or 6) in 1805: The Ledger Entry "Nails for Bexley Cricket Club"

An obvious question for anyone interested in the history of Bexley Cricket Club is "When was the Club founded?". Unfortunately it is not possible to answer this question with any certainty. The Club badge bears the date "1805" but this commemorates a match played in that year against Kent, rather than being the date of the Club's foundation. As the year of the most famous match in the Club's history it deserves its place on the badge, but Bexley men were certainly playing in matches many years before then.
The earliest known cricketing references to Bexley are to players from the parish taking part in teams drawn from a wider area, rather than to a Bexley Club. Thus, in 17461 a Kent team made up entirely of players from Bexley, Bromley and Eltham played Surrey at The Artillery Ground, Finsbury. Another very early match took place in 17742, when a team from Crayford, Bexley, St Mary Cray, Erith, Southfleet and Swanscombe played Strood "on the marsh near The Angel at Strood". Bexley was only a small hamlet in the eighteenth century and it is not surprising that there are apparently no reports of teams drawn solely from the Bexley area.
The first known reports of a team entirely from Bexley are given in Britcher's "A Complete List of All the Grand Matches of Cricket That have been Played in the Year 1802"3. This remarkable little book of only 29 matches gives the detailed scores of two matches played by Eleven Gentlemen of Bexley. The first match, played 'at Bexley', on 30 June 1802, was against Eleven Gentlemen of North Cray.
The scores were

North Cray 44 and 34
Bexley 66 and 13-6
Bexley won by 4 wickets

A few days later, a match was played against Eleven Gentlemen of Swanley, at Swanley, the scores being

Bexley 46 and 43
Swanley 22 and 56
Bexley won by 11 runs

The scores of the individual batsmen in these two matches are reproduced in Appendix I. The Bexley player Ellis seems to have been a demon bowler, clean bowling 18 batsmen in the four innings. (The details of these matches, with some small differences, are also given in the Sporting Magazine and the Courier)
It was the custom around the end of the eighteenth century for Grand Matches to be played for huge sums of money and for betting to take place during the course of the match. Britcher records that these two matches were each played for 500 guineas. This is equivalent to over £30,000 in today's money.

A third match in 1802 played at Chislehurst, also resulted in a win for Bexley.
The scores were

Chislehurst 32 and 98
Bexley 86 and 45-6
Bexley won by 4 wickets

A match took place the following year, 1803, against North Cray. The match report6 describes a Grand Match of cricket at the Hon. Thomas Coventry's new ground at North Cray between Eleven Gentlemen of North Cray and Eleven Gentlemen of Bexley, for 500 guineas.
The scores were

Hon. T.W. Coventry's North Cray XI 135 and 99
R. Leigh's Bexley XI 22 and 30
Coventry's North Cray XI won by 182 runs

There is some uncertainty where Thomas Coventry's new ground was, but as he owned North Cray Place7 with extensive parkland near to St James' Church, North Cray, the match was probably played there. The individual scores are given in Appendix 1.
The most celebrated match in the Club's history, against Kent, took place at Bowman's Lodge, Dartford Heath, in 1805. There are six slightly different accounts of this match8 13 but they all agree that Bexley scored a famous victory, winning by an innings.
In four accounts8 11 Kent are shown as being all out for only 6, the full scores being

Kent 6 and 42
The Bexley Club 62
The Bexley Club winning by an innings and 14 runs.

However, in another account12, Kent are shown as being all out for only 5, the full scores being

Kent 5 and 44
Bexley 62

Bexley winning by an innings and 18 runs
(18 seems to be an arithmetical error for 13 runs)

Another report also gives Bexley winning by an innings and 18.

It seems strange that there should be any doubt about the score when so few runs were made, but such inconsistencies are a regular feature of match reports of those times. It seems that the scorers did not compare their totals during the innings as modern scorers are urged to do, nor did the umpires check at the end of the innings.
The account given by Bentley8 is shown in Appendix 1. It gives the date of the match as 25 August, but this is almost certainly incorrect. This date in 1805 was a Sunday, and cricket would have not been allowed. Britcher shows the match as having been played over two days. Thursday and Friday, 29 and 30 August, which seems more likely. He add that the match was played for 500 guineas.
There are further inconsistencies in the reports. The Sporting Magazine and the Kentish Gazette1 state that Bexley had three given men (ie guest players), whereas the other reports say that there were only two. Lord Frederick Beauclerk and John Hammond. Both were very good players, Hammond being the best wicket keeper and Lord Frederick one of the outstanding all-rounders in the country at the time. The latter boasted that he made 600 guineas a year from cricket. Some years later he became the central figure of the Lords establishment and helped to eradicate the ‘selling’ of matches. He was, incidentally, a great grandson of the amorous liaison between King Charles II and the actress Nell Gwynn. Of the Kent players, Crawte, Ring and Ayling were particularly well known and played in many Grand Matches.
Several detailed points about the score are worth considering. The 'Leg before Wicket' dismissal of Reed is a very early example of this way of being out; Wisden14 states that the earliest recorded lbw was in 1795. (There is a story 'la that the lbw law was introduced because John Ring, the elder brother of George Ring who played in this match for Kent, was in the habit of putting his legs in front of the wickets.)
Also, it may seem strange that in the Bexley innings Reed not only stumped two batsmen but then bowled another. This may give the impression that after keeping wicket he took off his pads and began bowling, but that is not what happened. In those days the players did not wear protective equipment and it was very easy - and very common - for a bowler to keep wicket between bowling his overs. This is borne out in many match reports of the period, where there are examples of players achieving dismissals by stumping and bowling in the same innings. (See Appendix 1, for another example, in the detailed score for 1803, which shows Ray of North Cray stumping and bowling in the same innings).
The remarkably low Kent first innings score became part of the folklore of cricket, and an article15 about cricket curiosities written nearly thirty years afterwards contains the following comment: "The smallest number of runs, I believe, ever gained by an eleven of celebrity was Kent who (on August 25, 1805 against the Bexley Club with Lord F Beauclerk and Hammond) only scored six runs in their first innings".
The report 9, 11, 12, 16, 17 of a return match with Kent in 1805 also survives and is reproduced in detail later, Kent gaining revenge in a close game.
Scores:

Kent 75 and 91
Bexley 46 and 101
Kent won by 19 runs

The match was played near Maidstone and lasted for three days even though the wickets were pitched at 10 o'clock. This may suggest that the match was delayed by rain, but although this may have been so 1t should be noted that many matches at this
time were of three days' duration.
The appearance of 'J Willes' in the Kent team is of interest in that he is almost certainly the John Willes who, in the face of great opposition from the under arm bowlers of the day, bowled round arm in 1807, a style said to have been developed by his sister to avoid her hooped skirt. In a match at Lords some years later he was no-balled for bowling in this way, whereon he threw down the ball. jumped on his horse and rode home, declaring that he would never play the game _again. However. he had the satisfaction of seeing this method of bowling legalised m 1828.
From the detailed score sheets it will be see that the players who represented Bexley in the first match also played in the return; in fact Richard Leigh(Richard Leigh and his father, also Richard, hunted their pack of hounds in Bexley until neighbouring landowners objected violently) and Ellis played in five of the six matches in the period 1802-1805 for which records survive. This continuity implies the existence of a Club, whether formally constituted or not, as does the reference by Bentley, repeated in Lillywhite's respected Scores and Biographies10 to 'The Bexley Club'. The playing of Grand Matches in 1802 implies that cricket was being played seriously in the district before then, for it is inconceivable that matches for as much as 500 guineas would have taken place where no cricket had been played before.
To a modern spectator these matches would have looked rather strange. Players in the Grand Matches would most probably have been wearing coloured silk shirts (generally frilled), knee breeches, silk stockings, buckle shoes and three-cornered hats or Jockey caps. Lord Frederick Beauclerk became well known for wearing white silk stockings, a scarlet sash around his waist and a white beaver hat but it is not known whether he dressed in this fashion as early as 1805. The pitch would have been 22 yards long as now, the ball much as now and the wickets would have consisted of three stumps as in modern cricket but a little smaller. The bats would probably have been straight, although the curved style did not entirely disappear until about 1820; there would have been no 'springs' in the handle. The bowling would have been under arm, probably with only four balls in the over as specified by the Laws of the time, although sometimes six-ball overs were played. No doubt the grounds were very uneven by modern standards and this may explain Kent's low score in the first match. Another possible explanation for the low score is that the match may have been 'sold' for the benefit of dishonest betting, although there is no evidence of that. ·
It should not be assumed that the accommodation for the cricketers and spectators was always primitive. Bowman's Lodge on Dartford Heat was the headquarters of the Society of Royal Kentish Bowmen and luxuriously appointed; sumptuous dinners were held there, with venison, turtle and other delicacies.
It may be wondered how such large sums of money as 500 guineas or more could be available for prize money. These purses were put up as wagers between wealthy sportsmen, any of whom seem to have been compulsive gamblers ready to bet on almost anything. However, on some occasions a large wager would be publicised as a means of attracting a good crowd, without the money actually being at stake. The Grand Matches often attracted crowds of several thousand paying up to one shilling for admission, so that the promoters could make a substantial sum from the match. Refreshments (“a good ordinary”) were provided on the ground or at a nearby inn.
Sometimes dogs chased around the ground to the annoyance of the players, so much so
that some advertisements for forthcoming matches included the dire warning ''Dogs will be shot”.The staking of huge sums in prize money and betting on the result led to many disputes and to cheating. For example, the inclusion in a team of a player whose eligibility to represent the parish or district was open to doubt was sometimes the cause of dissension and occasionally of the match not being played19. To guard against this it was usual for about 15 or 16 players to be nominated by each side when a Grand Match was being arranged, and the team picked from those agreed to be eligible. Thus for the return match with Kent in 1805 Bexley nominated20 Whitehead, Cripps, Searles, Pittman and Honess in addition to the Eleven who actually played; similarly Kent nominated eight others as eligible for selection. To this day the Laws of cricket still state that the captains shall nominate their players before the toss for innings, although it is rarely if ever done in a formal way in club cricket nowadays.
Some further confirmation21 of the early origins of the Bexley Club comes from a non­cricketing source. Some years ago a very old account book of a local firm of builders was found, covering the years 1795-1810. An undated but early entry in this book was 'To nails for Bexley Cricket Club'. The ledger was discovered by Walter Smith, a former Secretary and later President of the Club. Unfortunately it seems to have been lost and probably destroyed about the time of World War II. The building firm was that of the Dann family, who lived at and ran their business from 57/59 High Street. (These houses still stand; they are currently known as Jackson House, the offices of an estate agency.) A Mr Dann, builder, is known to have moved to Bexley in 1770 and there is a 'Dann', probably his son John (b 1778) in the Bexley team of 18023 that played North Cray. The family continued to be prominent in the Club and in local affairs generally for several generations and Walter Smith married into the family early in the twentieth century.
Taken together, the cricketing evidence and the ledger entry suggest that teams of Bexley men were playing regularly by 1800 and possibly well before then. Although this does not make Bexley the oldest club in the area - there were, for example, matches on Bromley Common, Dartford Brent and Sevenoaks Vine much earlier in the eighteenth century - it does show that the Club is one of the oldest in Kent.
As a tailpiece, and to serve as a reference point in time, it should be noted that these early matches were reported in the newspapers alongside rumours of impending invasion by Napoleon's armies. The news of Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805, was, no doubt, received with jubilation by cricketers and non­cricketers alike.