Anthony Wilkinson and his "birth county"

by Michael Pulford

Durham-born Anthony John Anstruther Wilkinson is listed as one of twenty-one nineteenth century cricketers who played for Yorkshire CCC despite not being born in the county. An obdurate opening right-handed batsman with a strong defence and an effective slow right-arm roundarm bowler, he was the third cricketer, and first amateur, to appear for Yorkshire who was not eligible to play for the club by birth. 

Anthony’s career coincided with the commencement of the official county game and the first of his five appearances for Yorkshire came in 1865, two years after the club was formed, when he also became one of the earliest cricketers to play for two county cricket clubs, having already represented Middlesex CCC in their first season, 1864, and the first for Yorkshire and another county. He played 19 times for Middlesex and in addition to that made a further 18 first-class appearances with the MCC and 7 for the Gentlemen of England. In a remarkably varied career, Anthony is also recorded as representing as many as five county Gentlemen sides, Surrey, Middlesex, Yorkshire, Northumberland and Lincolnshire, plus a number of club teams whilst, later in his life, he helped found Durham CCC. 

An amateur and an enthusiast, Anthony nevertheless took his cricket seriously, and, as indicated in a story told by C.I. Thornton to “Old Ebor” and published in the latter’s book Talks with Old English Cricketers, he also had a strong personality and an impish sense of humour. Thornton related,

A.J. Wilkinson, the old Middlesex cricketer, used to be very amusing in the field. On one occasion at Oxford an umpire gave him out leg-before-wicket, not fairly as he thought. At the end of play he went up and asked the umpire his name and address. The man very affably gave it, thinking perhaps he was going to be put down for a Christmas-box. When he heard the voice of A.J.W telling him he would take care he never umpired again in any match he took part in…

Anthony’s son, Cyril, was an outstanding sportsman, who excelled at cricket and also hockey. In cricket, Cyril led Surrey to the 1914 County Championship, whilst at hockey he captained England and won an Olympic Gold Medal at Antwerp in 1920 as part of the victorious Great Britain side. Anthony was late to fatherhood and died in 1905 aged seventy so, unfortunately, was not witness to his son’s achievements.

Such a synopsis was more than sufficient to warrant further research about Anthony and my interest was heightened when, using the Ancestry website, it transpired that he did not appear to have a residential qualification for Yorkshire CCC either, birth and residence being the two criteria which Yorkshire initially followed, it being the rule of the time, before pursuing their county-born only policy under Lord Hawke (which itself had exceptions). Anthony’s education also failed to provide him with any known Yorkshire connection as he attended Shrewsbury School before going on to Cambridge University and Lincoln’s Inn, London. 

After graduating from Cambridge—surprisingly, considering his aptitude for the game, he was never selected for the University—and being Called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, Anthony remained for some years in the capital, working there as an ‘Equity Draughtsman and Conveyancer’, before returning to his native North-East in his mid-thirties, when he was described as ‘on the N.E. Circuit and Durham Sessions’ and ‘conveyancing counsel’. Seemingly organising an excellent ‘work-life balance’, he obviously managed to fully indulge his great interest in cricket whilst pursuing his profession. 

Looking Anthony up on the British Newspaper Archive, I was then intrigued to find correspondence in The York Herald, from 1865, which questioned Anthony’s eligibility to play for county sides from both Middlesex and Yorkshire earlier that season, prompting a lengthy reply from him in the same journal in which he stated that Yorkshire was his ‘birth county’, despite all the evidence available in census returns showing that he was born in County Durham! Curious. 

Anthony must have become known to the Yorkshire CCC through two appearances with the Yorkshire Gentlemen CC. His first, at Wigginton Road, York, in September 1864, against the Gentlemen of Lancashire, was the final game in the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s first official season. Anthony was second highest scorer in the first innings, making 18 out of a total of 83, and took three wickets in the visitor’s second innings. 

An invitation to play for the Yorkshire Gentlemen themselves could well have arisen through cricketing and family connections. According to CricketArchive, one of the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s members, Charles Prest, who played in the ‘Roses’ fixture, made appearances in club cricket in London during 1863 including two known matches against Anthony. Anthony’s eldest brother was resident in Yorkshire during this decade, within twenty miles of York, and I wonder if Anthony, always keen to partake in the game, made Prest aware of this information, sensing an opportunity both to visit family and to play cricket. Anthony then experienced outstanding and also unprecedented success at the start of the following season, 1865, when, turning thirty, he produced a string of notable performances for a variety of sides, including the Surrey Club, the Gentlemen of Middlesex, the Gentlemen of Yorkshire (for whom he made 94 and took 9 wickets against the MCC at Lord’s) and Middlesex CCC (having match figures of 8 for 69 against Hampshire at Islington). His presence for a second time in the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s side, at Lord’s, was no doubt assisted by the convenience of his residence in London whilst his innings of 94, was his highest ever known score. He was given out leg before wicket, and we must wonder what he made of that decision! 

Such form will have brought Anthony to the minds of the Yorkshire CCC authorities in June, when they faced major problems filling places in the team due to meet Surrey at Bramall Lane. The difficulties had arisen because of the refusal of five of their leading players to appear, this following a dispute between those cricketers and the southern county. Had Yorkshire’s selection issues not occurred, then Anthony might never have made appearances for them. He was invited and, despite having to travel to Sheffield, accepted. A second amateur, Charles Appleton from the East Riding, also made his debut in this match, and, as he was forty-one years old, it suggests that desperate efforts were made to ensure Yorkshire could fulfil the engagement. Indeed, a report in The York Herald remarked,

In consequence of five of the professionals who have hitherto represented Yorkshire refusing to play against Surrey it appeared for some time doubtful whether the match would come off at all. The Sheffield committee, however, resolved to play with the best team they could get together. 

By Sheffield committee, the reporter may have meant the Yorkshire committee, for the county club was formed in Sheffield and dominated by Sheffielders, though it could also have been a reference to the Bramall Lane ground authorities who will not have wanted to lose the income from what was described in an advertisement as the first great match of the season. The strong connection between Yorkshire and Sheffield at this time was such that Michael Ellison, the Yorkshire CCC President and the leading mover behind the formation of the club, was also the Land Agent for the Duke of Norfolk who owned Bramall Lane, whilst J.B. Wostinholm was the secretary for both the Yorkshire and Bramall Lane ground committees. We do not know if anyone representing either Yorkshire or Bramall Lane ever enquired about Anthony’s eligibility to play for Yorkshire CCC or if he volunteered any such information. It may have been that they assumed he was either born or lived in the county, as he had appeared for the Yorkshire Gentlemen, or perhaps the urgency of filling the five places was so great that they did not ask. Of course, there is always the possibility that the Yorkshire/ Sheffield authorities knew Anthony was not eligible but, as he was a ‘gentleman’ and an amateur, they ‘overlooked’ the matter and afforded him a privilege that might not have been granted to a professional. 

Whatever the circumstances, Anthony opened the batting and made an excellent impression by scoring 30 in his first innings, whilst the other first five batsmen failed to make double figures. The score was 21 for 5 when Luke Greenwood joined Anthony and, together, they added 39. A report in The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent stated,

His style, at once graceful and vigorous, was much admired, and when he at last gave way...he was loudly applauded. The journalist also had some knowledge of Anthony’s cricket for he added the detail that, his fine innings at Lord’s (Yorkshire Gentlemen against Marylebone Club and Ground) is fresh in the memory of cricketers.

Anthony bowled 17 overs in Surrey’s reply, but without success, and then scored 10 in Yorkshire’s second innings whilst his fielding was complimented in a report in The Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Naturally, given the loss of five key players, Yorkshire struggled against a strong Surrey eleven, and they lost the match by 10 wickets. Anthony’s noteworthy performances also gained him selection for the Gentlemen versus the Players in July and he performed creditably in this most prestigious fixture, taking two wickets and compiling an innings of 21. Then, a fortnight after his appearance for the Gentlemen, Anthony bowled a youthful WG Grace on the latter’s 17th birthday, when playing for the Gentlemen of Middlesex against the Gentlemen of England at Islington, and, maintaining his excellent form, made an unbeaten 84, going in first and carrying his bat through the innings. Anthony also caught WG out second time round. 

It was shortly after Anthony’s appearances for all the four ‘county’ sides of Middlesex and Yorkshire in 1865 (both official county clubs and Gentlemen’s X1s), that Anthony’s eligibilty to play for teams from two different counties was questioned in a letter to The York Herald. It was written anonymously by a cricket supporter from Islington, Middlesex, who called himself ‘Fairplay’, and was published on 15 July. ‘Fairplay’, wrongly believing Anthony was a native of Middlesex, asked how Anthony could play for the Gentlemen of Yorkshire, Yorkshire and Middlesex, describing it as ‘a little anomaly.’ (The correspondent must have chosen The York Herald as the recipient of his enquiry because the Yorkshire Gentlemen were based in that city.) His letter is worth quoting in full:

Gentlemen—would you kindly allow me to use your valuable journal as a medium through which I may have explained to me (as well as to many others who may have remarked it), a little anomaly which is shown by the Yorkshire Gentleman’s Cricket Club in choosing their county elevens. A short time ago I witnessed at Lord’s Ground a match between eleven gentlemen of Yorkshire v. eleven gentlemen of the M.C.C., which, as stated in the papers was won by Yorkshire. Now, this match was won, or nearly so, by one gentleman (A.J. Wilkinson Esq.), with his score of 98 [sic] and his destructive bowling. This gentleman is a native of Middlesex, for which county he recently played at the county ground, Islington; also, I believe with Yorkshire against Surrey at Sheffield; and, to crown all is now going to play with Middlesex v. The Gentlemen of England, on the 17th inst. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, FAIRPLAY. Islington, July 10th, 1865.

‘Fairplay’ made particular mention of Anthony’s appearance for the Yorkshire Gentlemen CC when querying his eligibility for two counties, partly because he was at their match, but also because in those early days of county elevens, such Gentlemen sides saw themselves as county representatives; there were references to them being a ‘Gentlemen’s County Cricket Club’ at initial meetings in 1863. However, by the time the Yorkshire Gentlemen first took to the field in 1864, they seem to have regarded themselves as a cricket club for the county’s gentlemen, rather than a county cricket club, and were therefore unlikely to have been subject to any ruling about birth or residence. (A report in the Yorkshire Gazette from October 1863, on a meeting in York which furthered the idea of forming a gentleman’s cricket club for Yorkshire, commented simply that an aim was that it should be ‘open to the whole county.’) 

Anthony’s claim that Yorkshire was his ‘birth county’ was made in the reply he wrote to the same newspaper, published on 5 August, which is contrary to the all the evidence available from census returns and other sources, his birthplace being consistently recorded as being in County Durham and, most specifically at Mount Oswald, a mansion situated just south of Durham town and about twenty miles ‘as the crow flies’ from the River Tees, the traditional boundary with the North Riding of Yorkshire. 

Wilkinson’s response is both very interesting, as it highlighted the county qualification rule of the time, and also, of course, extremely surprising. It read: 

Gentlemen,—My attention has been brought to a letter in ‘The York Herald’ of July 15th, signed ‘Fairplay’, and referring to myself. ‘Fairplay’ asks for an explanation of my playing first for the Yorkshire Gentlemen against the Marylebone Club, and afterwards for the county of Middlesex. I must confess I cannot see where the difficulty is; the thing is of everyday occurrence; and the rule which regulates such play is, whether satisfactory or not, simple enough. Every man who does not reside in the county of his birth has a right to play for two counties, namely that of his birth and that of his residence. Birth counts first, so that a man plays for his birth county against his residence county. Now wherein have I offended? If Yorkshire had played Middlesex, and I had played for Middlesex, I should have done wrong, the former being my birth county and the latter that of residence. But no such collusion has taken place and I have merely played, whenever I have been able, sometimes for Yorkshire and sometimes for Middlesex, against other counties and clubs with which I am in no way connected. It is true that the rule as it now stands has been a good deal criticised recently, some leading cricketers being opposed to it, but at present it is the rule. Hoping that this explanation will be satisfactory to ‘Fairplay’, I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, A.J. Wilkinson, 8 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, London, July 31 1865. 

So Anthony replied specifically to the query about his appearance for the Yorkshire Gentlemen CC, rather than the Yorkshire CCC, but, in doing so, stated that Yorkshire was his ‘birth county’. Birth certificates were not issued until 1837, two years after Anthony was born, on 28 May 1835, but an announcement in The Durham Advertiser of 5 June 1835, under the heading ‘Births’, read,

At Mount Oswald, near this city, on the 28th ult., the Lady of the Rev. Percival S. Wilkinson, of a son,

whilst it is also recorded on Durham Records Online that Anthony John Anstruther Wilkinson was baptised on 7 July at St. Oswald Anglican Church, Durham City. Anthony appears on five census returns, 1841, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901, and on each occasion it is stated that he was born in County Durham, three of the years naming the place as Mt. Oswald. All other references to him also name County Durham as his birthplace. Anthony John Anstruther Wilkinson was born in County Durham. 

Anthony did have two family connections with Yorkshire. His father, Percival Spearman Wilkinson, who was a native of County Durham, had served as a curate at St. Helen’s Church, Ainderby Steeple near Northallerton in the North Riding for a few years from 1818. Anthony’s mother, Sophia (nee Anstruther), who hailed from London, gave birth to the first two of their twelve surviving children at Ainderby Steeple, in 1818 and 1819, but the couple had long returned to Durham by the time Anthony, their ninth surviving child, was born in 1835. (Sophia died in 1842, when Anthony was six, after giving birth for the sixteenth time). 

Anthony’s other link with Yorkshire was, as said, through his eldest brother, also called Percival, who had been born at Ainderby Steeple, and returned to live in the county with his own family during the 1860s, at Aldborough Hall near Boroughbridge and Goldsborough Hall near Knaresborough, becoming a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding, and whom Anthony doubtless visited, and possibly stayed with, whilst playing for the Yorkshire Gentlemen. 

I can only speculate why Anthony referred to Yorkshire as his ‘birth county.’ There are two possible explanations. He was either fabricating his birthplace for convenience or, he might have meant that Yorkshire was the nearest county cricket club to his birth, as Durham CCC was not founded until 1882. 

It should be noted here that there were significant playing connections between the leading cricketers of Durham and Yorkshire around this time, with combined unofficial elevens actually being raised for two special matches, and two other Durham-born cricketers representing Yorkshire CCC in the club’s first season. 

A team titled ‘Yorkshire and Durham’ met a Nottinghamshire XI in 1858, while a ‘Yorkshire with Stockton-on Tees’ side played Cambridgeshire in 1861, both fixtures being staged at Stockton, just on the Durham side of the Tees. The two players referred to were Tom Darnton and William Smith, who hailed from Stockton and Darlington respectively, though both were professionals with Middlesbrough CC, which may have brought them under Yorkshire’s scrutiny and within their jurisdiction, through residence. (More research on their circumstances is needed!) Darnton incidentally opened the batting with Anthony against Surrey at Bramall Lane, perhaps the only time in the Nineteenth Century that a Yorkshire opening partnership featured men not born in the county. 

I am left wondering: Had Anthony meant his ‘birth county’ to mean the nearest official county club to his birth, then he would most likely have stated that explicitly and, on balance, it does seem more likely that he used the phrase to erroneously justify a place in Yorkshire county teams. However, as he did not have to make a public reply to the correspondence from ‘Fairplay’, it does just remain possible that Anthony meant the former. County cricket was in its infancy, and only a handful of matches were played by teams in each of these seasons and it was many years before the press appointed specialist reporters to follow their county sides, so, as was to be expected in those circumstances, biographical details about players, especially lesser known ones, were rarely featured and, unsurprisingly, there were no references to Anthony’s background in newspaper reports of the time, save a reference to a performance for the Yorkshire Gentlemen. 

Regardless, Anthony had made a good impression in his first match for Yorkshire and went on to make four further appearances for the county club, between 1865 and 1868, so that his eligibility does not seem to have been subsequently questioned; if it was, it was not considered to be an impediment to him playing. These four fixtures were at Bradford, Trent Bridge (twice) and The Oval, so that it was definitely the Yorkshire committee rather than the Bramall Lane authorities who selected Anthony on those occasions. 

He scored important runs for a second time when his side were in difficulties, also against Surrey, but this time at The Oval, in 1867. Going in at number eight, with Yorkshire 98 for 6, Anthony added 50 with George Freeman and a further 59 with the debutant Tom Emmett, whilst making his top score for Yorkshire, 53. Yorkshire recovered to 265 all out and won by an innings, with Anthony’s effort being the highest of the match. (Yorkshire won all of their seven games that season and could therefore regard themselves as unofficial county champions—there was no recognised system then in place.)

This fixture was sufficiently important to have a number of reporters present. An account in The Sportsman described Anthony’s innings as, ‘a grand knock of fifty-three, including three fours, four threes, and six twos,’ whilst match notes in The Yorkshire Post said, ‘Mr. Wilkinson was at the top with 53, obtained by some real good cricketing.’ According to The Sporting Life, this was ‘unquestionably the best “played” innings of the day,’ adding that

None of the Yorkshiremen on Thursday ‘hit’ the very fast bowling as well as Mr. Wilkinson, whose fine cricket was generally and deservedly applauded.

The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent concluded, ‘It is evident we have an excellent gentleman player in Mr. Wilkinson.’

Further down The Yorkshire Post column, a match report from Lord’s noted that in his following game, for Middlesex against an England X1 at Lord’s, Anthony clean bowled WG Grace and Luke Greenwood, emphasising both his talent and the rapidity of his turnover between teams! (Yorkshire did not often require Anthony to bowl for them because they were able to select such outstanding practitioners as Freeman, Greenwood, Iddison, Hodgson and Emmett, and in his five matches he only sent down 30 overs, without taking a wicket.) Anthony was in another good vein of form and later in the same month he made an unbeaten 75 for the MCC against Surrey, also at The Oval, batting at number 6, but then ran out of partners. The Morning Advertiser described it as ‘a masterly innings … for which he was loudly and deservedly cheered on his return to the Pavilion.’ He was named in the Yorkshire 12 for the Lancashire match at Whalley in late June, but did not take up his place and was in fact in the Middlesex side which met Nottinghamshire at Lord’s on the same dates! 

In his fifth and final appearance for Yorkshire, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in July 1868, Anthony opened the innings with George Freeman, and on this occasion they put on 73, Anthony making 25. A report in The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent had ‘his 25 being put together with much skill and ability,’ whilst Bell’s Life In London reported it as ‘patient and well-played.’ Anthony went on to make 26 further first-class appearances over the following six seasons, for three teams, Middlesex CCC, MCC and the Gentlemen of England. 

His highest first-class score and best bowling figures were both achieved for Middlesex (for whom, of course, he was definitely qualified, by residence) during his outstanding period of form in 1865. He made 59 against Lancashire at Old Trafford, described in The Manchester Courier as ‘a very careful innings,’ this coming just a month after his first appearance for Yorkshire. (Interestingly, the Lancashire team included the Yorkshire captain Roger Iddison, who was presumably eligible for them on the grounds of residency, as he was a club professional at Whalley in that county. Anthony was caught off Iddison’s bowling.) His career-best first-class bowling figures were 5 for 38, achieved in the first innings of the previously mentioned match between Middlesex and Hampshire at Islington in 1865, whilst his match figures of 8 for 69 in that game were also his best, he and Thomas Hearne bowling unchanged throughout both Hampshire innings. 

Anthony returned to his native north-east on a number of occasions whilst working in London and of course, managed, to play cricket! In 1867 he appeared for a Durham University team against Northumberland, taking five wickets in an innings, and also for the latter versus Tynemouth, this time taking seven wickets, then the following year was recorded as playing for Durham City against Middlesbrough. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle was fulsome in its praise when reporting on his appearance for Northumberland, stating that

Mr. Wilkinson is a host in himself and, as an all-round player, one of the best we have ever seen here for some time. His bowling yesterday terribly bothered the Tynemouth gentlemen…. His fielding was no less admirable, and the way he fields his own bowling is an example we would recommend all bowlers to imitate. 

Anthony was recorded as living back at Mount Oswald in the 1871 census, when in his mid-thirties, though he still managed to play for a number of teams around the country that year, the highlight being a century opening stand with WG, for the Gentlemen of England versus Cambridge University at Fenner’s, Anthony making just 19 out of 103. Despite being much the junior partner that day, Anthony may have especially enjoyed the moment because, as said, he was never selected for the University XI in his time there, having to be content playing for his college, St John’s. His obituary in Cricket: A Weekly Record Of The Game suggested he ‘must be accounted one of the best University players who never obtained a “blue.”’

In September Anthony was invited to play for a side called Scarborough Visitors against a Lord Londesborough’s XI (effectively the Yorkshire first team), on the Castle Hill grounds. This fixture is considered to be the forerunner of the Scarborough Festival and, according to the scorecard, Anthony faced the first ball of the match. 

Anthony was reported as abroad in 1872, and his last first-class appearance was in 1874 when, ironically, he played for Middlesex against Yorkshire at Scarborough. In 1873 the MCC passed a rule that a cricketer could only play for one county in a season, either that of his birth or residence, but it is not clear if Anthony still had a residential qualification with Middlesex! Also in 1874, Anthony excelled in a club match, taking 9 wickets in an innings, for the MCC against the Private Banks at Catford Bridge. According to The Morning Post, ‘Mr. Wilkinson’s slows puzzled the Bankers, of whose wickets he took nine, four being caught and bowled.’ As the only other Private Banks wicket to fall was that of the number 10 batsman, Anthony must have been very close to taking all ten wickets! 

Anthony later lived in Durham town itself, at 9 Old Elvet, and he became highly involved in local sport, following rugby union and participating in archery as well as cricket. He played for the town cricket club and chaired the meeting when a Durham county cricket club was formed in 1874, being elected to serve on the first committee, and is recorded as twice playing for them in the following two seasons. However, this organisation cannot have persisted, for the modern day Durham CCC was founded in 1882, Anthony being recorded as a vice-chair of the second club at a meeting in 1889. 

Anthony married in his early forties, in 1877, his wife, Marion (nee Jones) hailing from Northamptonshire, though the wedding was on the Isle of Wight. The couple lived in Durham and Cyril, the eldest of their two children, was born at Elvet Hill in Durham town in 1884, when Anthony was nearly fifty (a second child, Beryl, was born there two years later). 

Nevertheless, Anthony remained keen to be involved in cricket and encouraged younger players, a colts team playing under his name at Durham in 1887, whilst he actually captained a Durham Colts side against Northumberland Colts in 1891 when he was fifty-six years old, scoring 14 as last man in. There is also a reference to him playing for the Durham town cricket club alongside a nephew in the early nineties whilst in 1890 his interest in local rugby prompted him to be involved in helping heal a rift between Durham City RUFC and the Durham County Union, the club at one stage threatening to resign their membership of the county body. 

Despite his strong local ties, Anthony was recorded as living in Cornwall in his sixties, in the 1901 Census, presumably in retirement, but he moved again, to Anerley near London on the Surrey/Kent border, that borough’s administration having recently been transferred from Surrey to Kent. Anthony died at his home, 30 Thicket Road, Anerley in 1905 aged seventy, so his death might be claimed by two counties, unlike his birth which was only recorded as being in County Durham despite the curious correspondence in The York Herald.

Pulford’s essay first appeared in Issue 190 of the Cricket Statistician, the ACS’s flagship journal, which you can purchase here. Better yet, become a member of the ACS—the journal is included free of charge—by clicking here.