Notttinghamshire Schism 1881

 

All images are now archived again in Harry's vault!

Nottinghamshire Schism 1881

10/ Stroud Journal 18 June 1881

9b/ Nottingham Evening Post 14 June 1881

9a/  Sporting Gazette 4 June 1881

8/ Nottingham Guardian 3 June 1881

7/ How did things get to this point? 

A 19th century Twitter rage in the Nottingham Evening Post 3 June 1881

Henry Holden would have appeared to have been a better communicator than anyone at the club in 2023.

6/ "War is declared" A Warning from the Past?

The two chief protagonists were Alfred Shaw and Captain Holden (as we will discover). 

Standing back from Grundy's class struggle, my view is that the Committee's stance during this rift was valid, but handled very poorly by Captain Holden [info on this notoriously difficult character]. There are echoes of a similar power struggle now, where professionals are drawn to the fast buck of soulless franchised T20 cricket, but where little credit is allowed for the institutions that raise the players, that they (franchises) exploit. Hopefully counties are more united on the approach to this.

The committee of 1881, rightly in my view, had one eye to the next generation of Nottinghamshire cricketers as well as wanting to dominate the county standings by September (before there was a Championship). Again we saw a reflection of that same conflict of priorities in Peter Moores' team selections in seasons 2018-2019, but at least then the coach was picking the team, whereas in 1881, the players thought that they could.

Nottingham Evening Post 1 June 1881

We will discover tomorrow that this had been brewing long before June... 

5/As promised some summaries of events in 1881.  Firstly from cricinfo, published more than a decade ago

Nottinghamshire's general strike

When Nottinghamshire were crippled by a mass walkout

Martin Williamson

Although pay disputes these days are not uncommon, strikes by players are rare. That was not always the case, and in the final third of the 19th century such disagreements were fairly widespread.


The main cause of complaint usually stemmed from the disparity between amateur and professional. In theory, the professionals were paid a wage while the amateurs, the so-called gentlemen, played for fun and expenses. Additionally, the gentlemen were treated with far more respect, afforded separate changing and dining facilities.


In reality, the lines of demarcation were far more blurred. The expenses claimed by a few amateurs was far in excess of the match fees paid to the professionals, and the ultimate shamateurs were probably the Grace family. WG, though treated with the respect of an amateur, to all intents earned his living from cricket, and his income from the game was massive.

Disgruntlement sometimes spilled over, and one of the most public falling-outs came at Nottinghamshire, at the time the strongest county in the country, in 1881.

The seeds of unrest were sewed the previous summer when the Australians toured. While nominally regarded as gentlemen, all the Australians made considerable money from the tour, usually demanding and getting a share of the gate which they then split. Alfred Shaw, the leading Nottinghamshire bowler, saw the business opportunity, and arranged a game at Bradford between the tourists and an XI raised by him at the end of the trip - in those days tours were privately organised and not administered by cricket boards.

By all accounts, Shaw cleaned up, and that match was immediately followed by a hastily-arranged fixture against Nottinghamshire. Shaw told Captain Holden, the county secretary, that he and six others would only play at Trent Bridge for a minimum of £20 each. Holden reluctantly agreed, but privately fumed.

That autumn, Shaw hatched another money-making plan, arranging an early-season game between Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. Holden found out and told him that he did not have the authority to do so, and at the same time wrote to all the county's professionals asking them to agree to a binding contract under which they would be available for all official Nottinghamshire matches.

Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury and five others - William Barnes, Wilfred Flowers, Fred Morley, William Scotton and John Selby - refused to sign, and countered with their own three-point proposal. They asked that, firstly, the unofficial Yorkshire match be allowed to proceed, secondly that every player should be guaranteed a benefit after ten years' service (it was common practice but very much at the behest of the county committee) and thirdly that all seven be engaged for all matches in the 1881 season. The Yorkshire match was incidental - at the heart of their claim was greater security of employment.

The county were in a difficult position, and faced with demands which threatened the semi-feudal structure of county cricket. "It involved a distinct and material alteration in the relations between paid cricketers and their employers which vitally affected the interests of every club of any importance," wrote James Lillywhite in his famous Annual.

The rebels played in the first game of the season, against Sussex at the end of May, but within days the committee rejected the first two demands, and in a divide-and-conquer approach, said that they would offer five of the rebels a place in the XI (the exceptions being Flowers and Scotton). Such was the distrust between the rebels and Holden that they refused to agree to any talks if he attended, while the county insisted that their secretary be there.

Stalemate ensued, and for much of the summer Nottinghamshire fielded a virtual second XI. In early July, the unofficial match against Yorkshire took place and was reportedly another financial success for Shaw.

The conclusion of that game removed one of the three conditions, and Holden then asked the MCC to intervene, which they did to good effect and the rebels agreed to return, ironically for the game against Yorkshire. But once again Holden re-ignited the dispute by leaving out Shrewsbury and Flowers, and the seven withdrew their labour.

Another month passed, and Holden changed tactics, approaching Flowers, perceived as the rebel with the least resolve. Flowers agreed to return, and in his first match back, against Gloucestershire at the beginning of August, took 8 for 23 (and 12 in the game) as Nottinghamshire won by 10 wickets. Selby and Barnes returned for the next game a week later, and they were immediately followed by Scotton and Morley. But it was too late for Nottinghamshire's Championship aspirations.

The two protagonists, Shaw and Shrewsbury, remained on the outside for the remainder of the summer, but used their time to organise a lucrative eight-month tour of Australia, New Zealand and America the following winter, from which they each earned £1500.

On their return to England, in mid May 1882, the pair wrote to the Nottinghamshire committee to apologise for their actions, and both were welcomed back into the side. It was in their mutual interests to bury the hatchet. It wasn't nearly the last such dispute, but it was one of the most drawn out.

Secondly, a piece available online in at least places by a left-leaning Jim Grundy

The 1881 Nottinghamshire Schism: ‘Trades Unionism in Cricket’


Jim Grundy

On 2nd June 1881 the Nottinghamshire cricket team that walked out at Old Trafford was missing several regular players, including the leading bowler Alfred Shaw, who sent down the first delivery in Test Match cricket, and leading batsman, Arthur Shrewsbury. The new-look Nottinghamshire did not fare well, losing the match by 10 wickets and, eventually, their status as county champions to Lancashire. But why would Nottinghamshire field such a weakened side? Seven professionals had gone on strike in what became known as the ‘Nottinghamshire Schism’, a story practically unknown today.

The roots of the dispute ran deep and centred on the differential treatment accorded to those who earned their living through the game – the players – and the so-called gentlemen ‘amateurs’. Gentlemen and players entered cricket grounds by separate gates, dressed in different rooms, ate apart and their respective status was even on display on the scorecard, with only the amateurs being referred to as ‘Mr.’

As might be expected, professional cricketers’ contracts were long on players’ duties to the counties but light on their responsibilities to the players. Between appearances for their sides, men like Shaw and Shrewsbury arranged exhibition matches to earn extra income. One such game took place in September 1880 when they organised a ‘North of England XI’ to play the touring Australians at Bradford. Nottinghamshire sought to cash in and a match at Trent Bridge was hastily arranged shortly afterwards. However, when Shaw was told that each Nottinghamshire professional was to be paid £6, whilst the ‘amateur’ Australians would pocket at least £19, he made his feelings known to the county secretary, Captain Henry Holden. Holden, ‘Hellfire Jack’, the local Chief Constable in his spare time, was already committed to putting on the game and had no choice but to up the offer to £20. But Holden could not and did not leave it at that. He made a point of giving £21 to those who were not part of Shaw and Shrewsbury’s radical group, sending a letter to the local press to make that clear.

The following February, having heard that Shaw and Shrewsbury had arranged a Nottinghamshire XI to play against Yorkshire in the coming season, Holden wrote to Shaw, "I have been informed that you have arranged, or are about to arrange a match Nottinghamshire v. Yorkshire, to be played at Bradford. I therefore think it best to write at once, and say that the committee strongly and decidedly object to any county match being arranged by anybody, except those… home matches arranged at the annual meeting of county secretaries at Lord’s" [1].

What this meant for the county’s professionals was that Nottinghamshire was denying them the right to work on the 36 days during the season when their county had no work for them. In their reply of 26th March, Holden was reminded that there were several precedents, including a similar fixture arranged by Richard Daft (great-grandfather to Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary to Thatcher and Major) in 1873. Shaw and Shrewbury’s letter concluded: "Before writing [to] us, we should imagine you were cognisant of [the precedents]; at the same time it appears, strangely enough to us, that since R. Daft arranged the Huddersfield match, and unknown to the subscribers to the county and also the players, fresh laws and regulations have been substituted for the laws which then governed the club" [2]. In other words, ‘just how daft do you think we are?’

Shaw knew his value. In the same year that Daft’s team played Yorkshire, Shaw refused W.G. Grace’s offer of a place in a team touring Australia. He was unhappy that, as a professional, he would only be allowed to travel second class on the long voyage to Australia and his fee, £150, was just 10% of that to be received by the ‘shamateur’, W.G. Grace. If any restrictions on the professionals’ ability to earn their livelihood were to be accepted, Shaw and Shrewsbury wanted concessions: greater security of employment; payment for all games in the season, as cover for illness and injury; and a guaranteed benefit match for any player with ten or more years at the county.

The matter was not concluded before the first match of the 1881 season when Nottinghamshire hosted Sussex on 26th May. Shaw returned match figures of 94.1 (four ball overs)-58-70-8 in an innings victory inside two days. If he thought the county might reconsider in light of that reminder of what he contributed towards the club’s success, he was wrong. Nottinghamshire was not about to enter into dialogue with mere players and attitudes hardened.

By this time, the local press had picked up on the story and, in an article headlined, "Trades Unionism in Cricket", the ‘Nottingham Journal’ raised the spectre of New Unionism infecting the great game. After outlining the distressing circumstances of the case, it reported, "that there are influences at work which have induced the players to look out for fresh grievances" [3]. One cricket commentator went further, the dispute was, "a deliberate combination against recognised administration… it was not merely a question of the welfare of one county, but it involved a distinct and material alteration in the relations between paid cricketers and their employers which vitally affected the interests of every club of importance" [4].

Eventually, Nottinghamshire offered five of the seven, including Shaw, employment for the whole season. Shaw refused – it was for all seven or none.

By the end of the season, Shaw and Shrewsbury were carrying out their final preparations for their 1881-82 tour to the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The other five professionals returned to the county, their dispute lost, as did Shaw and Shrewsbury the following season. And the ‘Nottinghamshire Schism’ was forgotten. At least you could be forgiven for thinking so, given its absence from many histories of the game, including one of the most recent by John Major.

Of the relationship between gentlemen and players, Major had this to say, "The distinctions were absurd and insulting, but in Victorian Britain they were commonplace" [5]. Like much of what we now find ‘absurd and insulting’ – imperialism, racism, class snobbery – Major and his ilk may well recognise that now but seem silent on how that change was effected. Change was not brought about by Captain Holden and the like but by men such as one-time framework-knitter, Alfred Shaw.
　
[1] ‘Nottingham Journal’, 6th June 1881.
[2] Ibid.
[3] ‘Nottingham Journal’, 1st June 1881.
[4] James Lillywhite, quoted in Brookes, Christopher, "English Cricket. The game and its players through the ages", p.150, Reader’s Union, Newton Abbot, 1978.
[5] Major, John, "More Than a Game. The Story of Cricket’s Early Years", p.268, HarperPress, London, 2007.

4/ At this juncture I was going to take this thread off at a tangent and visit some of the famous groundsmen that have been engaged at Trent Bridge over time. In 1881 and the year of the once infamous Nottinghamshire Schism, the groundsman was William Fiddler Walker. But, first we're going to visit the season destroying (for Notts) "Nottinghamshire Schism". Not something that is likely to be commemorated on Pravda or in an issue of Covered. So rather than wait until 2081 and Mike's Notts Handbook, here goes...

This is from Wisden

A modern view summary or two tomorrow...

3/ Leeds Times 17 June 1882

Yes in the same newspaper; perhaps they had recognised that there might be a back drop to this trifling matter. The Committee, it might be viewed that, behaved in somewhat aloof manner following the goings on in the Nottinghamshire Schism of 1881 and the professional Shaw's financially beneficial tour to Australia the following winter, with its accompanied "scandal". 

2/ Leeds Times 17 June 1882

1a/ Leeds Times 17 June 1882

1b/