The Shorter Wisden 2013 (7 page)
Read The Shorter Wisden 2013 Online
Authors: John Wisden,Co
After a flutter of consternation, Medlock arrived at the John Wisden & Co works in Penshurst, Kent, where he found elderly craftsmen and a dispirited management. He moved fast, replacing
staff and streamlining product lines until, a decade later, it could be sold to Grays of Cambridge. None of this concerned the Almanack directly, whose contract with Whitaker’s assured its
immediate future. But Medlock’s influence was profound. In 1963, the Almanack’s centenary year, he and his friend Sir Learie Constantine gained permission from MCC to award the Wisden
Trophy to the winners of England–West Indies series. As Medlock’s trophy celebrated its 50th birthday, the man himself (born in 1914) was not far off his 100th.
At the height of his bad-boy fame, Mick Jagger did not always boast of his fondness for cricket, but he spent hours following it on television at home in Chelsea. Even when he
visited his reclusive American neighbour,
Paul Getty
, he would – as Getty later put it – insist on watching “this ridiculous game”.
Getty’s own life had been stalked by tragedy. In 1971, his second wife, Talitha Pol, died from an overdose, and two years later the older of two sons from his first marriage, John Paul
Getty III, was kidnapped in Italy. When the initial ransom demand was refused, the boy’s right ear was hacked off and sent to a newspaper in Rome. But the “ridiculous game” to
which Jagger had introduced the older Getty would at least, in time, play a consoling part in his life.
Armed with a colossal inheritance from his family’s oil interests, Getty went on to befriend cricket’s leading personalities, finance new architecture at Lord’s, and build his
own, Gatsbyish, ground at his Wormsley home in the Chilterns. In 1993, when
Wisden
was seeking a new owner, he stepped in. It did not need saving, as such: it was a profitable enterprise
in its own right. But it did need a devoted and steady proprietor – and it found one. Under Getty’s wing (and the editorship of Matthew Engel) the Almanack grew in prestige as the game
entered the electronic age. Jagger’s oblique place in the story reminds us that cricket’s relationship with rock music long predates the snatches of “Another one bites the
dust” that blast across today’s Twenty20 grounds.
Robert Winder is author of
The Little Wonder: A History of Wisden.
1826 | | John Wisden (JW) is born in Brighton. |
1850 | | JW takes ten wickets in an innings for North v South at Lord’s. All are bowled – still a unique feat in first-class cricket. He also sets up in business, |
1852 | | JW and Jemmy Dean form the United All-England Eleven. |
1855 | | JW opens his “cricket and cigar” shop at 2 New Coventry Street, London. |
1859 | | JW plays in the USA and Canada on the first overseas tour by an English team. |
1863 | | JW retires from the game. |
1864 | | JW publishes his first |
1870 | | The title is changed to |
1872 | | Wisden’s shop moves to 21 Cranbourn Street, London; it remains open until 1928. |
1880 | | The first of seven editions edited by George West. |
1884 | | JW dies in his flat above the Cranbourn Street shop. The business is bought from his estate by Henry Luff. |
1887 | | The first of four editions edited by Charles Pardon, and the first to have its content compiled by the Cricket Reporting Agency. |
1889 | | Wisden |
1891 | | The first of 35 editions edited by Sydney Pardon. |
1896 | | The first hardback edition. JW & Co open their second London shop – in Great Newport Street. |
1901 | | Sydney Pardon starts “Notes by the Editor”. |
1910 | | Henry Luff dies. His son, Ernest, takes over the business. |
1911 | | JW & Co receive a royal warrant to certify their “appointment as Athletic Outfitters to the King” (George V). |
1914 | | JW & Co are incorporated as a limited company with their shares divided among several investors. |
1920 | | JW & Co merge with Duke & Son, a sports manufacturer specialising in cricket balls. |
1923 | | JW & Co publish their first |
1924 | | The Almanack exceeds 1,000 pages for first time. |
1926 | | The first of eight editions edited by Stewart Caine. |
1934 | | The first of two edited by Sydney Southerton. |
1936 | | The first of four edited by Wilfrid Brookes. |
1938 | | J. Whitaker & Sons Ltd (“Whitaker’s”) become |
1939 | | Because of failings in the equipment business, JW & Co go into receivership. |
1940 | | The first of four editions edited by Haddon Whitaker. The Notes in all four are written by Raymond Robertson-Glasgow. Whitaker’s offices are destroyed in the |
1943 | | JW & Co are bought out of receivership by the Co-operative Wholesale Society. |
1944 | | Wisden’s factory in Mortlake is destroyed by a bomb. Although still published by Whitaker’s, |
1952 | | The first of 29 edited by Hubert Preston’s son, Norman. |
1957 | | Whitaker’s buy JW & Co’s half share in Sporting Handbooks, who continue to publish |
1960 | | Facsimiles of early editions are produced for the first time. |
1961 | | JW & Co amalgamate their Duke and Wisden cricket-ball manufacturing business with those of Gray-Nicolls, Surridge and Ives in a joint venture company, Tonbridge |
1963 | | The 100th edition is marked by the introduction of the Wisden Trophy, to be contested in all future Test series between England and West Indies. |
1965 | | The CRA merge with the Press Association. The hardback version has a dust jacket for the first time. |
1968 | | Norman Preston retires from PA, thus ending the PA/CRA editorial arrangement with the Almanack, which had been responsible for 82 editions. Preston continues to edit |
1970 | | Grays of Cambridge Ltd purchase JW & Co (including their stake in Tonbridge Sports Industries) from the Co-operative Wholesale Society. |
1979 | | Queen Anne Press (a division of Macdonald and Jane’s Publishers which, in 1982, came under Robert Maxwell’s control) succeed Sporting Handbooks as |
1981 | | The first of six editions edited by John Woodcock. |
1984 | | The centenary of John Wisden’s death is commemorated with the unveiling of a new headstone for his grave in London’s Brompton Cemetery. |
1985 | | McCorquodale plc purchase JW & Co from Grays and re-establish JW & Co as |
1986 | | Grays of Cambridge buy back 50% of JW & Co to become joint owners with McCorquodale (who are later acquired by Bowater plc). |
1987 | | The first of eight editions edited by Graeme Wright. |
1988 | | Colour photographs are included for the first time. |
1993 | | The first of 12 editions edited by Matthew Engel. Paul Getty purchases JW & Co from Grays and Bowater. The combined total of pages in all editions exceeds |
1995 | | A limited-edition leatherbound version is introduced. |
1998 | | An Australian |
1999 | | The (British) Almanack exceeds 1,500 pages for first time. |
2000 | | Wisden |
2001 | | Wright returns as editor, while Engel takes a sabbatical. Wisden Online is launched. |
2003 | | The only edition edited by Tim de Lisle features |
2004 | | Engel returns as editor. |
2006 | | A large-format version is introduced. Across all formats, |
2007 | | Cricinfo is sold to ESPN; |
2008 | | The first of four editions edited by Scyld Berry. The Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award is introduced. Bloomsbury Publishing plc purchase JW & Co from Mark |
2009 | | Claire Taylor is the first woman to be named a Cricketer of the Year. |
2011 | | The Shorter Wisden |
2012 | | The first edition edited by Lawrence Booth. The 2013 – and first – edition of |
2013 | | The 150th edition is published. |
| | | Compiled by Christopher Lane |
WISDEN’S TOP-HATTED GENTS
R
UPERT
B
ATES
They were never honoured as Cricketers of the Year. But a batsman and a wicketkeeper – both nameless, both virtually faceless – have adorned
Wisden
now for
76 springs. The wood engraving of the Victorian duo in top hats is one of the sport’s most charming and recognisable images. And yet cricket knows little of its creator.
Also celebrated for his watercolours, book illustrations, ceramics and lithography, Eric Ravilious was commissioned to produce the engraving by Robert Harling, the typographer asked to redesign
the 1938
Wisden
. Harling knew Ravilious had a “special enthusiasm for the game” – though no doubt his deep Wealdean Englishness and sense of tradition helped too –
and wrote: “His engraving of mid-19th century batsman and wicketkeeper remains an ideal graphic introduction to one of England’s most durable publications.”
The engraving briefly lost its cover-star status in 2003, when a photograph of Michael Vaughan relegated it to the spine of the book’s jacket, incurring the displeasure of some
traditionalists. It was immediately restored to the cover in 2004, while staying on the spine as well. And so, for ten editions now, including this one, Ravilious’s creation has been more
visible than ever.
Educated at Eastbourne School of Art, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. But Ravilious died in 1942 aged 39 when, as an official war artist and honorary captain in the Royal
Marines, his plane was lost on a search-and-rescue mission off Iceland. And while it was clear he was never going to decorate
Wisden
through his on-field achievements, he did leave his
indelible mark. In the words of cricket bookseller John McKenzie, the engraving “remains the face of
Wisden
”.
