SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Surrey’s first home match in their 180th county cricket season got underway at The Oval on Friday, and DAVID MORGAN was there for the opening over. Here, he recounts the career of an historian and artist who put on record the early years of the game – and logged vital details lost in the great fire at Croydon Parish Church
First ball: David Morgan was there to witness the start of Surrey CCC’s 180th season
Founded in 1845, and locating themselves at The Oval at Kennington from the very beginning, Surrey County Cricket Club is celebrating its 180th anniversary this season.
Champions for the past three seasons, Surrey’s first home game in the 2025 County Championship is against Hampshire this weekend.
The links between Surrey CCC and Croydon are many. One of the most famous of the early England wicketkeepers, Thomas Lockyer, was christened in Croydon Parish Church, now Croydon Minster, on December 17, 1826.
Albert Geary, the bowler who once took 79 first-class wickets in a single season, was married in Croydon Parish Church, in October 1925.
There are many modern links, too, between Croydon and the ‘Rey, as several current players went to school at Whitgift, including the current club captain Rory Burns, his opening batting partner Dominic Sibley and the England wicketkeeper Jamie Smith.
A further link between Croydon and Surrey CCC is the Victorian historian, John Corbet Anderson. Not only did he research and draw ancient buildings, he also enjoyed cricket and drew pictures and portraits of some of the early stars of the game.
Vital record: Anderson’s book is often the only reference to what Parish Church was like before the fire
Anderson moved to Croydon in 1852, living with his sisters on Duppas Hill. He was responsible for describing, both in words and in illustrations, what Croydon Parish Church was like at the time. This was the medieval building, rich with hundreds of years of history of the Archbishops of Canterbury. This was Croydon’s architectural jewel which was destroyed by fire in 1867.
Anderson went along to the church to survey the scene in the days following the fire. His drawing of the awful scene was turned into a much-purchased print.
A study of the church records was undertaken by Anderson and he put details of some of the entries which he discovered into his 1855 book, Monuments and Antiquities of Croydon Church, which was published shortly after significant renovation works had ended.
In the same book, Anderson also recorded some of the details about the plague in Croydon, listing 158 deaths between July 1603 and April 1604. This was the worst outbreak which he noted, more severe even than 1666, the year of the Great Fire of London, when 141 Croydon people died between July 1665 and March 1666.
Anderson understood the human stories behind history and was keen to include instances of longevity in his book. John Beydon was buried on December 12, 1717, aged 101. Elizabeth Giles, aged 100, was buried on August 17 1729, and Elizabeth Wilson, from the Black Horse, was buried on March 17 1771, aged 101.
Without Anderson’s important record of the tombs in Croydon Parish Church, our knowledge of the medieval interior of would be very limited. For some memorials which were destroyed in the 1867 blaze, Anderson’s was the only record left to provide future generations with an illustrated record.
Long lost memorial: Anderson’s drawing of Archbishop Grindal’s tomb, which was destroyed in the 1867 fire but not rebuilt
Visitors to Croydon Minster today are often shocked to discover that the great tomb constructed for Archbishop Grindal, who died in 1583, was never rebuilt. It would have been most interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall in the meeting which decided that the church wouldn’t reconstruct his final resting place. Archbishops Gilbert Sheldon and John Whitgift both had their magnificent memorials reconstructed using the illustrations which Anderson had made.
Anderson took a great interest, too, in the early days of professional cricket.
As a result we have some pictures of early Surrey cricketers. One print of four Surrey players dated 1852 was of Tom Lockyer, Julius Caesar, William Caffyn and Tom Sherman.
Gathered around a set of stumps with Caffyn holding his bat as if asking for a leg stump guard from the umpire, the four players were drawn staring down the wicket. All were wearing cricket whites, but not as we know them today. Each sported a cravat tied as a bowtie around their necks. Lockyer, the wicketkeeper, was wearing a short white jacket with lapels.
The June 1847 match at The Oval, between Surrey and Sussex, saw Lockyer and Caffyn making their debuts.
Tom Sherman, who came from Mitcham, was said by many to have been the fastest bowler of his generation. During one of his games against Yorkshire at Sheffield he broke a stump into five pieces. As a reward, he received a case of razors from an admirer.
Surrey greats: Anderson captured the feel of an early cricketing age, with this drawing of (from left) Tom Sherman, Julius Caesar, William Caffyn and Tom Lockyer
Sherman made 83 appearances for Surrey, his first game being in 1846. Sherman carried on playing at Mitcham for a long time after the end of his Surrey days. His knee often gave him pain, having been hit there by a particularly hostile ball bowled by Alfred Mynn, another of the era’s fast bowlers.
Sherman became an umpire for the Old Butlers’ Cricket Club. They played their matches on the part of Mitcham Cricket Green that was opposite their headquarters, the old Britannia pub on The Causeway. Sherman also made rough cricket bats out of willow, grown by the River Wandle, for the boys of Mitcham.
Sherman died at Croydon Hospital in October 1911, after breaking a leg.
Middle Row: Anderson’s 1875 ink drawing has the sub-title ‘a relic of y’olde Croydon’
Lockyer, Caesar and Caffyn all went on to play for England. All three took part in the first tour of Australia and were on the first ever cricket tour of the United States in 1859. Caffyn stayed in Australia for a few years after his 1864 tour, becoming coach of Melbourne Cricket Club. He returned to England in 1871 and played a few games for Surrey for the next couple of seasons.
Thanks to Anderson’s prints we have an excellent image of these four Surrey sporting heroes. I hope a little room can be found for their contributions in this 180th anniversary season.
After Anderson died in 1907, he was buried in Queen’s Road Cemetery in Croydon. He was one of the significant Victorian historians, investigating and recording aspects of many towns. One of his well known prints was from his drawing of Middle Row in Croydon, completed in 1875, and which provides us with a record of that part of the town which was long since been erased.
Thankfully for us, he enjoyed his cricket, too.
David Morgan, pictured, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Find beauty in the mundane as Thames gives up lost treasures
- Film star from Croydon whose career ended in a tawdry scandal
- Willoughby really knew how to put on a show in New York
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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Excellent article as always David, we were very fortunate that his engravings were so detailed.