The club could boast notable personages on its committee, such as Sir Astley Paston Cooper of Gadebridge, T. F. Halsey MP, the Vicar of Hemel Hempstead and the High Bailiff, schoolmaster F. St. John Badcock and the wine merchant Henry Balderson.
In 1893 the club won 12 of its 18 matches and the players practised hard, turning out at 6pm every day of the season. The club relied on subscriptions and, if they did not match expectations, the members were not averse to putting on dramatic entertainments in aid of club funds.
Percy Christopherson, Headmaster of Lockers Park School, arranged matches with Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and attracted Arthur Fielder, Ted Wainwright and Harry butt, all England stars of high calibre.
Hemel Hempstead Cricket Club 1st XI, winners of the Gazette Cup in 1989. Picture:
Dacorum Heritage Trust
The pitch was not without its difficulties, however. People dancing on the field, to the strains of Dickinson’s band, or the Trust’s cattle roaming the grounds, did not help to keep a perfect cricket table.
Once, Percy Christopherson hit a ball that struck an old roadman, but he was happy with the notoriety it brought him – and the half-a-crown (2/6d) compensation. The Derbyshire player A. E. Lawton came to live in the area and tried to break a window in the Heath Park Hotel. He never managed it, but he did hit the lock-keeper’s cottage which once stood on the opposite side of the canal.
An article in the News Chronicle in the early part of the 20th century stated “although Hemel Hempstead is a borough, it is to be congratulated in possessing one of the old time village greens on Boxmoor.”
A match between Dunstable and the town was typical of the times. The Hemel team included a brother of the former Worcestershire player, C. V. Tarbox, as well as local tradesmen: a hat maker, a market gardener, a factory operative and a corn merchant. One small boy was aggrieved when the ball did not come his way that day, as he got threepence for every ball he fished out of the canal. A crown of one thousand people watched Hemel win the match, despite T. Payton (brother of Wilfred Payton of Nottinghamshire) taking six wickets for one run. Tea was served in the adjacent Boxmoor Hall.
The store burnt down in 1945. A new pavilion was built in 1949 and the former tea room was sold to Bovingdon Cricket Club. In 1963, a newer building was erected which lasted until the present two-storeyed clubhouse was built a little further away from the original site. Other developments took place during the intervening years. Today, the club has a proud record and a splendid new centre for social as well as cricketing activities.
The website www.hemelhempsteadcricket.co.uk will give further information on today’s activities.
A more detailed account can be found in Royalty to Commoners – Four Hundred Years of the Box Moor Trust by Joan and Roger Hands, published by the Box Moor Trust (www.boxmoortrust.org.uk)
By The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd
24th August 2011