MR. BUDD AND HIS FRIENDS
By the Editor
Glimpses of Mr. Edward Hayward Budd we have already had in Mr. Pycroft's chapter on the Hambledon Club and the Old Players; but more are needed. Mr. Budd was to the youthful cricketers of the first thirty years of the last century, before Alfred Mynn's zenith, very much what Dr. Grace was to the youth of the last thirty years of it; and it is time that his genius was celebrated. Moreover he was of the greatest service to Mr. Pycroft in writing the historical part of The Cricket Field. Mr. Pycroft, when he was beginning work on that book in 1850, approached Mr. Budd by letter: 'How can it be done without the assistance of E. H. Budd Esq.?' he asked. '"Hamlet—the part of Hamlet left out"—will never do.' Mr. Budd complied.
The account of Mr. Budd in the Scores and Biographies is against his first match at Lord's, on September 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1802, between Twenty-Two of Middlesex, for which he played (9 and 5), and Twenty-two of Surrey. For Middlesex played also Lord Frederick Beauclerk (3 and 7), Fennex (4 and 9), Aylward (4 and 2), and John Nyren (11 and 2). Mr. Budd was then seventeen, says Mr. Haygarth, adding: (He was chosen in the Gentlemen v. Players match in 1806, but did not commence to participate regularly in the great contests of the day till 1808. After 1831, he partially abandoned the game, though he formed one of the Wanstead Park Eleven v. M. C. C. match, at Lord's, in 1837. He left London in 1825, after which he became an active playing member of the Purton Club; his actual last match being when making one of that Eleven against Marlborough College, June 16, 1852—thus, from first to last, completing fifty-one seasons! He also continued to practise about four years longer—in fact, till he was
