Thomas Lord

Thomas Lord (born in Thirsk, Yorkshire on 23 November 1755; died in West Meon, Hampshire on 13 January 1832) was an English cricketer most famous for founding Lord's cricket ground, the ground that is now known as the Home of Cricket and the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Lord himself played mainly for MCC and for various Middlesex teams. He is known to have begun playing about 1780 but his first recorded game was on his "own ground" (on the site of Dorset Square) on 31 May 1787 when he played for Middlesex v Essex. Lord has never been given much credit as a player but the match records of the 1790s indicate that he was a very good bowler, although it is true that his opposition was not always of the highest standard.

Early life

Lord's father was a Roman Catholic yeoman, who had his lands sequestered for supporting the Jacobite rising in 1745 and afterwards he had to work as a labourer. The Lord family later moved to Diss, Norfolk, where Thomas Lord was brought up. Once he was out of childhood Lord moved to London and got a job as a bowler and general attendant at the White Conduit Club.

Lord's first ground

In 1786 Lord was encouraged to start his own private ground by George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and Charles Lennox, who went on to become the fourth Duke of Richmond. They offered Lord a guarantee against any losses he might suffer. In May 1787 Lord acquired seven acres (28,000 m²) off Dorset Square, London and started his first ground, where the Marylebone Cricket Club played its home matches.

The lease on the first ground ended in 1810.

Lord's second ground

Knowing that his lease on the first ground was due to expire shortly, Lord obtained an eighty-year lease on two fields, the Brick and Great Fields at North Bank, St John's Wood. The ground was built by 1809, when the first games were played there by St John's Wood Cricket Club, which was later merged into the Marylebone Cricket Club. In 1813 Parliament requisitioned the land for the Regent's Canal, which was cut through the site, thereby necessitating a further move.

Lord's third ground

Lord then moved his ground to its present site, where it opened in 1814. Lord was not, however, making enough money and therefore obtained permission to develop the ground for a building site - a move which would have left only 150 square yards of playing area. Thankfully for cricket-lovers the world over, Lord was bought out for £5,000 by William Ward, the noted batsman who was also a director of the Bank of England and future Member of Parliament in 1825.

Retirement

Lord remained in St John's Wood till 1830, when he retired to West Meon in Hampshire, where he died in 1832. Lord's son, also Thomas Lord, and born in Marylebone on 27 December 1794, was also a keen cricketer.

Thomas Lord is buried in the church yard of St. John's Church in West Meon (http://www.hampshirecam.co.uk/jun407_3.html). The village has a public house named after him. Also buried in the same churchyard is Guy Burgess the Soviet spy who was a leading member of the infamous "Cambridge ring" of Soviet spies that operated in the UK between the mid-1930s and the early 1950s. Thomas Lord's resting place is just a few miles from Hambledon and the Hambledon Cricket Club, the birthplace of cricket.

External sources

* [http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html From Lads to Lord's; The History of Cricket: 1300 – 1787]
* [http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PLAYERS/ENG/L/LORD_T_01031425/ Cricinfo page on Thomas Lord]
* [http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/31/31062/31062.html CricketArchive]
* [http://www.lords.org/history/mcc-history/ MCC site]

Further reading

* H S Altham, "A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914)", George Allen & Unwin, 1926
* Derek Birley, "A Social History of English Cricket", Aurum, 1999
* Rowland Bowen, "Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development", Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
* Samuel Britcher, "A list of all the principal Matches of Cricket that have been played (1790 to 1805)"
* G B Buckley, "Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket", Cotterell, 1935
* H T Waghorn, "The Dawn of Cricket", Electric Press, 1906
* Arthur Haygarth, "Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744-1826)", Lillywhite, 1862
* "Lord's 1787-1945" by Sir Pelham Warner ISBN 1-85145-112-9