Some amateurs, those in education being a common example, were part-time players of necessity as they could only commit to cricket during the school or university holidays (say, late July to mid-September).
The real distinction between amateur and professional, encapsulated by the Gentlemen v Players fixture which was first arranged by Lord Frederick Beauclerk in 1806 and played annually from 1829 to 1962, was social status within the English class structure.
[1] As early as the 17th century, there is evidence that sporting types among the well-to-do relished strong competition and welcomed the opportunity to play against the best performers, who tended to be working class and in time became the first professionals.
"[2] The "Gentlemen and Players" distinction was a reflection of the higher status enjoyed by officers above other ranks in the British Army, and of employers above the workforce in commerce and industry.
Some of the amateur captains (e.g., W. G. Grace, Stanley Jackson, C. B. Fry and Peter May) were unquestionably worth their places in the England team on the grounds of their technical ability.
The earliest definite mention of cricket is in a court case on Monday, 17 January 1597 (Julian date) in which John Derrick, a Queen's Coroner for the county of Surrey, and therefore a gentleman, bore written testimony as to a parcel of land in Guildford.
[8] From the start of the English Civil War, the Long Parliament (1642–60) banned theatres and other social activities that met with Puritan disapproval, but there is no actual evidence of cricket being prohibited, except as previously that it was not allowed on Sundays.
Oliver Cromwell had established the Protectorate the previous year, so the Puritans were fully in control, but the defendants were charged with "breaking the Sabbath", not with playing cricket.
[12] In Harry Altham's view, the same period "was really the critical stage in the game's evolution" with a kind of "feudal patronage" being established as the nobility took control of the sport, their interest fuelled by the opportunities for gambling that it provided, and this set the pattern for cricket's development through the 18th century.
[14] The earliest known newspaper report of a first-class match was in the Foreign Post dated Wednesday, 7 July 1697:[14] "The middle of last week a great match at cricket was played in Sussex; there were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece".The high stakes on offer confirm the importance of the fixture and the fact that it was eleven-a-side suggests that two strong and well-balanced teams were assembled.
No other details were given but the report provides real evidence to support the view that "great matches" played for high stakes were in vogue in the years following the Restoration.
[15] The aristocracy was the group that advanced the cause of amateurism and did so, in several fields of activity, with the purpose of publicly asserting their political and social authority to emphasise, as Underdown said, "what they fondly believed was the popular nature of their rule".
The key figures in the 18th century were the Dukes of Richmond; Edwin Stead; Sir William Gage; Frederick, Prince of Wales; Lord John Sackville; John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset; Sir Horatio Mann; George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and, into the 19th century, Lord Frederick Beauclerk.
[20] While the gentlemen were happy to play in the same team as the professionals, a form of apartheid was created off the field (e.g., separate changing rooms and gateways as mentioned above).
Arbitration falls to a character called Nestor, clearly based on the Homeric ruler, who imposes his Justas Leges, acceptable to both teams.
[22] In 1727, ahead of two games to be patronised by them, the 2nd Duke of Richmond and Alan Brodrick, 2nd Viscount Midleton, drew up Articles of Agreement to determine the terms and conditions applicable to their matches.
Like Brett before him, Stevens protested and his petition was granted soon afterwards, although research has discovered that the introduction of the third stump in practice was gradual and the two-stump wicket did continue in places for a number of years yet.
[26] Lord Frederick Beauclerk was the leading "amateur" player of the Napoleonic period but he was notoriously mercenary, despite his status and his calling as an ordained minister of religion.
Even then, it was not a straight match because Beauclerk selected the two leading professional players Billy Beldham and William Lambert as given men for the Gentlemen.
Derek Birley remarked that it was called the "Coronation Match" to celebrate the accession of the unpopular George IV "and it was a suitably murky affair".
From the mid-1880s, the batsmen on each side were usually strong but the hallmark of the Players from that time became their greater strength in bowling and fielding, areas in which the Gentlemen were relatively weak after Grace was past his best.
[34] In another work a year later, the fashion for cricket was deplored because it was (and remains) a dangerous activity, the writer saying that the country expects very different from those of "rank and fortune" than from those of "the labouring classes".
As the 1820s began, the aristocrats like Dorset, Winchilsea and Colonel Lennox had gone and MCC's leading lights then, besides Beauclerk, included E. H. Budd, a civil servant, and William Ward, a banker.
The first formally constituted county club was Sussex in 1839, followed in the 1840s by Cambridgeshire, Kent, Nottinghamshire and Surrey; in the 1860s by Hampshire, Lancashire, Middlesex and Yorkshire; and then by Derbyshire and the Grace family's Gloucestershire in 1870.
In Charles Williams' view, the dictum was very subtly worded because it did not forbid amateurs from making money from cricket off the field of play.
[41] In fairness to Grace, he was a general practitioner who had to pay for a locum tenens to run his medical practice while he was playing cricket, and he had a reputation for treating poor and impoverished patients at a lowered or no fee.
[43] The use of the term "shamateurism" apparently originated during the English tour of Australia in 1887–88, a venture from which certain amateurs, notably George Vernon, Andrew Stoddart and Walter Read, were known to be profiting.
Although concerns about shamateurism were widespread, the abolition of amateurism was actually the result of interaction by two irresistible forces: An example of the latter is cricket authorities ending the Gentlemen v Players fixture after amateurism was abolished (and with it the raison d'etre for the fixture) on 31 January 1963, and introducing the Gillette Cup limited overs knockout competition (which was also the first sponsored cricket competition) in its place.
[45] On the other hand, social change had rendered the whole concept an anachronism, and Fred Trueman spoke for many when he described amateurism as a "ludicrous business" that was "thankfully abolished" and said he was glad there would be "no more fancy caps".
[46] Charles Williams commented that amateurism in the highest levels of cricket had become "so ludicrous in its presentation and corrupt in its practice" that its end was a necessity, but he praised other aspects of the concept – its so-called "Corinthian spirit" whereby a game was played with "honour and verve" – which he believed had value and the disappearance of which would in time be seen as a loss to society.