History of Yorkshire County Cricket Club (1883–1918)

The history of Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1883 to 1918 covers the period from the beginning of Lord Hawke's captaincy until the end of the First World War.

These achievements were primarily due to the production of outstanding players who were moulded by Hawke into an efficient, professional unit: they included such great individuals as George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Stanley Jackson.

In an obituary tribute, the editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said that Lord Hawke's "strength of character was tested" when, as a young man on leaving Cambridge, he undertook the responsibility of captaining the Yorkshire side, composed at that time of "elements that were not entirely harmonious".

[1] Yorkshire to 1883 was popularly viewed as a team of gifted players with a drink problem and was sometimes described as "ten drunks and a parson", the odd man out being Louis Hall, a Nonconformist lay preacher who had joined the club in 1873 as an opening batsman and was reputedly the first teetotaller ever to play for it.

[2] Although Hawke's primary task as captain was to eradicate the perceived drink problem and lead the team to fulfilment of its potential, his biggest challenge was to unite the club's geographical and social factions.

Admitting that it should represent the views of Yorkshire as a whole, the committee enlarged itself by inviting seven new members: one each from Bradford, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds and York to join the existing 14 from Sheffield.

[10][11] The culmination came when the club, with a side weakened by sackings and retirements,[12] finished in second-last position in the unofficial county table in 1889, with twelve defeats; the fielding was particularly poor.

However, the poor results seem to have been anticipated and several players made their debuts in 1889 and 1890 who would go on to be successful for the club, including Jack Brown, David Hunter and Stanley Jackson, while Bobby Peel was becoming increasingly effective as a bowling all-rounder.

[13][14] However, these players took time to become established and stalwarts of the team in the previous decade, such as Louis Hall and George Ulyett, were coming to the end of their careers.

The additional strain of the absence of players selected for representative games meant that a slight revival in 1890 to third in the first official County Championship table, was followed by another poor season in 1891 when the team finished eighth out of nine.

[18] In 1893, the same year that the club was finally reorganised, Yorkshire won their first official County Championship after a season in which no individual stood out but the team performed successfully as a unit; Hodgson writes it was "perhaps ... the first confirmation of Hawke's striving for teamwork and discipline".

[20][21] The debut of Schofield Haigh strengthened a bowling attack which already contained four front-line bowlers and Yorkshire won their second County Championship.

[30] After this season, important batsman Frank Mitchell departed to live in South Africa, but Jackson, who had been fighting in the Boer War since 1900, returned.

Toone held the post until his death in June 1930 and formed a successful liaison with Hawke, who praised him for increasing the membership from 3,000 in 1903 to over 7,000 ten years later.

[35] In 1906, George Hirst achieved a unique "double-double" by scoring 2,385 runs and taking 208 wickets, but the true mark of his greatness as a player was "the capacity to succeed in the hours of greatest need".

[16] Wilfred Rhodes, meanwhile, set himself the goal of improving his batting to be recognised as a genuine all-rounder in his own right and was so successful that he rose from no.11 in the order to become Jack Hobbs' regular opening partner in the England team.

[38] While Hirst, Rhodes and Denton continued to excel, Yorkshire gained much in the last four years before the war from two new all-rounders, Major Booth and Alonzo Drake, both of whom were an outstanding success.

[40] He was succeeded by Everard Radcliffe, who held the post until the end of the 1911 season; and then by Sir Archibald White, who led the team until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.