Harry Pickett photographed around 1896 (Image: Wikipedia)
For those below the top level, life as a professional cricketer before the First World War could be a precarious existence. While it was possible to eke out a living playing league cricket or working as a coach, these positions were rarely well paid. Some professionals gravitated towards the groundstaffs of counties or the MCC. A few became umpires; the list of first-class umpires for the 1900 season contains several illustrious former cricketers, some current professionals who had not quite made it at county level, and some men who had performed various jobs in cricket all their lives. As well as former Test players, there were some whose fame rested purely on their excellence as umpires, such as Jim Phillips, Valentine Titchmarsh and William West.
But no-one on that list better illustrates the fragile nature of life as a professional cricketer than the tragic figure of Harry Pickett. After a substantially longer and more successful first-class career than many of his fellow officials, he moved briefly into umpiring and then became a cricket coach. But somewhere, it all went wrong.
Henry Pickett was born in Stratford in 1862, the only child of a railway porter and his wife. In his teens, Pickett turned down an offer to join an uncle living in America. Instead, he worked as a clerk at Beckton Gas Works and pursued a love of cricket. From the age of sixteen, he played with great success for Forest Gate Cricket Club, regularly taking huge numbers of wickets with his fast bowling. He also played for the Beckton Gas Works team, for whom he was playing when he made his breakthrough. Against Brentwood in 1881, the nineteen-year-old Pickett took seven wickets for one run, and attracted the attention of the Essex county team.
At that time, Essex were not a first-class county, but played regularly. After a successful trial, Pickett went straight into the county first eleven and took 48 wickets in the remainder of the 1881 season, at an average of 14. His record for Beckton that year was an astonishing 110 wickets at an average of 3. This early success opened a path into professional cricket, and Pickett signed a contract with Liverpool Cricket Club for the 1882 season.
We do not know much about Pickett’s life at this time, but he moved to Liverpool, and combined playing for his new club with appearances for Essex that season. For Essex, he took over fifty wickets at a low cost, but his record for Liverpool is unknown. However, something appears to have gone wrong; Pickett returned home at the end of the season and never played for Liverpool again. Whether the club replaced him, or whether he decided to leave, we cannot be sure. However, his record in club cricket was generally extremely good, so perhaps it is more likely the choice was his, whatever the reason may have been.
Back in London, he played once more for Beckton in 1883, and took over 60 wickets for Essex. But he still had ambitions as a professional cricketer and in 1884 he followed a familiar path for professionals who either did not or could not play for a first-class county: he joined the MCC groundstaff. He made a good impression, scoring useful runs and taking plenty of wickets in his first season. The following year he scored a century against London International College and took all ten wickets in an innings (all bowled) against Forest School. As was common for members of the groundstaff, he played several first-class matches for the MCC during this period, making his first-class debut against Sussex in 1884, but he was hardly a regular. Playing once in 1884, twice in 1885 and once each in the next two seasons, he took only seven first-class wickets in his first four years at Lord’s.
The increased workload also seemed to affect his performances for Essex, which slumped in 1884 and 1885 before he recovered in 1886, a year in which he also took over 100 wickets for the MCC. But he proved expensive in 1887, and in 1888 Essex dropped him for most of the season. He recovered to have some occasionally spectacular success in 1889 and 1890.
An 1892 illustration of Pickett
What kind of a bowler was he? Most descriptions agree that he was one of those tireless fast bowlers who seemed to operate in this period. In his Silence of the Heart (2001), David Frith summarises this nicely:
“His attachment to Essex marked the start of a period of exemplary service as he bowled and bowled for a county which was frequently outclassed but always game to the end. Pickett was a strong light-heavyweight, seemingly tireless as he held one end tight for hours on end, bowling honest fast-medium, trying always to keep things well under control.”
Frith describes him as “fast-medium” but contemporary reports agree that he was fast. His record in minor cricket supports this; he clearly overwhelmed batsmen in club games. But it is also clear that his increased workload as a professional affected his performance, and Pickett spoke about this in an 1895 interview printed in The Cricket Field:
“I work well within myself. I only take about eight yards’ run and twelve short strides. An amateur can manage to take a long run without hurting himself, but a professional who has to bowl day after day at the nets as well as in matches is likely to wear himself out very soon if he takes a very long run.”
Another factor may have been his weight. Frith suggests that this affected him in later years, and a photograph taken around 1896 reveals him to have become bulkier that would have been ideal for a fast bowler. The overall impression is of a hard-working bowler who was perhaps just that little bit short of first-class standard, and never quite made the breakthrough. He nevertheless seems to have been popular with Essex supporters.
Although Pickett remained on their groundstaff for many years, he appeared in just one first-class game for the MCC between 1887 and 1894, playing against Cambridge University in 1891, without taking a wicket. But by the 1890s, he was primarily known as an Essex bowler.
His best season for the county was 1890, when he took 76 wickets. Against Warwickshire that year, he took a hat-trick, which he later described in self-deprecating terms in his interview with the Cricket Field:
“It was the luckiest hat-trick on record. The first ball got Shilton caught, but the catch was taken so low down that only the umpire knew whether the man was out or not. I bowled Joe Cresswell with the next ball, and then Harry Pallett received the third. It was not straight, and would not have bowled him, but it knocked his legs from under him and as he fell he trod on his wicket.”
His batting was generally negligible, but he had the occasional success, most notably when he scored 114 for Essex against Hampshire in 1891.
In 1894, Essex became a first-class county. Up until that point, Pickett had played 127 matches for the team, scoring 1,341 runs at an average just over 9, and taking 629 wickets at 15.08 (he played one other non-first-class match for Essex, taking one wicket in an 1894 game). Subsequently, Pickett was part of the Essex side that played a series of friendly first-class games in 1894, then was admitted to the County Championship from 1895. In 1894, he took just 11 wickets at an average over 30, but in their first Championship season, he took 51 wickets — including all ten wickets for 32 in an innings against Leicestershire — at 18.72, placing him third in the Essex averages. Combined with two games for the MCC in which he took at total of ten wickets, and a further match for Essex in which he took five, he ended the season with 66 first-class wickets at 17.72, easily his best at that level.
The Essex cricket team in 1897; Pickett is on the back row, standing second from the right
Although playing regularly in the next two years, Pickett began to lose effectiveness, averaging in the high 20s, and dropped out of the Essex team after 1897. At the end of that season, he was given a benefit match but it was not a success, defeated by a combination of unattractive opposition, bad weather, and the absence of Pickett himself. It raised just £150; he was also given two gifts — a clock and a silver-and-gold ornamental set of miniature stumps — bought through penny subscriptions.
In total, Pickett played 52 first-class matches for Essex, taking 114 wickets at an average of 24.38 (quite high for a bowler in this period) and scoring 387 runs at an average of 8.41. His final first-class appearance was for the MCC against Oxford University in 1898; after a few other games that season, he played his last match for the MCC against Wiltshire in August, bringing his playing career to a close. He had taken 17 wickets in nine first-class games for the MCC (averaging 25.88), and in 61 other games for the club on the CricketArchive database, he took 325 wickets at an average of just under eight runs per wicket. These figures reinforce the impression from elsewhere: devastating against lesser opposition, but not quite good enough at first-class level.
Although no longer good enough to play professionally, Pickett remained in cricket. He had umpired a non-first-class freshman’s match at Cambridge in 1891, and in 1893 umpired when the MCC played Oxford University. He also umpired the match between Essex and Oxford in 1898, but this was the limit of his umpiring experience. So it is a little surprising that he was appointed as a first-class umpire for the 1899 season, and remained on the list for 1900. In 1899, he no-balled Hampshire’s Evelyn Bradford for throwing, but the only other time he appears to have made an impression was in a match in which he no-balled Len Braund for over-stepping; the bowler heard the call and did not release the ball, but the MCC eventually agreed with Pickett’s decision that the no-ball should stand.
Pickett’s life away from the cricket field is something of a blank. The only certainty is that in 1887, the 25-year-old Pickett married the 22-year-old Emma Packman. Over the next ten years, they had three children: two boys, Harry (born in 1889) and Francis (born 1893), and a girl, May (born in 1896). Pickett was also mildly famous as a “champion walker” and won several competitions. On one such occasion, he set a record for the “hour’s walking match” at Crystal Palace.
After just two seasons on the first-class list, Pickett’s umpiring career ended when he was appointed as the cricket coach at Clifton College in Bristol for the 1901 season. He and his family relocated there, where he opened a sports outfitting shop in the city. Once more, Pickett fades into obscurity, other than a report in 1903 which stated that he was not in the best of health.
On 20 September 1907 (some reports say 27 September, but local newspapers give the earlier date), Pickett disappeared after leaving home to go to Weston-super-Mare by “an excursion train”. According to his son, he was “in good health and spirits”. He never came home, and his disappearance was reported to local police.
The Old Pier at Weston-super-Mare, photographed around the time of Pickett’s disappearance (Image: The Weston Mercury)
On the evening of 20 September, a visitor from Cardiff was walking past the Old Pier at Weston, and noticed a man “reclining on a seat on the South side”. Shortly after, the visitor heard a splash, and when he turned around the man had disappeared. He looked over the side of the pier and thought he saw someone struggling in the water before the tide took him away. The visitor reported the matter to the police, but no trace of the man was ever found.
On 3 October, the body of a “respectably dressed” man, wearing a shooting jacket, tweed trousers and brown boots, washed ashore on the beach at Aberavon, Wales. A doctor estimated that he had been in the water between a week and ten days. The man was not identified, an inquest recorded a verdict of “found drowned” and he was buried in a local cemetery. Nothing more was heard until the end of December, when Pickett’s 18-year-old son Harry, who had read of the discovery of an unidentified body, travelled to Aberavon. He was able to confirm that the body was that of his father through inspection of the boots, and the possessions found in his pockets — a bunch of keys and two pocket knives. One report concluded that the body must have drifted across the Bristol Channel from Weston to Aberavon. Although it was not stated explicitly in any newspaper, or recorded at the inquest, it is obvious everyone knew that Pickett’s cause of death was suicide.
The press wrote about Pickett sympathetically, and obituaries mentioned his long career and popularity as an Essex cricketer. Wisden simply related that Pickett, “once so well known as a fast bowler for Essex and the MCC, came to a sad end” before relating how his body was discovered and outlining his career. Other publications such as Cricket gave a detailed overview of his cricket and the respect in which he had been held.
What drove Pickett to kill himself? David Frith, in his Silence of the Heart, suggests that Pickett was “close to penniless, with a wife and several children to support. The weight of despair cracked him.” But it is not entirely clear what happened. In October, before the body at Aberavon was identified, newspapers announced that Pickett’s contract as Clifton coach had been terminated, and he would be succeeded by the former Yorkshire batsman John Tunnicliffe. But the reports are worded in a way which suggests that it had already been common knowledge that Pickett was leaving his position. While it may be possible that Tunnicliffe was appointed after Pickett disappeared (just three weeks since he was last seen), it seems more likely that Pickett had lost his job, which may have contributed to what happened.
Clifton College has no surviving records that indicate what might have occurred, but one clue might be that in his time there, the cricket team only defeated one other school — when they won against Cheltenham by two wickets in 1901. Their record was especially bad in 1907. Perhaps, if he was sacked, this would explain why.
We have no direct evidence that Pickett was in any financial difficulty, and as an inquest had already taken place, no follow-up was ever held to shed light on what may have driven him to despair. But putting together the poor results of his benefit, his continued need to be employed in cricket and the probable loss of his job at Clifton College, we can probably conclude that money was the root of his problems.
If Pickett’s family already had financial worries, his death must have been crippling. It would only get worse. On 24 March 1908, Pickett’s widow Emma died, leaving her children with nothing. To the credit of the MCC, they publicised the plight of the three children — aged 18, 14 and 11 at the time — and asked for funds to support them. As they had no living grandparents — Pickett’s father died in 1906 — it is not clear what arrangements were made for the children, or who made them.
The two sons disappear from the records afterwards, and cannot be found on any census returns. As there is no record of their deaths either, it is not impossible that they moved overseas; perhaps to their father’s Canadian relations. However, the 1911 census reveals Pickett’s daughter was living with the family of a dairy manager, evidently a wealthy one; listed as an orphan, her “occupation” was “companion”, which presumably meant that she was company for the women of the family. In the 1920s, she worked as a shop assistant in Bristol, and married a grocer called Reginald John Holland in 1924. She had at least two children and, seemingly having suffered no ill effects from her parents’ deaths, lived until 1971.
Old Ebor 
