Abe Waddington was a Bradford-born left-arm swing bowler who played for Yorkshire between 1919 and 1927. In first-class cricket, he took 852 wickets at the seemingly impressive average of 19.75 but his career never quite took off in the manner suggested by his meteoric rise in his first two seasons. His failure in two Tests for England and a serious shoulder injury in 1923 damaged his reputation and his effectiveness respectively. By the mid-1920s he was little more than a supporting bowler for Yorkshire, and most of his success came against weaker teams. In fact, he was better known for his combative attitude — culminating in an incident in 1924 when his obvious dissent angered the Middlesex team and he was forced to publicly apologise — more than his wicket-taking ability. His form declined to such an extent in 1926 and 1927 that Yorkshire informed him that he would not be required regularly in their first team. Rather than accept an offer to play when required on reduced financial terms, Waddington chose to retire from first-class cricket; and after three seasons playing professionally in the leagues, he retired from all forms of the sport in 1930. Yet that was the start of a whole new life for Waddington, in which he became a very wealthy and very influential man.
Although Waddington was no longer directly associated with Yorkshire, he was a thorn in the side of the Committee over financial matters. Trouble first arose over the matter of a grant of £1,000 which he had been given on his retirement from the team, awarded through a provision in the regulations for Yorkshire players — long-serving players who had not had a benefit were generally given at least £50 for each season they had played. Waddington had not been granted a benefit before his release. In 1931, he wrote to the Committee after he was required to pay income tax on the grant, asking them to help. Yorkshire “regretted that this could not be done.” Waddington, as had been the case with umpires, did not accept their decision meekly.
Of his £1,000, £450 had been awarded based on the terms in the players’ regulations while the Committee gave him a further £550 which they had decided to invest on his behalf as was their practice with benefit money. In April 1931, Waddington requested that the remaining £550 should be given to him. He had taken legal advice on the matter, and the Yorkshire Finance Committee consulted their own solicitors, only to be told that Waddington was within his rights to request the money, which was not covered by the same rules as benefit funds in the regulations for players. Therefore, it was handed over, doubtlessly with some reluctance. But there may have been repercussions; two players still in the Yorkshire team, George Macaulay and Edgar Oldroyd, seem to have drawn some inspiration from Waddington’s stand and over the following seasons tried to challenge the Committee over their benefit money — of which two thirds had been invested and of which they legally had no control (a provision to which they had agreed when they became first played for the team). But their attempts to take what they regarded as theirs were unavailing; in Oldroyd’s case it almost certainly resulted in the ending of his Yorkshire career, and for Macaulay it led to serious financial hardship as he mismanaged what money he had.
The visit to Hedley Verity’s grave in 1954. Left to right: Alec Bedser, Vic Wilson, Len Hutton, Bill Bowes, Bob Appleyard, Bill Edrich and Abe Waddington (Image: A still from a film shot on Bill Bowes’ camera, via @fredfertang on Twitter)
Yet if Waddington’s victory over Yorkshire in 1931 was the end of his formal involvement with the team, and if his playing days were over, it was not the end of his involvement in cricket because in later years he enjoyed a status which, in reality, far eclipsed his achievements on the field. His comments and opinions regularly appeared in the press. After being part of the 1920–21 MCC team, he visited again in 1936–37 (when he was quoted in the Australian press praising Donald Bradman; he revealed that Wilfred Rhodes had spoken to him in 1930 about how good Bradman was, but he had only been convinced after seeing for himself) and was featured in several newspaper stories (including one that suggested he planned to watch a Test match from Sydney’s famous “Hill”). He visited again at some point in 1952, and accompanied the MCC team that toured Australia in 1954–55, at the invitation of Len Hutton, the England captain; en route, he spoke at a brief informal ceremony at the grave of Hedley Verity in Sicily and laid a bunch of white roses, held together with Waddington’s old Yorkshire tie (although reports vary on the number of roses). A newspaper article from that time indicated that it was Waddington’s fifth trip to Australia, including his visit as a player. In fact, he seemed to make quite the impression in Australia; in 1953, the Australian former cricketer Jack Fingleton (by then a journalist) wrote: “Abe … has a warm spot for Australians, and Australians have for Abe.”
An article by Martin Howe in the Yorkshire Yearbook for 2010, for which the author spoke to his subject’s nephew and great-nephew, suggests that Waddington remained close to Emmott Robinson, Maurice Leyland and Herbert Sutcliffe. And players of the next generations — including Len Hutton and Fred Trueman — knew him and had their own stories about him.
But Waddington had quickly moved on from cricket, and by the 1930s his interests were varied. Even while he was still a cricketer, he had made a mark in other sports. In the early 1920s, he played football as a goalkeeper during the English winters. But in contrast to his cricket career, Waddington only ever played football as an amateur. Although he was registered with Bradford City for the 1920–21 season, he did not play a game — quite possibly because he spent most of the winter in Australia — but his form for the Bradford Reserve team the following season interested Halifax Town, and he signed for the latter team. In the remainder of the 1921–22 season, he made seven first-team appearances for Halifax in the football league (Division Three North), but he never quite managed to displace the first-choice keeper Herbert Bown. In late 1921, he also began to play for the Yorkshire Amateurs. His fiery temperament occasionally emerged in this sport too; in November 1922, he was sent off in one match for Halifax against Rotherham County Reserves for fouling an opposition player.
He was also a proficient golfer, a sport he first took up in the early 1920s. He noted in 1926 that, had he taken golf seriously ten years earlier, he would have been tempted to take it up professionally. Within a few years, his golfing handicap was as low as three, and by the early 1930s he was a scratch golfer. And in the 1930s, he played many golf tournaments as an amateur; he played in the Open Championship (possibly only in the qualifying rounds) and was good enough to represent Yorkshire. In his 1935 autobiography, Herbert Sutcliffe wrote: “[Waddington’s] golf style — he turned to golf with some distinction — is just as good. Two or three of the leading English golfers have told me that Waddington’s style is equal to the best, and they have added that he would almost certainly have made a great golfer had he started golf when he started cricket.” But Sutcliffe added that these players also revealed that Waddington could play brilliantly for “several holes” before losing concentration and he “lapses into mediocrity” after starting well. But Waddington’s skill was such that there were rumours — which he denied — that he planned to take up golf after finishing with cricket. And yet golf also drew his wilder side; Howe noted: “He was banned from a Bradford golf club for pouring a glass of beer over the captain who had used smutty language in the presence of a lady member”.
Abe Waddington (second from left) playing golf in the West Yorkshire Golfers’ Competition in 1927 (Image: Leeds Mercury, 9 March 1927)
His love of cars — he received his driving licence in 1911 — and fast driving brought him further trouble, not least on a few occasions where he seems to have mixed alcohol and driving, although sometimes it is hard to be certain of the cause. For example, in early June 1921 he offered Derbyshire’s Arthur Morton a ride on his new motorcycle during Yorkshire’s game against Derbyshire. As reported in the Derbyshire Courier: “After playing in Wednesday’s county match, at Hull, [Morton] was riding in the side-car of the motorcycle of Waddington, the Yorkshire cricketer, and when turning a corner they had pull up suddenly to avoid an approaching motor-car. The machine was upset and the men were thrown out.” Waddington was unhurt, but Morton broke a rib which forced him to miss eight weeks of the season. Around a month after this accident, Waddington was fined three-and-a-half for speeding, although he denied in court that he had been driving at the “thirty to thirty-five miles per hour” claimed by the police. As he was fined in Hull, this might have been connected to the accident involving Morton.
In 1938, he found himself in more serious trouble when he was fined £5 at Bradford for assaulting a police constable. Two policemen — the constable and a sergeant — had encountered Waddington sitting in the driver’s seat of a stationary car in Bradford at 3:45am with his headlights lit. They asked Waddington twice to switch them off but he refused and only dipped his headlights. When they informed Waddington he would be reported, he struck the constable on the chest. The policemen moved away, only to notice Waddington following them and a man who had been a passenger in the car, and who had tried to restrain Waddington, lying on the ground. According to the constable, Waddington “adopted a more friendly attitude, and attempted to kiss me, but then struck at me again.”
Waddington’s solicitor claimed that the prosecution case was exaggerated, and Waddington, although he admitted following the policemen, denied either striking nor kissing them. He accepted he was aggressive, but “not in a fighting way”. An assistant schoolmaster who had been present during the whole incident — the passenger in the car — said that he did not see Waddington strike anyone and when questioned if he had seen anything such as an attempt to kiss the constable, replied: “Good heavens, no!” He also said that he was on the ground because Waddington had nudged him when he was remonstrating with him, and he slipped from the edge of the kerb. Yet Waddington was found guilty and as well as £5 for assault, had to pay 5 shillings for having his headlamps lit and 4 shillings for the costs of his summons on a charge of using obscene language (which was dismissed under the Probation Act, presumably on the grounds that it was trivial compared to the assault charge).
Apart from the odd parking fine, such as one he acquired in Manchester in 1940, he seems to have avoided motoring trouble for some time, But in 1950, he received a twelve-month ban from driving under the influence of drink at midnight on a Saturday (albeit in a stationary car). He was also fined £50 and told that he was lucky not to receive a custodial sentence. His defence solicitor said that Waddington was suffering from “overwork, worry and insomnia”, had not eaten breakfast and had not eaten during the day and had been visiting a hotel just 300 yards from his house. He also claimed that problems with the gearbox made the car underivable; when found by police, it was diagonally across the footpath and resting against the gate of the house next to his own. Waddington was attempting to get it into gear.
Howe noted in his article that Waddington was a regular attendee at the Isle of Man TT races, but his interests were even more varied than that. He had a keen interest in horse racing and in the 1930s, he became a racehorse owner; he kept several horses at Doncaster and one (called Bruce) won five races in the mid-1930s. At the time of his visit to Australia in 1936, he had four horses actively racing. He also had become a pilot; he owned a Puss Moth aeroplane which he used to fly to horse races.
Waddington’s impressive standing is illustrated by his attendance at Wally Hammond’s first wedding, held at Bingley in 1929. This was a great social occasion and few cricketers were invited. One was Herbert Sutcliffe, an England team-mate of Hammond, but there was no obvious reason for Waddington to be there was he would only have played against Hammond a few times. The explanation might be found in the identity of Hammond’s wife, Dorothy Lister, the daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire textile merchant called Joseph Lister; perhaps he wanted another Yorkshire cricketer in attendance, particularly one who had influential connections in Bradford business. This was not the only example of Waddington’s status. In 1937, the operatic tenor Webster Booth visited Bradford and stayed with Waddington; his stay was unexpectedly prolonged when he fell ill and he spent time with Waddington recuperating.
This lifestyle is the best indication that after leaving cricket, Waddington had become a very wealthy man. Arthur Mailey noted in 1937 that Waddington could now visit Australia and “engage a suite of rooms at palatial hotels”, while Jack Fingleton in 1953 observed how he was “most lavish in his hospitality”. Waddington told an Australian newspaper in 1936 that his success had arisen because “I always worked in the winter … Quick brains developed on the cricket field help a great deal in business. It is the only game that develops the brain.” Yet he was being somewhat disingenuous; his wealth came because in 1929, following the death of his father Sam, he had taken over the running of the family business. Waddington’s father left an estate worth £18,535 (approximately £1.2 million today), to be administered by Waddington and his younger brother (also called Sam), who were listed in the records as “bone boilers”, which was the family business. And it was this business that took up most of Waddington’s life after his cricketing retirement.
P. Waddington and Sons was a fat refiner which processed animal waste from butchers and from abattoirs. When Sam Waddington senior took over, he invested heavily to turn it into a successful business and under Abe, working with his brothers Sam and Priestley, it seemingly went from strength to strength in the 1930s. Yet the website of the company (which still operates today) makes no mention of him; this might be because of the distraction of his cricket career, which hardly helps a modern business. But it might reflect what happened during the Second World War, which nearly brought disaster to Waddington and the family business.
On the 1939 Register, taken on the outbreak of war, Waddington was listed as a “Master Fat Refiner”, an agent of the Ministry of Food, and the area chairman of the Advisory Committee. In fact, he had been appointed chairman of the North Eastern Division Advisory Committee for the Control of Oils and Fats, an unpaid but important role. It was a considerable rise for a former professional cricketer who had been reprimanded for daring to address an amateur by his first name, or forced to make a grovelling apology to the cricket authorities for dissent.
But although no action was taken until the end of the war, something about Waddington’s actions aroused suspicion. In 1946, he was charged with conspiracy to defraud the Ministry of Food and with corruption. As chairman of the North Eastern Division Advisory Committee, one of his responsibilities was arranging the storage of fats, and one of the businesses which he used was called C and S Parkinson of Sowerby Bridge. Around the New Year in 1943, Waddington informed the Ministry of Food that Parkinson’s was requesting an increase in its fees; he sent a letter, supposedly from Parkinson’s, making the claim. After some back-and-forth, the Ministry agreed to pay slightly more for rent, but it later emerged that the letter was a forgery. There had been a letter, but the one sent to the Ministry requested a greater increase than one typed by a secretary at Parkinson’s.
It also emerged, by accident, that although the Ministry had sent £6,338 allocated to Parkinson’s for rent, Waddington’s firm had only paid them £4,824. When the case went to trial in March 1946, the prosecution alleged that this amount — which accounted for the increase of 2d (pence) awarded to Parkinson’s by the Ministry — was kept by Waddington and the manager of Parkinson’s and split between them. Waddington denied all knowledge; his brother Priestley, another director at the family firm, said that he had allocated the money from the increase to his own firm and to Parkinson’s director without Waddington’s knowledge. At this point, the judge intervened, ruling that there was no way that it could be proven that Waddington had known of the alteration to the letter, or that he was in any way responsible for where the extra 2d went. His co-defendant was found guilty the next day and sentenced to twelve months in prison; remarks by the judge suggested that this was not his only such offence of defrauding the taxpayer during the war. But if Waddington was not guilty, it is hard to believe that he did not know anything of what was going on. Nor was it ever clearly established who had typed the fake letter which produced the increased amounts. Even if the judge ruled that it would have been impossible to prove, it must have cast a certain shadow over Waddington. It might not be a coincidence that the following year, the family firm became a public limited company, although Waddington continued to be a director. But whether he enjoyed his responsibilities is unclear, given that at the time of his driving ban in 1950, he was supposedly suffering from “overwork, worry and insomnia”.
The wedding of Abe Waddington in 1952; he and his new wife are toasted by former Yorkshire team-mates. Left to right: Herbert Sutcliffe, Abe Waddington, Doris Waddington (formerly Garforth), Maurice Leyland, Brian Sellers. (Image: Yorkshire County Cricket Club (1997) by Mick Pope)
Away from the world of work and sport, Waddington’s personal life was fairly straightforward. He was married twice. His first wife was Mabel Fawell, whom he married in some secrecy at St Paul’s Church in March 1925. Her father was a Bradford businessman. Both sets of families were present but the attendance was small; when Waddington was asked why no Yorkshire team-mates attended, he told reporters that they did not know he was to be married. The couple never had any children. Mabel died in 1951; ten months later, in 1952, Waddington married Doris Garforth (née Copley), a divorced woman from Mirfield. This attracted more publicity, and was attended by several of Waddington’s former Yorkshire team-mates. Waddington arranged for the service at Bradford Registry Office to begin an hour early to escape photographers, as the wedding had been previewed in the press. The couple spent their honeymoon in Australia; his wife also accompanied him when he travelled there with the cricket team in 1954–55.
The couple continued to live in Bradford (at a house called “Rose Neath” on Pearson Lane, where he had lived since the 1940s) until 1959, but Waddington’s final years were blighted by illness. He died in a Scarborough nursing home, having been ill for “some time” according to newspapers, on 28 October 1959 at the age of 66. No cause of death was ever given, but he was cremated at Scholemoor Crematorium in Bradford. He left an estate worth £24,653 (the equivalent of around £600,000 today) and a second home at Reighton Gap, between Filey and Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast.
Opinions of Waddington as a cricketer tended to be qualified. Jim Kilburn, for example, wrote that “at his best, he was a magnificently hostile bowler with one of the most beautiful actions ever seen in cricket, and his pace and break-back were a problem for the greatest of batsmen”. A nice tribute, but those first three words were the key to Waddington’s cricket. Leslie Duckworth said: “Yes, a man of temper, Waddington, but a fine cricketer.” And it was the first part of his tribute that most people remembered in later years. Waddington made little impact on the cricket field in the end. His Test record was poor (albeit arising from unfavourable circumstances) and while his overall bowling figures look excellent in isolation, they were dwarfed by his Yorkshire contemporaries such as George Macaulay (1,837 wickets at 17.65) and Roy Kilner (1,003 wickets at 18.45) or his successors Bill Bowes (1,639 at 16.76) or Hedley Verity (1,956 at 14.90). Too often, he was the weak link in the attack.
But Waddington was more than just a cricketer; his unusual status as a professional whose family was independently wealthy perhaps fuelled the confidence that allowed him to stand up for himself and which caused the establishment to view him as “difficult”. His wealth made him independent and allowed him to live in some luxury after his retirement. But his later life — the incidents with police, drama with cars and those mysterious events during the Second World War — reveals that he perhaps had his own demons; how much of this arose from his wartime experiences we will never know. An article by Mike Atherton (who has written several times about the death of Major Booth in the First World War) in The Times in 2020 said, of Waddington’s own injury: “As he was dragged away to safety, Waddington was haunted by the sight of the rats tearing away at Booth’s body in the shell hole, an image that stayed with him until his dying days.” Although Atherton gave no source, it is not difficult to believe. Perhaps it is this rather than his bowling figures that matter the most.
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