Arnold Warren photographed by George Beldam around 1906
Fast bowlers have always created excitement in the cricket world, and the modern game is no exception. For example, the Test debut of Jofra Archer in 2019 involved an electrifying passage of play during which he unsettled Steve Smith, one of the best batsmen in the world. There have been many other instances of extreme pace producing dramatic cricket. Therefore, the arrival of a new fast bowler is always a cause of anticipation and exhilaration. But even Archer’s England debut did not match that of a long-forgotten fast bowler from Derbyshire called Arnold Warren in the 1905 Ashes. He took five for 57 in Australia’s first innings including the wickets of the legendary Victor Trumper — the undisputed best batsman in the world — and three other top-six players. In the second innings he removed Trumper for a duck. And yet that was Warren’s only Test match. Who was Arnold Warren, and why was he dropped after such a spectacularly successful debut? The reasons are more complicated than they might first appear. Because Warren was many things: a builder, a cricketer, a footballer, a miner, an umpire. But most importantly for his sporting career, he was also involved in an assault that resulted in a two-month prison sentence.
Arnold Warren was born on 2 April 1875 in a Derbyshire village called Codnor which was closely associated with mining. He was the youngest of eight children. His father, John Warren, was a builder whose work still stands in the local area. Life cannot have been easy and the family faced challenges; for example, Warren’s sister died of tuberculosis in 1881. In the same year, his eldest brother John emigrated to Australia. By the time of the 1891 census, the 16-year-old Arnold was working as an assistant to his father but had already begun to have an impact as a cricketer. That year, he played his first game for the Codnor cricket team against Heanor and took six wickets. It may be from this time that one unusual detail of his career arose; Warren was always recorded on scorecards as “A. R. Warren”, although he had no middle name. Apparently the extra initial was to distinguish him from another “A. Warren” — a family member according to his obituary in the Cricketer, a local player according to CricketArchive.
Codnor Cricket Club in 1894: Warren is standing at the back, third from the left
(Image: Codnor and District website)
As a cricketer, Warren was fairly straightforward. At his peak, he was one of the fastest bowlers in England — arguably the fastest. His run-up was between twelve and fourteen paces, and his action was judged to be excellent. He had batting talent, but rarely succeeded in that sphere; possibly he lacked the discipline but it is equally likely that his team wished him to concentrate purely on bowling as there was a feeling at the time that allowing bowlers to improve with the bat impaired their primary function.
In 1897, Warren made his debut for Derbyshire and played a total of ten first-class games that season. However, he achieved nothing; he took just five wickets at an average of over 70 and scored 66 runs at an average a touch over five. After a heavy bowling workload in his first few matches, he was barely used with the ball and batted low down in the order. He might have played even more but for an injury, so Derbyshire apparently saw more than his figures suggested; equally possibly, a weak team had few other options. After this failure, Warren did not play in 1898 and was picked for just one game — in which he batted at number ten and barely bowled — in 1899. The census records that he returned to work for his father as a bricklayer in Codnor, but in the 1901 season he was recalled to the Derbyshire team, playing nine times, batting a little further up the order and bowling more regularly. His record remained poor; he took just nine wickets at an average of 67.55, and averaged around twenty with the bat.
Given that Warren was now approaching his mid-twenties, and even allowing for the fact that cricketers in this period generally emerged at first-class level at a later age than in today’s game, it may have appeared that his chance had passed. But he had another avenue to sporting success. He was also a good footballer, and this gradually became the dominant part of his life. In the late 1890s, he played for Heanor Town, a local non-league team. But his performances attracted interest at a higher level, and in November 1901 he was signed for Derby County which was playing in the First Division, the top level of English football at the time. Between November 1901 and January 1902, he played eight matches in the position of outside right and scored four goals. However, a loss of form dropped him to the reserve team in January and he never regained his place.
Later that year, Warren achieved a breakthrough of sorts as a cricketer. In the 1902 season, he took 49 wickets at 24.16 with best figures of seven for 70. His batting average was only thirteen, but he scored his first fifty at first-class level. Although it had taken five years, he had begun to repay some of the time that Derbyshire had invested into him. His upward trajectory continued throughout the year: in June, he married Ann Ellen Cater, the daughter of a local farmer, at Ironville Parish Church; in August, he signed to play football for Brentford in the first division of the Southern League.
The Athletic News in August 1902 covered this latter development in some depth, suggesting that Warren was a promising footballer, although it perhaps overplayed his case: “Quite the sensation was caused in football circles when it became known that Arnold Warren, the outside right of Derby County, had been induced to sign for Brentford. It no exaggeration to say that he would have been an acquisition to any team in the country as he is quite the most dangerous man in his position now playing. His dashes down the wing and lightning shots will be greatly appreciated”. With his place in the Derbyshire team secure, an opportunity to play more professional football, and his recent marriage, it appeared that everything was coming together for Warren.
Warren in the Brentford strip in 1902 (Image: Wikipedia)
Almost immediately, however, Warren the footballer threw it away. He played regularly for Brentford in the 1902–03 season, and scored several times. But by March 1903, he had once again lost form and a transfer had been arranged with Ripley Athletic. A few days before this went through, Warren was involved in an incident which brought him before the Police Court — which would today be known as a magistrates’ court — in April.
On the evening of 28 March, Warren had gone to the Castle Hotel in Brentford and, in the words of the prosecutor, appeared to “run amok”. He had arrived at the Castle Hotel, according to witnesses, with another Brentford footballer called Pickering and a man called Newsome; presumably these were George Pickering and Arthur Newsome, two other Brentford players. He had been drinking heavily and was heard arguing with Pickering about “getting drunk and being dismissed” from the club, and about the reasons he was leaving. While Newsome asked for some drinks, Warren began to use “filthy language”; it was so bad, one man “had to take his wife out”. Another man called Pearce asked him to stop using bad language, at which point Warren struck him. Pearce and the barmaids then complained to William Bird, the son of the landlord. Bird spent several minutes asking Warren to leave. After he continually refused, Bird “took hold of [Warren’s] shoulder and put him through a little door”. At this point, in the passageway outside the bar area, Newsome pinned Bird’s arms while Warren struck him and called him a “filthy name”. All those present rushed out into the passageway to see what had happened.
Bird’s nose was broken in several places; it was painfully reset that evening by a local doctor. A constable was summoned and wanted Bird to charge Warren, but he did not do so — claiming to be “dazed” and too busy bathing his nose, which was turned “completely round”.
On 3 April, Warren’s transfer to Ripley Athletic went through and he returned to Derbyshire immediately. Therefore he did not respond to a first summons to appear in court. While the prosecutor claimed that this demonstrated his contempt for the summons, even obliquely hinting that he had left Brentford to avoid it, Warren claimed that the date was smudged, causing him to mistake the day. He eventually was tried at Brentford Police Court on 17 April. Warren’s defence was that he had simply been trying to break free from Bird’s grip and had accidentally struck him with his elbow. He also claimed that he had been “insulted all night because he was leaving the football club.” The chairman of the court was unconvinced and found him guilty. For refusing to leave the premises, he was fined 40 shillings and for the assault, he was sentenced to two months’ hard labour. After hearing this, Warren somewhat sorrowfully said that Bird had told him that, had he only apologised, he would have taken it no further. The unsympathetic chairman merely observed: “You should have done so.”
Warren, however, decided to appeal. Having paid his fines and bail money, he was released just over a week later and was therefore available to Derbyshire for the 1903 cricket season. The prospect of going to prison did not appear to affect his cricket; he scored two half-centuries and increased his batting average to 15 while he took 72 wickets at 22.76. He also held 22 catches and established himself firmly in the team.
On 31 October, the Middlesex Quarter Sessions heard Warren’s appeal. More evidence emerged about what led to the incident. Warren denied the suggestion that he had been dismissed by Brentford because of heavy drinking; instead he claimed that an injury had reduced his effectiveness and therefore “his arrangement was amicably terminated”. As he had been due to return to Derby shortly, he had gone for a drink at the Castle Hotel, during which he and Pickering “had a little chaff as friends” which Pearce misinterpreted as a falling out. Under cross-examination, he reiterated that he had not been suspended for being drunk, but for “inattention to training” and denied being angry at the suspension (although earlier in the hearing he seemingly denied that he was suspended at all); in fact he had asked to be released previously. He also claimed that the injury to Bird had happened accidentally in a general skirmish in the passageway in which he himself had been hurt — a somewhat vaguer defence than at the original hearing.
Warren had three influential character witnesses: the vice-president of Derby County, who was also a Justice of the Peace and a Town Councillor; a Derbyshire Justice; and the secretary of Derbyshire Cricket Club. But despite several witnesses backing up his story, and even the police constable who had been summoned admitting that Warren looked like he had been “badly treated”, the appeal was dismissed with costs; the chairman of the appeal panel, who more than once hinted at his disapproval of footballers in general, said that “it was outrageous that people should go to a public house and make such disturbances”.
Whichever way the incident is examined, Warren does not come out of it looking good, particularly as he never disputed that he had hit Pearce before the scuffle with Bird. It also seems clear that, despite his protestations to the contrary, Brentford had suspended him, quite likely for heavy drinking. Perhaps Bird could have handled the situation a little better, but Warren was clearly drunk beyond the capacity for reasoning, and was largely responsible for whatever actually happened in the passageway. The result, although there is no record of when or where the sentence was served, is that Warren spent two months in prison doing “hard labour”. It is not clear whether he resumed his career with Ripley Athletic, but having been released by two high-profile clubs within a year, his chance of a career in top-level football was over.
It was after this that Warren the cricketer fully emerged. By the beginning of the 1904 cricket season, he was free to resume playing for Derbyshire. Whether he was inspired by the shock of spending time in prison, the end of his football career, or even the physical benefits of two months’ hard labour, he improved enormously. He took 124 first-class wickets — of which 101 were taken in the County Championship — at an average of 20.94, becoming in the process the first man to take a hundred wickets in a season for Derbyshire. His best performance came at Welbeck when he took fifteen for 112 on a wet pitch. He was certainly noticed — an article in the Athletic News called him the best fast bowler in England. His success did not simply arise from pace, although he was undoubtedly quick, but from an immaculate length and a “sharp breakback”. But the lack of recognition through selection for the Gentlemen v Players match may have betrayed a reluctance among cricket authorities to honour a man who had so recently been in prison.
Another problem for Warren was that he played for an unfashionable county. Derbyshire were only admitted into the official County Championship from 1895 and regularly appeared in the bottom third of the table. At this time, only two Derbyshire players — William Chatterton and Bill Storer — had played for England and the only home Test appearance by a Derbyshire cricketer had been by Storer in 1899.
But Warren’s form at the beginning of the 1905 season made him hard to ignore, even playing for lowly Derbyshire; ten wickets against Sussex — including C. B. Fry in both innings — and twelve against Yorkshire propelled him into the minds of the selectors. After the first two Tests of that summer’s Ashes series, England led Australia 1–0 having won the first Test and drawn the second when rain washed out the last day. For the third Test, played at Headingley, Warren was given his opportunity.
An illustration by Frank Gillet of Warren bowling in the Headingley Test match of 1905
On the first day of the three-day match, England scored 301 on a tricky pitch, thanks mainly to an unbeaten 144 from the captain F. S. Jackson. Warren made seven before being run out. On the second day, the pitch had dried out a little, giving it more pace, but it remained difficult for batsmen. Wisden remarked: “Thanks chiefly to Warren’s great pace Trumper, Hill and Noble, were all out in little more than half an hour for 36.” Trumper, the world’s best batsman, was bowled for eight but the Australians recovered to some extent. Warren later removed the Australian captain Joe Darling and then returned to finish off the innings for 195, taking the wicket of the top-scorer Warwick Armstrong and the last man Frank Laver. He finished with five for 57 from 19.2 overs, an excellent effort on his Test debut. The Wisden report said: “Warren carried off all the honours in bowling, maintaining a rare pace and making the ball get up very awkwardly.” Later, the ball used in the innings was mounted and presented to him by “his Derbyshire Friends and admirers as a souvenir” according to the inscription.
Building on their first innings lead of 106, England scored 169 for two before the end of the day, and extended this to 295 for five before Jackson declared on the final morning. Australia needed 402 to win in four-and-a-half hours (in which time England bowled 91 overs). Although Warren had Trumper caught in the slips during his first over for a duck, Australia batted out time for the loss of seven wickets. Warren took just the one wicket in 20 overs (although another chance was dropped from his bowling early in the innings) and Wisden records that “Warren had not the same pace as in the first innings”. Possibly his efforts on the previous day had left him tired, or maybe the Australians were just a little more careful. However, according to John Shawcroft’s The History of Derbyshire County Cricket Club (1989), William Taylor — a cricketer who played for Derbyshire in 1905 and 1906 and who served as the county’s Secretary from 1908 to 1959 — recalled that Warren was joined on the second evening by several friends and relations; their “epic celebrations” left him the worse for wear on the final day, to the dissatisfaction of Jackson.
The England team for the Headingley Test of 1905: Back row: George Hirst, David Denton, Arnold Warren, Colin Blythe, Arthur Lilley, Wilfred Rhodes and Schofield Haigh. Front row: Johnny Tyldesley, C. B. Fry, F. S. Jackson (captain), Bernard Bosanquet and Tom Hayward.
During the game, Warren also suffered an injury which kept him out of a few matches. He was absent when Derbyshire played the Australians, and had to drop out of the Gentlemen v Players match at Lord’s. However he was fit to play in the equivalent fixture at the Oval and took eight wickets but his form declined quite badly after this. Whether through his poor performance in the second innings at Headingley, his injury or the reports of his drinking, Warren was dropped from the England team for the fourth Test. Instead, his place went to another fast bowler, Walter Brearley of Lancashire who held the twin advantages of being an amateur and playing for a high-profile county. Although not as good a batsman as Warren, he was more consistent with the ball.
By the end of the season, Warren had taken 94 wickets at 24.54, an average almost four runs higher than the previous season. Nevertheless, he had made his debut for England, and in the Gentlemen v Players match. To set the seal on his year, in December Warren’s wife gave birth to their only son, Martin Warren.
The 1906 season proved disappointing — apart from one game for a weak “England XI” against the West Indian team that toured England in 1906, he was not selected in any representative cricket. In fact, apart from that one game, the remainder of his first-class cricket was played exclusively for Derbyshire. He took over a hundred wickets in 1906 albeit at a relatively high average, but it may have been that other things were on his mind. In late 1906, shortly after the conclusion of the cricket season, Ellen Warren died at the age of 29.
Warren, left with a young son to care for, moved back in with his father. His family presumably took care of Martin while Warren was away playing cricket. He took just 55 wickets in 1907 during a very wet summer dominated by spin bowlers but improved again, taking 105 wickets in 1908 and 99 wickets in 1909, averaging around 22 in both seasons.
After this, Warren gradually faded, but two performances stood out in these later seasons. His Wisden obituary many years later recorded: “In Warren’s own opinion his best performance was against Leicestershire at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1912. On turf which did not help bowlers, Leicestershire, needing 180 to win, were put out for 97, Warren dismissing seven batsmen for 52.” Later stories suggested that he drank several whiskies before his devastating spell. However, his most lasting achievement came with the bat in 1910. Against Warwickshire, he scored his only first-class century at Blackwell. Warwickshire had scored 504 for seven in their first innings and forced Derbyshire to follow on by bowling them out for 262. In the second innings, the home team had slumped to 131 for eight, still 111 behind Warwickshire, when Warren — who was battling an injury that restricted his batting — was joined by his captain John Chapman. The pair put on 283 for the ninth wicket which remains a first-class record at the time of writing, 110 years later. Warren eventually was out for 123, scored in 185 minutes with 14 fours.
One other incident made the news involving Warren; in 1911, he was injured in bizarre fashion when, opening a bottle of liquid ammonia, he was almost blinded by the fumes and spent several days in an infirmary to recover.
Arnold Warren in a posed photograph from around 1908 (Image: Wikipedia)
By 1912, apart from his whisky-inspired revival, his bowling had declined and he was into his late thirties. A combination of his loss of effectiveness, reputation for heavy drinking and a new captain at Derbyshire meant that he was dropped after a few matches in the 1913 season. This was the end of his regular career as a first-class cricketer, although he had a brief return after the First World War.
Shawcroft’s History of Derbyshire records that Warren had “a spell of destitution”, although no details or dates are given. If this did happen, it is unclear when: there were no gaps in his cricket career, and no press reports; potentially it happened when his playing career ended, but there is no indication of this.
Once his cricket career was over, Warren became a miner at Langwith Colliery. During the First World War, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in October 1915. Although he was technically too old, he reduced his age by two years when he applied; recruiters were not too worried about either upper or lower age limits by this stage. He served in France but was wounded by a shell in 1917 and sent back to England to recuperate from multiple injuries — including fractures in his spine and shoulder. He was discharged, having attained the rank of Lance Bombardier, in February 1919 and received a disability pension owing to problems with his shoulder.
Nevertheless, he was able to play cricket for the Langwith Colliery team in 1919. His form in 1920 was good enough for Derbyshire to recall him; he did well in two games, taking nine wickets for 143 runs, but Derbyshire’s problem that season was batting. Of their 18 County Championship games, they lost 17 and the other was completely rained off. That was the end of Warren’s first-class career: he finished with 5,507 runs at an average of 13.73 and 939 wickets at 24.55. Even many years later, he was remembered as one of the fastest bowlers to play for Derbyshire. It is tempting, although futile, to speculate what he may have achieved as a cricketer — and footballer — had it not been for his fondness for late-night drinking escapades.
Warren was not quite done with cricket, however, and in the 1920s began yet another career. For the 1923 season, he was appointed as a first-class umpire and spent four seasons on the County Championship list. He seems to have done the job efficiently enough and attracted no attention — which is always a good sign in an umpire. Later, he moved to Ormonde Colliery and worked occasionally as a bricklayer until his retirement in 1945, after which he continued to umpire local cricket and was the Honorary Secretary of Codnor Miners Welfare Cricket Club. He died in 1951 at the age of 76. He never remarried, and by the time of the Second World War, his son had moved to Australia, perhaps to join his uncle’s family there.
Old Ebor 
