Thomas Waymark
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Thomas Waymark (probably born 17 June 1705 at Mitcham, Surrey) was a famous English cricketer in the first half of the 18th Century. His career began in the 1720s and we have a mention of him in 1727. He was still playing in the 1740s and he was in the All-England team in the famous match at the Artillery Ground on 18 June 1744, for which the scorecard has survived.
See also: Thomas Waymark's likely birth record (the date and location strongly suggest that this Thomas Waymark was the famous cricketer).
Thomas Waymark was a groom by trade and was employed as such by his patron Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond. There was probably no shortage of capable grooms and it is fair to assume that Richmond employed Waymark because of his outstanding ability with bat and ball, Richmond being the foremost investor in cricket at the time. Richmond's teams were representative of Sussex as a county and the few reports in which Waymark is mentioned make clear that he was a star all-rounder, perhaps the first great all-rounder in the game's history.
For example, in the report of Mr Edward Stead’s XI v Sir William Gage’s XI at Penshurst Park on 28 August 1729, it states that "a groom of the Duke of Richmond signalised himself by extraordinary agility and dexterity". This was Waymark playing for Gage's XI who won the match by an innings.
In August 1730, a major match between the teams of Richmond and Gage was postponed "on account of Waymark, the Duke’s man, being ill". Assuredly this was not done out of sympathy for Waymark's condition, but because every major match in C18 was based on a wager and the betting on Waymark's expected contribution must have been so high that stakes would have to be repaid unless the game could be played when Waymark was fully fit. Unfortunately, we do not know if the game was eventually replayed.
By the 1740s, Waymark was apparently no longer in the Duke’s employ for we find him apparently working at Bray Mills in Berkshire; and he is given as a Berkshire resident and playing for the Berkshire XI or the London XI. Waymark seems to have ceased playing by 1750.
Nothing is known of his final years and we do not know when he died.
[edit] References
- At the Sign of the Wicket: Cricket 1742 – 1751 by F S Ashley-Cooper in Cricket Magazine (1900) (ASW)
- Cricket Scores 1730 - 1773 by H T Waghorn (WCS)
- Early Kent Cricketers by John Goulstone (EKC)
- Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket by G B Buckley (FL18)
- Fresh Light on Pre-Victorian Cricket by G B Buckley (FLPV)
- From the Weald to the World by Peter Wynne-Thomas (PWT)
- Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century by Timothy J McCann (TJM)
- The Dawn of Cricket by H T Waghorn (WDC)
