1757 English cricket season

The 1757 cricket season was the 160th in England since the earliest known definite reference to cricket in January 1597 (i.e., Old Style – 1598 New Style). Details have survived of two important eleven-a-side matches and of no single wicket ones.

Contents

• Important matches
• Additional reading
• References

A match in September between Wirksworth and Sheffield at Brampton Moor, near Chesterfield, is the earliest reference to cricket in Derbyshire. Although cricket is known to have been played in Sheffield since 1751, this may be the earliest indication of the Sheffield Cricket Club from which Yorkshire County Cricket Club eventually evolved.

The following reference is contained in William White’s History & General Directory of the Borough of Sheffield (1833). In his introductory history, Mr White says: In 1757 we find the Town Trustees attempting the abolition of brutal sports by paying 14s6d to the cricket players on Shrove Tuesday "to entertain the populace and prevent the infamous practice of throwing at cocks". He does not give the primary source from which he himself derived the information but it would likely be in parish or town records of some kind which may or may not still exist. There is a reference to the same in Waghorn who quotes his source as the much later Records of the Burgery of Sheffield (1897) by Jno. D Leader (p. 382) which dates the contract as 6 February 1757 (which may have been a Julian date as 6 February 1757 in the Gregorian Calendar was a Sunday).