Arthur Haygarth Reconsidered

Martin Chandler | 8:18am BST 12 May 2024

Published: 1997
Pages: 41
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Christopher Saunders
Rating: 4 stars

The life of Arthur Haygarth was one spent totally immersed in cricket. When he wasn’t playing the game or coaching it he was collecting scores and biographical information about cricketers on an industrial scale.

In 1862 the first volume of Scores and Biographies appeared. By 1895 there had been thirteen more covering the period from 1746 to 1878, and Haygarth had additional material that would enable to take the format on for another twenty years.

By 1997, when Rosenwater published this tribute to Haygarth, the material that was left behind had taxed the talents of many, but had only produced one more book, a selection of biographies put together by Ashley-Cooper in 1925.

Rosenwater, naturally, was a great admirer of Haygarth, and for the purpose of this monograph  thoroughly researches not only Haygarth himself but the monumental Scores and Biographies series as well. The book was never a bestseller but, as the cornerstone of many a book on the history of the game, the story of the book itself is as interesting as that of the man who put it together.

All the game’s historians and writers have had cause to be grateful to Haygarth for over 150 years now, and likewise Rosenwater, and he closes with the tribute when we talk of S&B, let us remember not only its 10,000 pages but also the lifetime of devotion that went into their making.

Six years after Arthur Haygarth Reconsidered was published a sixteenth volume of Scores and Biographies appeared, thanks to Roger Heavens, and in the years since another six have followed, so we are now up to 1885. I do find myself wondering what Rosenwater would have thought of that sort of dedication to the Haygarth cause.

A prickly character Rosenwater may have been, but I would like to think he would have recognised and lauded Heavens’ efforts, although I may be wrong. As he always did Rosenwater relied exclusively on his own research for Arthur Haygarth Revisited when, for once, a degree of co-operation might have helped him, and I understand he never looked at the 16th volume of Scores and Biographies, published by Heavens a couple of years before Rosenwater’s death.  

In any event Haygarth is a fascinating character, and a man who certainly shouldn’t be forgotten. This is an excellent portrait of the man and, as it appeared in an edition 100 copies, is one of the easier to find Rosenwater monographs. It is highly recommended.