The Yorkshire Cricket Archive

The Yorkshire Cricket Archive and Collection is administered by and in the care of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation. Ranging across the entire history of cricket in Yorkshire, it consists of many different object types, including cricket equipment, clothing, textile and cricket-wear, Club records, photographs, memorabilia, and trophies and more.

It is the Foundation’s responsibility to care for and develop the history and heritage of the Yorkshire County Cricket club through its Museum and Archival collection, and to create inclusive, accessible and representative interpretative materials in its Museum for the public.

We look to do this by working to make our collection and archive accessible for all types of patrons, from museum visitor to academic researcher. We are working towards this goal through a number of projects, which you can find out more about here.

The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation is responsible for the care of all the artefacts that have been donated, purchased, loaned, or transferred to the Yorkshire Cricket Museum since its inception.

The Yorkshire Cricket Museum collects historic and contemporary cricket objects which are representative of the cricketing history of Yorkshire, including the county club, league clubs, and other clubs representing communities in Yorkshire.

We are currently in the process of applying for museum Accreditation through the Arts Council and are in the process of creating and implementing several Collections based policies for our work.

The Foundation primarily collects its material through donation. Due to limited areas of display within our museum, loans-in to our collection will be subject to our exhibition intentions.

The Foundation does not usually purchase items for its Museum and Archive collection.

When considering acquisitions, the Heritage department must consider the following criteria:

• The size of the item being offered and storage capacity.
• Conditions that may hamper or prohibit its usage (e.g., loan stipulations, copyright, conservation, etc.).
• Research opportunities provided by that object.
• Any preservation or conservational issues, and the capacity of the Yorkshire Cricket Museum to take on those items.

We are not currently collecting material into our Archive and Collection while we undertake a full inventory of our current collection.

The exception to this is as follows:

• Objects relating to women’s and girl’s cricket.
• Objects relating to South Asian cricket within Yorkshire.
• Objects relating to the modern cricketing era, covering all formats of the game.
• Objects relating to other community clubs within Yorkshire, including local league clubs.

If you have any objects which align with the above categories, please contact the Heritage team in the first instance.

In general, we would prioritise items which are:

• Rare or unique, which are not represented in our collection.
• Signed or inscribed items for individuals currently not represented.
• Evidential of international, county, league, or club heritage.
• Items with clear provenance.
• Items in Good to Excellent condition.

We are not currently accepting objects or archive into our collection unless they fulfil our current collection aims.

In general, we will not accept:

• Items which have a hazard or potential hazard (e.g. containing radon).
• Items which pose a threat to the care of the other objects within the collection (e.g. housing an active pest infestation).
• Objects which are too large for our storage facility.

Please note, that in line with our Collections Policy and Plan, we do not accept objects which have not been arranged for donation to the Heritage team.

Any items posted or left at the museum without agreement and the completion of the appropriate donation paperwork will be returned to the donor where possible.

If the owner is not able to be contacted, or the items sent remain in the possession of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation for four months, absolute ownership will be automatically transferred to the Foundation, and the Foundation will dispose of those items as it sees fit.

If you are an individual, a business, or another heritage institution that is interested in loaning an object into our museum, please contact the Heritage team.

Please note that we will not be taking long-term loans outside of the purposes of exhibition. If you are interested in your object finding a permanent home in our collection, please see the material above in regards to donation and gifting.

The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation will not sell any of its museum or archival objects to any member of the public.

These communications will not be addressed.

If you are interested in purchasing memorabilia, or have items you would like to sell, please contact websites such as Cricket Memorabilia.

Our collection in its majority is held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Morley, Leeds.

Our Archive colleagues at WYJS are where we will direct you for any research enquiry as our archive is not held at our Museum or offices at Headingley Stadium.

A part of our collection is available for public access at their service. If you are interested in finding out more, please see here for information about their opening times and services.

To find out more about the records they hold for us at their service, please see here.

The Heritage team will not give valuations or authenticate objects but will direct to other resources if possible.

CURRENTLY OPEN TO DONATE 2024 EDITION

We are proud to own a complete collection of The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack dating back to their founding in 1864.

To continue this, we are asking you to help our museum keep our collection up to date to purchase a hardback edition of this years edition: https://www.wisden.com/shop/wisden-cricketers-almanack-2024

There are two ways you could help us:

Donate online through our Just Giving – stating that you are donating to the Wisden collection fund here.

If you would like to donate the edition to us, please contact our Heritage team at: [email protected] 

Thank you!

We are proud to have complete collections of both the Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yearbooks, and the Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack (up to 2023).

These are available on request for on-site research in The Yorkshire Cricket Museum.

If you are interested in having access to this material, please contact us at:

[email protected]