Paul Dyson looks at the careers of the three players whose last game for Yorkshire was in 1869 as well as a debutant from the same season. The image of Andrew Greenwood comes courtesy of Mick Pope.
Making his final appearance for the county in June, 1869 was a useful wicket-keeper – but who never kept for Yorkshire. Harry Verelst played for the county for the last time when aged only 22. He played, in all, in a total of 11 first-class matches but only three of these were for the county. Born near Birkenhead, then in Cheshire but now in Merseyside, he made his first-class debut in 1867 and represented the MCC prior to his games for Yorkshire against Surrey (twice) and Middlesex – two in 1868 and one in the following year. Playing as a steady middle-order batsman, he scored 66 runs in four innings. His amateur status enabled him to play for the Gentlemen in 1870 and his final first-class match was against Yorkshire (!) for I Zingari in the Scarborough Festival of 1878. Most of his club cricket was with Firbeck Hall but he lived for over 25 years at Aston Hall, where he died in 1918 at the age of 71, near Rotherham where he was a magistrate for 48 years.
The formation of Yorkshire CCC in 1863 came almost too late for George Anderson. Born in Aiskew near Bedale, North Yorkshire in 1826, he made his first-class debut in 1850 for ‘Yorkshire’ but in the following season represented not only the North but also the All-England XI. The period before 1863 was the most prolific of his career; he played in 75 matches in various parts of the country and culminated in him being chosen – as the only Yorkshireman – to take part in the 1863/64 tour of Australia and New Zealand. Anderson did not make any significant contributions with the bat he did suffer a great deal from sea-sickness on the 61-day voyage.
Anderson was one of the best batsmen of his era; strongly-built and tall, he had a free range of front-foot strokes and hit very powerfully on the leg-side. In each of Yorkshire’s first two seasons he came top of the batting averages; it was a time of unreliable pitches and his 19 games for the county produced 520 runs at 20.80. His highest innings – in all first-class cricket – was 99 not out against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1864 when he frustratingly ran our of partners after rescuing Yorkshire from being 72 for six.
Anderson’s final game for Yorkshire was also his last first-class match and came at the age of 43 just one month later than Verelst’s. He had scored 2,535 runs in his 99-match full career for all teams. He worked as a clerk but later became Actuary of Bedale Savings Bank and held the post for 21 years. One who also shone at billiards, he never strayed from his roots and died in the village of his birth in 1902 when aged 76.
The penultimate game of the 1869 season saw the final game for Yorkshire of Alfred Firth. It was actually his debut game as well so this amateur, born in Dewsbury in 1847, had an extremely short career. Unsuccessful it was, too, as he scored only four runs in his one innings. Heckmondwike, Scarborough, Leeds and Bradford were his main clubs and he died in 1927 in Wyke, Bradford.
The only player to make his debut for Yorkshire in 1869, other than Firth, was one who would play in Australia in each of the two games which later became known as the first two Test matches. This was during his second trip to the antipodes. Andrew Greenwood was aged 21 when he first played for Yorkshire in the first match of 1869, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, but it was his only appearance of that season.
