William Bedle (22 February 1679 (Julian) – 3 June 1768) played for Dartford Cricket Club and Kent county teams in the first quarter of the 18th century. He is the sport's earliest known accomplished player. He was born in Bromley but lived most of his life near Dartford, where he was a wealthy farmer and grazier.
Bedle's obituary in Lloyd's Evening Post dated 10 June 1768 states that he was "formerly accounted the most expert cricket player in England" (GB18, p.48). Rowland Bowen comments in his history (Bowen, p.48) that Bedle is the first known cricketer "who achieved great prominence in the game" and was thus "the first in a long line (of the best players in England) that must include Fuller Pilch, W G Grace, Jack Hobbs and Walter Hammond". As Bowen points out, this means that three things can be deduced: Bedle was a great player; the means of judging a player's prowess were then available; and Bedle's reputation lasted at least a generation after his playing career ended.
Given Bedle's date of birth, I tentatively give his career dates as 1697 to 1730. Dartford was "the greatest Kent team of the first half of the eighteenth century" (Underdown, p.43) and was often representative of Kent as a county. The Dartford club's website records that Bedle was "the first great player in cricketing annals" and "the earliest Dartford cricketer whose name has come down to posterity".
Few details of cricket matches in the 17th and early 18th centuries have survived and so what is known about Bedle's career has been pieced together by historical analysis, for the few contemporary newspaper reports rarely mentioned a player by name. The reason for this lack of surviving data is that freedom of the press was not allowed in England until 1696, when Bedle was 16, and the infant newspaper industry gradually introduced coverage of sporting events, though for many years their emphasis was on betting rather than on the matches themselves. During Bedle's career, cricket reports were not only brief but few and far between.
But, even without written record of his exploits, Bedle's reputation was known and shared by a public that was growing increasingly interested in cricket. As Bowen says, it is significant that he was remembered as the best player in England some forty years after his career ended.
It seems that Bedle was a gentleman farmer and therefore I assume he was a gentleman aka amateur cricketer. Perhaps he was the first of cricket's great amateur batsmen in a line that stretches through Beauclerk and Fry to May and Dexter. The bat he wielded was shaped like a modern hockey stick, this being the ideal shape for addressing a ball that was "trundled" along the ground, as in lawn bowls, and given that he was "the most expert player", he was certainly effective in the timing and variety of his strokes. He must have been proficient in the drive, which is the natural stroke to play using such a bat, and perhaps it was not only the timing but the placement of his shots that drew the admiration of his contemporaries. Bowlers in the 18th century used the underarm style exclusively but at varying pace and it is unknown if Bedle was a fast or a slow bowler; or if he bowled at all. The ball was either rolled along the ground or, by a fast bowler, skimmed across the surface; pitching was not introduced until about 1760.
Dartford was one of the two most successful clubs in England, its only rival being the London Cricket Club. Dartford's prowess is borne out by a 1723 journal entry recorded by the prominent Tory politician Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford:
''At Dartford upon the Heath (i.e., Dartford Brent) as we came out of the town, the men of Tonbridge and the Dartford men were warmly engaged at the sport of cricket, which of all the people of England the Kentish folk are the most renowned for, and of all the Kentish men, the men of Dartford lay claim to the greatest excellence.''
Records have survived of five matches involving Dartford or Kent teams against London or Surrey county teams between 1709 and 1724, the period in which Bedle was an active player. The earliest known inter-county match took place in the 1709 season between Kent and Surrey on Dartford Brent. The result is unknown. London hosted Kent at White Conduit Fields in August 1719 and July 1720, Kent winning the first and London the second. There were London v Dartford fixtures in July 1722 and June 1724. The former, played in Islington was the subject of a letter in The Weekly Journal dated 21 July 1722; the latter was the earliest known match at Kennington Common, near where The Oval is now sited. The results of these two matches are unknown.
According to the Dartford club site, Bedle lived near Dartford for most of his life and he was a wealthy farmer and grazier. His name, also spelled Beddel, is recorded on a tablet in Dartford Parish Church listing the bellringers of 1749. He died at his home near Dartford on 3 June 1768, aged 88.
Sources used:
- Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
- G B Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935 (GB18)
- Dartford Cricket Club, 2008
- From Lads to Lord's, 2007
- David Underdown, Start of Play, Allen Lane, 2000
- H T Waghorn, The Dawn of Cricket, Electric Press, 1906
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