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Sundries: Plum Warner, Imperial Cricket and George V

Plum Warner dedicated his tome ‘Imperial Cricket’ to His Majesty the King Emperor.

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Cartoon of George V in The Punch © Getty Images; Imperial Cricket (courtesy: abebooks); cartoon of Plum Warner in Vanity Fair © Getty Images
Cartoon of George V in The Punch © Getty Images; Imperial Cricket (courtesy: abebooks); cartoon of Plum Warner in Vanity Fair © Getty Images

1912. Plum Warner dedicated his tome ‘Imperial Cricket’ to His Majesty the King Emperor. Sadly, the monarch lost the first copy of the de luxe edition promptly on receiving it. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the incident.

Cricket may be known as the King of Games, but the actual royalty may be difficult to convince about the supremacy of the sport. So it must seem when we hear about what happened to Plum Warner and his massive tome on the game titled ‘Imperial Cricket.’

The book was published in 1912, even as Warner returned from the victorious Ashes voyage of 1911-12. Not that he spent a lot of time playing. Most of the tour was spent by him recuperating from illness as Johnny Douglas took over the captaincy and England triumphed 4-1 in the series. It was mainly due to the batting of young Jack Hobbs and the bowling of the duo SF Barnes and Frank Foster.

On his return Warner produced his account of the tour, imaginatively titled England vs Australia 1912. He also managed to rattle off this magnum opus called Imperial Cricket in the same year. He was a fast writer it seems.

The book was dedicated ‘by gracious permission to His Majesty, the King-Emperor’. The first copy of the de luxe edition was naturally presented to George V.

However, the monarch was not that impressed. Or it may be that having been handed a volume that weighed heavily on his hands, he was at a loss about where to put it down. Perhaps the royal garments lacked a pocket of the magnitude where the royal hands could stash the damn thing.

Whatever it was, the King apparently handed the book to the stationmaster at Sandringham. That was probably the last he saw of the copy. Perhaps when asked about feedback, he stammered, “Well, Mr Warner, you know, what with the Austrian Arch-duke Ferdinand being attacked and all that … well… but I promise you the moment the European condition gets better I’ll give it a … well … thorough reading.”

Years later it was discovered that in the stalwart footsteps of its author, this copy of the book had also made its way to Australia. Somehow it came to light in Brisbane, Australia.

By then Warner was past his cricket playing days and had also done his stint as the manager of the infamous Douglas Jardine-led Bodyline tour. I wonder if he wanted to revise Imperial Cricket after that 1932-33 tour.

If he had done any revision, I seriously doubt he would have dedicated or presented the first volume to any sort of royalty.

George V, however, passed away in 1936, 24 years after receiving the copy, and, by all evidences, without having read a page of the tome. By then Warner was known as the Grand Old Man of English cricket.

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