Alfred Mynn was an English
cricketCricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er during the game's
"Roundarm Era"In cricket, roundarm bowling is a style that was introduced in the first quarter of the 19th century and had largely superseded underarm bowling by the 1830s. Using a roundarm action, the bowler has his arm extended at about 90 degrees from his body at the point where he releases the ball...
. He was a genuine all-rounder, being both an attacking right-handed batsman and a formidable right arm fast bowler. The noted cricket writer
John WoodcockJohn Charles Woodcock OBE is an English cricket writer and journalist.He was born at Longparish, Hampshire, where he still lives, and was dubbed "the Sage of Longparish" by Alan Gibson. He is a co-author of the Longparish Village Handbook. Woodcock attended Trinity College, Oxford, and won hockey...
ranked him as the fourth greatest cricketer of all time.
Simon WildeSimon Wilde is an English cricket journalist and author. He has written for The Times and The Sunday Times since 1998, and is currently the latter's cricket correspondent...
wrote of him: "The speed at which Mynn bowled... and his life-size personality captured the imagination of the public in a way no cricketer had before."
Mynn was born at Twisden, near Goudhurst in
KentKent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, the fourth son of a gentleman farmer. He was a hop farmer, and was married to Sarah, in 1828. They had many children, five of his daughters survived to adulthood and Sarah Mynn outlived her husband by twenty years.
He was a very large man by any standard, bearing comparison with WG Grace. He was well over six feet tall and weighed more than 21 stones (294lbs). He was known as "the Lion of Kent" and it was for Kent that most of his greatest feats occurred, though he also played a substantial number of matches for Sussex,
MCCMarylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
and the
All-England ElevenThe All-England Eleven was an itinerant all-professional first-class cricket team created in 1846 by Nottinghamshire cricketer William Clarke. Widely known by its acronym AEE, it took advantage of opportunities offered by the newly developed railways to play against local teams throughout Great...
(AEE). His brother, Walter Parker Mynn, was also an early cricketer with the Kent team.
Alfred Mynn's "first-class" career, which excludes most of his AEE appearances, was from 1832 to 1859. He played in 213 first-class matches.
As a batsman he had 395 innings including 26 which were not out. He scored 4,955 runs at 13.42 with a highest score of 125*. He made only one century, scored for South v North at Leicester in 1836. As a bowler he was fast with a round arm action. With his arm never getting above shoulder height he was obliged to bowl around the wicket. William Caffyn described the field Mynn would bowl to. The wicket keeper would be stood up, as was the custom. There would be a long stop on the boundary behind him. There would two slips, one close in and one a fly slip. Point was slightly forward and cover point almost behind him. There would be a short leg and a long leg. Mid off and mid on were level with the bowlers wicket and no one was behind them, an indicator of Mynn's great pace.
Fred Gale in "Echoes from old Cricket Fields" (Simpkin and Marshall 1871), wrote
"I must see another man who stands six foot two, of gigantic but symmetrical figure, standing up his full height, taking six stately steps to the wicket, and bringing his arm round well below the shoulder, and sending the ball down like a flash of lightning dead on the wicket, before I can ever believe there is or has been a greater cricketer than Alfred Mynn".
Mynn suffered an ankle injury before the famous 1836 match. He batted with a runner and was unable to bowl. Leg guards had not yet been invented and as he made his hundred in the second innings his legs were badly bruised by the Northern fast bowler Sam Redgate. Mynn's captain,
Lord Frederick BeauclerkLord Frederick Beauclerk was an outstanding but controversial English first-class cricketer for 35 years from 1791 to 1825. On his retirement, he served as president of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1826.Beauclerk was the fourth son of the 5th Duke of St Albans and became a clergyman. He was Vicar...
sent him back to London laid out on the top of a stagecoach.
Dr Bainbridge of St Martin's Lane and Surgeon Lawrence attended him at the Angel Tavern and debated whether his leg should be amputated. When told he would lose his leg at the hip, Mynn, a sincerely religious man, asked for a few minutes to say his prayers. In those minutes the doctors decided not to operate and instead had him sent to
St Bartholomew's HospitalSt Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, is a hospital in Smithfield in the City of London, England.-Early history:It was founded in 1123 by Raherus or Rahere , a favourite courtier of King Henry I...
. After two years convalescence, he fully recovered.
After this injury there is some evidence that Mynn wore padding on his game leg. There is no conclusive evidence that he invented leg guards as worn by modern cricketers although there was an anecdote about WG Grace being presented with a pair of Mynn's pads and using them in a match. This story dates from Fred Gale's book "The Game of Cricket" (1887), published many years after the end of Mynn's career.
In addition to his century, Mynn scored 12 fifties and took 125 catches. It should be remembered when studying the batting records of players in this era that prevailing conditions greatly favoured bowlers.
Even with that in mind, Mynn's
known bowling figures are still impressive. He took at least 1,038 wickets for 3,261 known runs at the outstanding average of 10.22. The number of overs and maidens he bowled is unknown and neither is his best analysis except that it was a 9 wicket haul. Mynn is known to have taken five wickets in an innings on 93 occasions and 10 wickets in a match 34 times.
Mynn's finances were never sound. He played as an amateur and a gentleman and risked social disgrace each time he accepted money for playing. He was imprisoned several times for debts owed to John Wyatt, a money lender, in 1845. He was made bankrupt in that year. Often he was saved from his creditors by wealthy patrons who wanted him free to play in a match they had an interest in. It is possible he had extensive medical bills to settle after the injury to his leg. The situation was eased in 1847, by the award of a testimonial match at Lord's between Kent and "England".
Mynn was also an enthusiastic amateur actor, appearing for the Old Stagers during Canterbury Week. He took regular minor roles from 1847 until his death. He generally played strongmen such as Hercules. In 1853 the
Kentish GazetteThe Kentish Gazette is a weekly newspaper serving the city of Canterbury, Kent. It is owned by the KM Group and is published on Thursdays.-History:The newspaper claims to be the second oldest surviving newspaper in the United Kingdom....
noted his appearance as "The Grand German Water Drinker" when he imbibed "no less than 12 tumblers of water in as many half minutes."
He died suddenly at his brother Walter's house at 22 Merrick Square, Newington near
SouthwarkSouthwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
, London. The cause of death was diabetes. As a member of the Leeds and Hollingbourne Volunteers, a rifle corps which was a forerunner of the Territorial Army, he was entitled to a military funeral. He is buried in Thurnham churchyard next to two of his daughters.
William Jeffrey ProwseWilliam Jeffrey Prowse, often known as Jeff Prowse was an English journalist, poet, humorist and lyricist. An only child born in Torquay, Devon, he resided with his uncle, shipbroker John Sparke Prowse in Greenwich, following the death of his father in 1844 when Prowse aged eight, and inherited...
wrote what was to become one of the most famous pieces of
cricket poetry-Poetry:The sport of cricket has inspired much poetry, most of which romanticises the sport.-At Lord's:Francis Thompson wrote the following poem, At Lord's:-Poetry:...
in his memory. The first six stanzas compare Mynn with his contemporaries. The poem closes with these lines:
- With his tall and stately presence, with his nobly moulded form,
- His broad hand was ever open, his brave heart was ever warm;
- All were proud of him, all loved him. As the changing seasons pass,
- As our champion lies a-sleeping underneath the Kentish grass,
- Proudly, sadly will we name him - to forget him were a sin.
- Lightly lie the turf upon thee, kind and manly Alfred Mynn!
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