Sir William Gage, 7th
Baronet KB (born 1695 in
Firle
, East
Sussex
; died 23 April 1744) was
the MP for Seaford from 1727 until
his death.
Sir William is best remembered for introducing
greengages into Great Britain from France and for
his patronage of
cricket in association with
his friend
Charles
Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond.
Greengages
The
greengage is named after Sir William
who is credited with introducing it to Great Britain in c.1724-25
when he obtained a supply from France.
Cricket career
Sir William was a keen
cricketer and patron
who led and backed
Sussex
county cricket teams. One of his teams has been credited with
the earliest known innings victory.
He was a close friend of
Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of
Richmond and it seems they had organised a number of cricket
matches before 1725 when their involvement first becomes clear
through a surviving letter that Gage wrote to Richmond in humorous
terms about cricket:
My Lord Duke,
I received this moment your Grace's letter and am extremely happy
your Grace intends us ye honour of making one a Tuesday, and will
without fail bring a gentleman with me to play against you, One
that has played very seldom for these several years.
I am in great affliction with being shamefully beaten Yesterday,
the first match I played this year. However I will muster up all my
courage against Tuesday's engagement. I will trouble your Grace
with nothing more than that I wish you Success in everything except
ye Cricket Match and that I am etc. etc.
W. Gage
Firle July ye 16th 1725
Sir William's name appears in connection with a number of matches
over the next few years but perhaps most notably with regard to his
game against
Edward Stead's XI on
28 August 1729. It seems that Sir
William's team won this game by an innings and, if so, it is the
earliest innings victory on record. A contemporary report states
that Sussex "got (within three) in one hand, as the former did in
two hands, so the Kentish men threw it up". Sir William was greatly
assisted by the outstanding play of
Thomas Waymark "who turned the scale of
victory".
In August
1733, Sir William's team challenged one backed by Frederick, Prince of Wales at
Moulsey
Hurst
for "a wager of 100 guineas". Sir William
was officially Lord Gage by then. The result of the match is
unknown but it featured "11 of the best players in the county on
each side" (i.e., it was Surrey v. Sussex). In September 1734, his
Sussex team played a
Kent team led by
Lord John Philip Sackville in the
earliest match recorded at
Sevenoaks
Vine. This was won by Kent. Apart from one minor fixture a few
years later, that is the last record of Sir William in a cricketing
context.
Family and personal life
The Gage
family were Roman Catholic recusants who purchased the baronetcy at Firle Place
from King James
I. Sir William himself did much to develop Firle Place,
including the external cladding of the building in the
Georgian style, using
Caen Stone.
Sir William died without issue aged 49 in April 1744. He was
succeeded to the
baronetcy of Firle
Place by his cousin
Thomas Gage who, in 1754, was
raised to the
Peerage of Ireland
as Viscount Gage.
References
External links
Bibliography
- H S Altham, A History of
Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin,
1926
- Derek Birley, A Social History
of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
- Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A
History of its Growth and Development, Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1970
- G B Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th
Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935
- John Marshall, The Duke who was Cricket, Muller,
1961
- Timothy J McCann, Sussex
Cricket in the Eighteenth Century, Sussex Record Society,
2004
- H T Waghorn, The Dawn of
Cricket, Electric Press, 1906
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