A record that has stood for nearly 116 years deserves recognition and you'd be hard pressed to find many who could've put a name and a face to it. So here he is!
Arthur Collins was born in Hazaribagh, India in 1885, but attended school in Bristol. He started at Clifton College in 1897, attending Clarke's House. Clifton College already had a weighty reputation for sport, particularly cricket. None other that W.G Grace attended the school, and latterly his sons. As well as cricket, Arthur was also represented the school as a boxer, and played rugby for the 1st XI.
There's some debate as to whether Arthur's parents survived his early childhood. In a 1999 article for the Telegraph newspaper, Tim Rice described Arthur as "an orphan boy" who's adopted parents lived in Devon. However, the 1901 census shows that Arthur's Mother Esther Ida Collins was still alive at that time.
Arthur was only 13 years old during the match in 1899 that immortalised him in the cricketing history books. He was captaining the Clarke's House side against North Town House on a ground at Guthrie Road, Bristol. The match was timeless, but was played in breaks between lessons. The school houses had 2 half-days scheduled for the match to complete, so the first ball was bowled at 3:30pm on Thursday 22nd June after the day's lessons were over. By the close of play on the first day (6pm), Arthur had already notched up his double ton. Admittedly this was helped by some rather generous fielding from the opposition as he was dropped on 50, 100 and 140. The next day brought 2 more hours play after lessons and again Arthur was in no mood to hang around. As the first hour concluded, the crowd was building as news of Arthur's innings spread around the school. After a dolly of catch was dropped by an poor unfortunate 11 year old named Victor Fuller-Eburle when Arthur was on 400, the previous world record of 485 was in sight. It was downed by 5:30pm. He finished the day on 509 undefeated out of a Clarke's House total of 680-8. By now the news of Arthur's exploits had not just travelled around the local area as, thanks to an article in The Times newspaper the next day, it was declared to the world that a world record has been set (they reported his name, age and overnight score incorrectly however!)
When the match recommenced after the weekend break, a large crowd was gathered to see just how high Arthur could reach. He was still unmovable on 598 not out at the end of the day, but wickets were steadily falling at the other end. Finally, after 25 minutes of play on the 4th day, the last Clarke's House batsman lost his wicket, leaving Arthur stranded on 628 not out after carrying bat for just over 7 hours of play.
The Times remained interested, giving a full report of Arthur's innings on the Wednesday, thus providing him with nationwide acclaim.
The match concluded rather quickly after this with the opposition being bowled out for just 87 in their first innings and a paltry 61 in their second innings, leading to a rather ignominious defeat for North Town House by an innings and 688 runs.
One of the scorers for the match was Edward Pelgar. He was quoted as having said after the match "The score was 628 plus or minus twenty shall we say". It seems it was all a bit much to take in even for the ones with the coloured pencils!
What has endeared me to Arthur the most is his story afterwards. Far from revelling in his new found fame, the schoolboy was reported to have mostly tried to distance himself from it in the proceeding years. It seems many of the national newspapers revered him in the next few years, creating an almost legendary status. Arthur was always going to be the boy who broke the record. One paper wrote "he has a reputation as great as the most advertised soap. He will be immortalised..". To be considered a legend at such a young age took its toll on Arthur, and the constant attention he courted proved to be too much for him by the time he left school. A reluctant hero, he was earmarked for great things in the game, but after finishing at Clifton he chose to pursue a military career, playing cricket sparingly. He did once play at Lord's representing the Royal Engineers in 1913, but never progressed further into First Class cricket.
During his time in the army he served in India, rising to the rank of Lieutenant in 1907 and then to Captain in 1913. He married in spring 1914. Sadly however, Arthur was unfortunate to be of the generation of young men in the prime of their lives at the outbreak of the First World War and, after only a few months of marriage, he was called to action at Ypres. He was killed on duty with the Royal Engineers on 11th September 1914 on the Belgian battlefields. He was 29.
Here's hoping that the future for Pranav Dhanawade is more prosperous. There will certainly be plenty of Indian eyes upon him in the upcoming years. I'm sure there are many cricket fans who may consider both Pranav's and Arthur's records quite perfunctory considering the rather loose definition of "an organised game of cricket". Both were at schoolboy level with opposition of questionable quality. I understand that these may not compare to for example, some of Brian Lara's modern day efforts, but I feel they fully deserve to stand side by side with the big boys. There's a wonderful human quality to both performances. They walked out the middle, casually broke world records, then went back to school again the following day. I certainly would never have contemplated being able to score that many runs in any of my school matches, even if the straight boundaries were only 15 yards in both directions (as was the case with Arthur's). My school record reads 34, 0, 0 and 0 not out in case you were wondering.
It evokes feelings of cricket being played the way we all wish we could hold on to throughout life - a joyful, uninhibited freedom- of-childhood way. It serves to remind you that cricket is indeed, just a game.
Any record that stands for 116 years deserves recognition, and although it seems he was ill at ease with this recognition, I believe the newspaper got it right. In cricketing circles at lease, he has been immortalised.
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