The MCC Collection starts from 1826, the year when the Club’s first Pavilion was destroyed by fire and the original records of the Club were lost.
The first minute book, commencing from 1826, highlights this fact and goes on to document the transformation of the Club into a professional organisation responsible for administering the game. The MCC Collection consists of a variety of primary source material including scorebooks, minute books, members’ registers and correspondence, all of which are able to support key topics of interest to students, authors and researchers, not least Bodyline and the D’Oliveira affair.
Collectors and Collections
Since MCC first established a collection in the 1860s it has been fortunate to acquire collections from significant collectors and statisticians of the game; from the Ford scrapbooks of nineteenth century cricket ephemera donated to the Club in 1930 and currently on display in the Writing Room, to the working archive of the late Bill Frindall acquired in 2015 and the archive of the Women’s Cricket Association, acquired in 2018.
The Archive also comprises scrapbooks compiled by significant players from the game’s history; Lord Hawke, Pelham Warner and Gubby Allen to name but three.
About the Archive
The MCC Archive holds approximately 30 cubic metres of records relating to MCC, cricket and associated bodies. The archive includes records from the eighteenth century to the present day and can only be accessed at Lord’s.
The archive includes original volumes of the MCC minutes, original scorecards and scorebooks of MCC and England tours, MCC matches and matches at Lord’s, operational files relating to MCC departments, laws of lawn tennis, scrapbooks compiled by R A Fitzgerald, Pelham Warner and Gubby Allen, personal archives of F S Ashley-Cooper, Irving Rosenwater and Bill Frindall, and audio and visual material including the MCC Audio Archive – an interview project that commenced in 2003.
Details of the records catalogued can be found via the Club's online records, which can be viewed here. An overview of the records we hold can be found on the AIM25 website, available here.
Access to the Archive
Access to the archive material held at MCC can be viewed at the MCC Library (see above), which is open by appointment to researchers on non-match days throughout the year.
Researchers are advised to contact the Library prior to arranging a visit, as staff can provide information about the area of research you are interested in. Staff reserve the right to withhold access to records if the item requested is physically unfit for production.
Access to records under 30 years old is prohibited; access to records that date between 30 and 40 years require permission from the MCC Chief Executive & Secretary before access is granted. The MCC Archive policy with regards to copying and reproducing archive and library material can be found here.
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