In My Mind's Eye Number 7: Arthur Morton (1883-1935)

Arthur Morton, from Mellor in the High Peak SOUNDED like a Derbyshire player.

It was his unfortunate lot to be born and become one at a time when we had a side that was as weak as at any point in history, to lose some of his best seasons to the Great War and to die in the December of the year before we became county champions.

All things considered, fate was not favourable to Arthur, but such blunt assertions mask the fact that he was a cricketer of considerable fortitude and ability. As a batsman he was dogged and diligent - you don't do aggression when the next collapse is only a wicket away. He was a man for a crisis, in much the same way that Fred Swarbrook would be years later, the averages similar, though Arthur was a right-hander. He was good enough to score six centuries, as well as 45 half centuries, the scorecards and reports of the period confirming that there was no real surprise in the partial or full resurrection of an innings when he was at the crease. Most of his runs came in front of the wicket, making him a firm fan favourite. He eschewed risk, but a bad ball was punished. He was a firm fan favourite, 'good old Arthur' and he was one of the few certain selections at a dark time in our history.

The Derbyshire batting was brittle, the onus on the bowlers, to give any chance of a win, to take wickets and concede as few runs as possible. That may sound a case of stating the obvious, but in the era after the war, until his retirement in 1926, there were rarely runs to play with. In his first-class career Arthur took 981 wickets and conceded around 2.5 runs per over. There were 63 five-wicket hauls and eleven ten-wicket matches, as he became an opponent to be respected, regardless of the quality of the rest. His partnership with Bill Bestwick, fast medium seam at one end and slow medium off spin at the other, was a precursor to the 'brimstone and treacle' of Bill Copson and Tommy Mitchell that enabled the success of the side a decade or so later. Contemporary reports say that he had 'several variations' with his off spin and he rarely failed to capitalise on favourable conditions.

Indeed, there were occasions when the two WERE the Derbyshire attack, such as at Worcester in 1921. The home side were dismissed for 214 in 95 overs shortly after tea, with Bill bowling 43 and Arthur 42 overs. It was far from a unique instance of Morton going above and beyond the call of duty. In 1914, against Yorkshire at Chesterfield he scored 50 in an all out home total of 68, in scoring 73.53% of the total setting a county record that is still to be beaten.

He made his first appearance in 1903 and there was a slow and steady improvement until he burst forth in 1910. Bestwick had been sacked for misconduct the previous year, leaving the attack even weaker, but Morton took 116 wickets that summer, a figure only previously beaten once in the county history. He chipped in with useful runs too and in the summer before war broke out, in 1914, passed a thousand runs in the season for the first time. There were just too many occasions when we needed another ten like him.

Only in two seasons, one of them 1919 when like everyone else he hadn't played for four years, did his bowling average exceed 23. He took 89 wickets in the awful summer of 1920, when Derbyshire failed to win a match and again took a hundred wickets in 1922. The output was reduced by a motorbike accident in which he suffered broken ribs in 1921, riding as a passenger on the motorbike of Yorkshire's Abe Waddington on the first evening of the fixture between the two sides at Hull. He was ruled out of the rest of the match, as well as several to follow and with Gilbert Curgenven also injured, the second innings amounted to only 23 runs. Bestwick, now returned, gave half of a recent collection to Morton to partially compensate him for lost earnings.

The two were good friends, Morton given the onerous task of keeping Bestwick out of trouble on away trips, a task he appears to have fulfilled with the diligent professionalism of his cricket, if not always with the same success. He was also a talented golfer and billiard player, becoming a respected first-class umpire when his playing days were over.

His bad luck continued in 1924, when his benefit match at Chesterfield was ruined by the weather and he earned 'only a couple of hundred pounds.' It would have been accepted with the shrug of the shoulders that supporters had come to know well.

He died at Mellor after a long illness on December 18, 1935. It was one week after being appointed to the list of umpires for what would become Derbyshire's championship season.

He would have enjoyed that. With 10,813 runs and 966 wickets in the county colours he had established himself as one of its finest all-rounders, as well as one of its most popular cricketers.

(Image sourced courtesy of David Griffin from the Derbyshire CCC Archive)