William Goldwin

William Goldwin (c.1682 – 1747 at Bristol) was an English schoolteacher and vicar who left his mark on cricket by creating the sport's earliest known work of literature.^[1] Goldwin, whose name is sometimes spelt "Goldwyn", wrote a poem of 95 competent and sometimes graceful lines of Latin hexameters on a rural cricket match.^[2] It was called In Certamen Pilae (On a Ball Game) and it was published in his Musae Juveniles in March 1706.^[3][4]

Little is known of Goldwin himself. He attended Eton and then graduated to King's College, Cambridge in 1700. He subsequently became a Master of Bristol Grammar School and was Vicar of St Nicholas' Church in Bristol until his death in 1747.^[5]

References

Notes

1. Birley, p. 15.
2. Altham, pp. 24–27.
3. Major, pp. 44–45.
4. Maun, p. 8.
5. Leach, John (2007). "From Lads to Lord's: 1706". Stumpsite. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2015.

Bibliography

• Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). George Allen & Unwin.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. HarperCollins.
• Maun, Ian (2009). From Commons to Lord's, Volume One: 1700 to 1750. Roger Heavens. ISBN 978-1-900592-52-9.