Johnny Lester: Philadelphia’s Renaissance Man
Martin Chandler |Published: 2026
Pages: 16
Author: Musk, Stephen
Publisher: Red Rose Books
Rating: 3 stars
I first encountered the name of John Lester some years ago when I first acquired a copy of his 1951 book on the history of Philadelphian cricket. A Century of Philadelphia Cricket is a bulky, well-produced history, and, because Philadelphian cricket had essentially died more than three decades before it appeared, remains as authoritative now as it was then.
The book having been published so long after cricket in the city faded away, I did not initially realise that Lester was part of the story himself. I quickly realised however that the J.A. Lester who had scored two first-class centuries was one and the same man. He was a more than capable slow bowler as well. All in all he played an important part in the heyday of Philadelphian cricket and was here in England on each of the three famous tours in 1897, 1903 and 1908, being comfortably the leading batsman on the first two.
This brief monographs comprises an introduction in which Musk gives some background and summarises why he feels the description Renaissance Man is justified for Lester. He goes on to describe his cricket career under a number of headings. Those are his cricket as a student, on each of the three England tours, in other First Class fixtures, in the domestic Halifax Cup and the (at that time) regular meetings between the USA and Canada in what is known as The International Series
Outside the game Lester was a schoolmaster as well as a writer, historian and publisher. Personally I tend to the view that those activities are, perhaps, all a little too inter-related for the term Renaissance Man to be used, but that is a minor point of contention as Lester was clearly a gifted man and this monograph does an excellent job of showcasing what he achieved in what was, stretching as it did long into its 98th year, a long lived that was very well lived.
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