American Cricket: The Story of St Paul’s School 1856-1902

Martin Chandler | 8:28am BST 24 May 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 79
Author: Smith, Steve
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3 stars

I have to say at the outset that this is one of the most peculiar subjects for a cricket book that I have ever encountered being, as it is, a partial history of a school that is located in the US state of New Hampshire. St Paul’s is however clearly a prestigious establishment, and numbers amongst it’s alumni Presidential nominee John Kerry and publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

By the time Kerry attended the school cricket was long gone from its sporting curriculum, but it may be that Hearst, whose fortune came primarily from the sensationalist end of the newspaper market, might have wielded the willow during his time at the school.

When the school began its existence, in 1856, the man in charge was a Henry Augustus Coit who, despite being an American, was a great Anglophile and therefore he ran the school along the lines of an English public school and that, of course, meant cricket.

Coit’s efforts would have been long forgotten had it not been for his employing, in 1882, Samuel Morley. A successful coach in England Morley was employed by Coit to coach cricket and remained in post for 20 years before retiring in 1902.

The measure of Morley’s success is in the school’s two tours of Philadelphia in 1890 and 1891. In the first of the two tours the leading Philadelphian clubs did not play their full teams against the schoolboys, and in doing so seriously underestimated the strength of St Paul’s cricket. They learnt their lesson for the following year.

Those tours were the peak. Coit died in 1895 and cricket ended at the school with Morley’s retirement in 1902 but the story of how the game flourished for much of the almost fifty year period referenced in the title is certainly worth reading, even though I suspect the subject might not appeal to too many.

Steve Smith is not going to get rich on the proceeds of any of his many books on cricket in North America, but I can’t help but admire the lengths he goes to to bring what is clearly a great personal passion to a wider audience.