Cricket
- Origins in Canada
- New sport on campus
- Height of popularity
- Demise
New sport on campus
In the 1860s, cricket joined handball and hurley as the only team sports played on campus. More importantly, however, cricket became Mount Allison's first sport to be played against an outside team. The Male Academy began playing cricket by 1869, and the University by 1870. Matches against Sackville, Dorchester and Amherst town teams occurred regularly between 1869 and 1885, and generated excitement among spectators. An unidentified Ladies' College student from the early 1870s recalled, in The Allisonia (January 1910), that she had "the highly prized privilege of attending a cricket match once or twice during the season."
There was little formal organization in cricket at Mount Allison or in Sackville. Teachers played with the students, and students sometimes played on town teams. There was, however, pressure among students to join in the sport. William Seaman, a first-year student at the University, wrote a letter to his father on 17 September 1884, stating: "A fellow has to go with the majority of the boys in anything they set up like Cricket, Baseball, etc. if he want to get along well."
Home and Topics - Galleries - Timeline - Maps
Copyright - Footnotes - Credits - Technical Information - Feedback
© 2008 Mount Allison University Archives
Sackville, New Brunswick
All Rights Reserved
Maintained by the Mount Allison University Archives
This project was funded by the Marjorie Young Bell Endowment Fund