Talk:George Caldwell (cricketer)

Betting, debt, marriage

There is reason to believe that Caldwell was the insolvent debtor of 1848[1], and "gentleman" of that name, in the Queen's Prison in 1849.[2] Address there is Thurlow Street, Brompton, among other places.

From a forum post[3] "Marianne Pyne (according to the 1861 census return born in Merrion Square, Dublin) later married George Caldwell, son of Ralph Caldwell of Hilborough Hall in Norfolk, [...] this marriage is said to have taken place on 13 May 1843 at St. Peters Church, Dublin, Ireland."

The debts were apparently from gambling. Some further referencing would be helpful. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Obituary notice

This from [4], Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle 21/06/1863 seems to be inaccurate in details from his early life.

"THE LATE GEORGE CALDWELL.— George Caldwell—" George the Fifth," as some of his friends used to call him— has gone from the ranks of the Turf writers. They have been sorely thinned since little more than seven years ago old Joe Rayner wove his last yarn about Beeswing and "a slice of old Alice," and, grasping his stick, tottered round to say that the days of " Mug- gins's Dog" were numbered, and to bid us all good by. Ruff, John Ruff, Feist, " Craven," John Massey, " Harry Hieover," Wanless, and Albert Feist have all silently followed him, as it were, year by year, and the next lot fell upon "Childers." The "white blossoms," about which he so often joked, had not clustered round his forehead in the service of Captain Pen, and, in fact, it was only within the last eight years— first by doing occasional papers for the Life and the Field, and then as a regular contributor to the former— that he might be said to join us. The home of his family was at Narborough Hall, which has since passed into the Duke of Wellington's hands. It was near the classic plains of Swaffham, but the county feeling for coursing did not course in his veins. Horse and hound were all his desire, and formed the study of his life. Speak of what quadruped or biped you might in the sporting world, and he generally knew something about the pedigree and antecedents, and told it with good point. He had been a Brazenose man originally, about 1827- 29; but although he knew it well, he was not in the habit of taking out his Latin to air, but fell back for paper seasoning on the old hunting songs, the "marrow" of which are never made now. Many of his M. F. H. friendships dated from the Oxford cloisters; and to judge from his after-writings, no one saw more of, or enjoyed more keenly, the steeple chasing, racing, and fox hunting of the next ten years. They were to him a spring of anecdote and illustration, which never seemed to run dry."

Seems clear that he hunted during his cricket-playing period. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)