[SN: THE FIRST MATCH AT LORD’S] The first regular match played by Eton against a public school appears to have taken place in 1799, when an Eton eleven met Westminster at old Lord’s. On this occasion Eton in their innings made only 47 runs. Westminster then went in and scored 13, when the stumps were drawn, with five wickets to fall. The match was said to be “postponed,” but there is no account to be found of its ever having been resumed. Next year Eton had an easy victory, making a score of 213 in one innings, against Westminster’s 54 and 31. Curiously enough, the Collegers at that time constituted the strength of the eleven and made the biggest scores. Benjamin Drury, afterwards an assistant master, Joseph Thackeray, and Thomas Lloyd, elder brother of the bishop, were the bowlers. Poor Lloyd, who beat the Westminster innings off his own bat, died after the holidays from the effects of a chill which he caught during the match. This would seem to have been the last match with Westminster. The first Eton and Harrow contest took place in 1805 at Lord’s, when Eton won in a single innings. On this occasion Byron made 7 and 2 for the beaten school. Eight of the winning eleven (among whom was Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) were King’s scholars. After this no authentic record exists of any match till 1818, when Harrow beat Eton. Apparently the whole thing was rather a fiasco; only two of the best Eton men were present at Lord’s, the rest of the eleven being made up of such Etonians as could be collected on the ground. In the following year, however, Eton beat Harrow in one innings; in 1822 Harrow beat Eton. In 1832 Eton scored a great triumph, beating Harrow and Winchester each in one innings. The match of 1841 was remarkable for the great innings of Emilius Bayley, who made 153, up to then the highest score ever achieved by any player in a public school match. Oddly enough, however, that same year Eton was beaten hollow by Winchester. In 1846 Eton repeated the great performance of 1832 and again vanquished Harrow and Winchester each in a single innings. One of the eleven on this occasion was J. W. Chitty (in after life the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Chitty), who played four years for Eton, in the last of which--1847--he was captain of the eleven. A great character well known to Eton cricketers of the forties was M’Niven minor, who, Mr. Coleridge declares, in his interesting recollections, was in Sixth Form, the football team, and the eight, as well as in the eleven. Commonly called “Snivey,” this fine athlete seems to have been very notorious for his wild eccentricities and oddities of dress, which, however, in nowise impaired a universal popularity.