Silas Norton

SILAS NORTON and his business partner Thomas Selby were solicitors and both from ancient Kentish families.  Selby was part of a very ancient Kentish family of worldwide influence who had owned property in West Malling since at least the 15th century. The Bodleian Library holds documents relating to him.  Norton was born and died in West Malling.  He held his law licence almost until his death at the age of 90.  He married Sarah Ann Bookham and they had six children.  Cricket had been played in West Malling since at least 1705.  Norton and Selby linked with William George 2nd Lord Harris (1782-1845) and formed Town Malling Cricket Club.  

From a woodcut in 1891

The “New Ground” (or St Georges Field) was established, and the first match played in 1827.  The well-known cricketer Fuller Pilch was retained on a salary of £100 per year.  His duties included being Landlord of the Cricketer’s Arms in Ryarsh Lane and cutting the grass!  First Class cricket was first played in 1836 and attracted a “gate” of 8,000.  The Lords Harris have since been enormously influential in the development of cricket in England and India.

Long thought to be the inspiration and setting for Charles Dickens’s famous “Muggleton” match in the Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dicken’s son wrote  “Muggleton is perhaps only a fancy sketch of a small country town but if anywhere Town Malling sat for it being a great place for cricket in Mr Pickwick’s time.”  Another woodcut of the High Street in West Malling was included in the edition of Pickwick Papers which celebrated the jubilee of Queen Victoria.”