Hambledon Club - The Move From Hambledon To Marylebone

The Move From Hambledon To Marylebone

Hambledon's great days ended in the 1780s with a shift in focus from the rural counties of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire to metropolitan London where Lord's was established as the home of the new Marylebone Cricket Club in 1787.

Membership declined during the 1790s. On 29 August 1796, fifteen people attended a meeting and amongst them, according to the official minutes, was "Mr Thos Pain, Authour of the rights of Man"! It was certainly a joke for Thomas Paine was then under sentence of death for treason and exiled in revolutionary Paris. The last meeting was held on 21 September 1796 where the minutes read only that "No Gentlemen were present".