Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
31st October, 1st & 2nd November 2025

William ‘Billy’ Barnes. Nottinghamshire & England 1875-1894. Five-line poem handwritten in ink on neatly trimmed page and beautifully signed below ‘Wm Barnes’. The poem reads ‘Let prudence direct you/ Temperance chasten you/ Fortitude support you/ and justice be the guide/ Of all your actions’. The page measures 5.75”x4”. Very good condition. A fine example of this notorious cricketer’s signature.
Barnes was a regular member of the England team in the 1880s, his greatest triumph was on the Shaw and Shrewsbury tour of Australia where he finished in the tour top of the batting and bowling averages, he scored a brilliant 134 in the first Test, took 6-31 in the second and then refused to bowl in the 3rd Test. Rather a rumbustious character, he got involved in a fracas with an Australian player in the 3rd Test, injured his hand and missed many of the following matches. He was at loggerheads with the Nottinghamshire committee on several occasions and was omitted from the County side two or three years earlier than might have been the case.

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