BF Morgan- A Record Never to be Broken?

 By John Butler

John Butler is a stalwart of Morecambe CC and wrote an excellent history of the club a few years ago. As player, umpire and groundsman he is well known in North-West Lancashire cricketing circles and he researches cricket history in the area. John has kindly contributed this article based on his recent research.

When a record wicket-taking feat in league cricket of 111 wickets at just 4.90 runs each in 1929 is recorded in a league handbook, year after year it invokes a sense of ‘who?’ and then the book is inevitably shut tight by players, officials, and supporters for another season.

BAC/EE Preston in more modern times

However, when club officials at BAC/EE Preston realised it was to be the club’s centenary in 2021 the previously mentioned record held by one BF Morgan required some further research.

Bertie Francis Morgan

The club’s original name was Dick, Kerr’s representing an engineering firm founded in Glasgow in 1854 by William Bruce Dick. In 1883 the company joined with John Kerr, a businessman and Conservative Party politician who later became MP for Preston in the early 1900s. Operating under a new name, Dick, Kerr’s, the company expanded into tramway equipment, rolling stock and the building of locomotives.

The company acquired premises on Strand Road in Preston in 1893 and incorporated a public company, the English Electric Manufacturing Co, specialising in the manufacture of electrical machinery, primarily for use by railways and tramways.

The company is best known for fielding one of the earliest known women’s football teams, Dick, Kerr Ladies FC who played from 1917 until 1965.  The team is credited with playing 833 games, winning 759, with 46 draws and only 28 defeats, attracting some huge crowds, including 25,000 for a game against a French team in 1920 which has gone down in history as the first international game in women’s football history.

Bertie Francis Morgan was a predominantly a left arm medium fast seam bowler with a good pedigree of club and Minor Counties cricket. Born in Finsbury Park, London in 1885 he served his time as a Stone Mason and as a groundsman/ professional for the Landsdown club in Bath in 1907 and 1908 (kindly confirmed by Stephen Chalke), with Somerset contributing to his wages. In 1909 he went on the Somerset staff and was handed a County Championship debut against Hampshire. He was a player of considerable ability with Plum Warner stating he had the potential to play for England. The following season he made further appearances for Somerset without making any great success of his opportunities.

Ramsbottom CC, BF Morgan’s club in 1914

In 1913 he started a long relationship with Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Championship taking 37 wickets while playing with the great SF Barnes.  After a move into the paid ranks of the Lancashire League the following season, he then took 84 wickets at 12.26 each for Ramsbottom.

Werneth CC

As with so many of his contemporaries, his best years were lost to the First World War where he served in the Coldstream Guards, but on the cessation of hostilities he undertook a professional engagement with Werneth in the Central Lancashire League that lasted for three seasons from 1920 until 1922. In 1921 Staffordshire and Berkshire topped the Minor Counties Championship and a play-off resulted in a drawn game. He continued to play for Staffordshire up until the 1923 season.

Todmorden CC

Returning to the Lancashire League in 1923, playing for Todmorden, he took a further 75 wickets and then moved to the north-east to play for Wallsend in 1924 and 1925. In 1926 and 1927 he played for Normanby Hall in the North Yorkshire & South Durham League. By now a well journeyed professional he then ended up at Dick, Kerr’s in 1928.

The Palace Shield in 1929

Although at an age of 43 the question of ‘Why Dick, Kerr’s?’ is though-provoking. Did he go there to work? Was he paid? Was he professional/groundsman? Dick, Kerr’s, at this time, had a successful football team playing in the Lancashire Combination and in addition the now world-famous women’s team. Could it have been that there was a plan to take cricket to the next level? In addition, it was reported that Walkden CC of the Bolton Association had unsuccessfully tried to sign Morgan for the 1930 season.

Morgan takes out an advert in Athletic News

The answer to the previous question was answered when a small advertisement in the ‘Athletic News’ Situations Wanted in February 1931 showed him to be working at Dick, Kerr’s as the Head Groundsman and seeking pastures new.

In 1930 Dick, Kerr’s had again won the Palace Shield Championship with Morgan taking 93 wickets, only being denied another century by the last two games being decimated by the weather. Morgan does not play for Dick, Kerr’s in the following season, his whereabouts not known. In 1933 Morgan joined Billingham Synthonia as Professional and Groundsman and played well into his fifties. This association enabled him to show his expert groundsman knowledge, being rewarded with Durham hosting Minor County cricket for the first time on the ground in 1936, 1937 and 1939. 

He died in February 1959 at Billingham, Co Durham leaving a record in Palace Shield cricket that will probably never be broken due to the current limited overs per bowler rules.