Eric Midwinter 1932-2025

GH on cricket's great polymath

Matthew Engel once described a school of cricket history involving such declarations as: ‘In his bunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler was preparing for war. Meanwhile, George Pope was running in to bowl from the Pavilion End at Chesterfield.’ That is, a throat-clearing gesture to historical context, before a narrowing of the gaze to the author’s particular enthusiasm. Of this Eric Midwinter, who has died aged ninety-three, was never guilty. He was ever a wide-ranging social historian who, it was the game’s great good fortune, happened to be partial to cricket, and included it in his purview.