James Lawrell


James Lawrell was an English amateur cricketer who made 21 known appearances in first-class cricket matches from 1800 to 1810.

Background and Eastwick Park

He was the son of James Lawrell, who had married in 1776 Catherine Sumner, daughter of William Brightwell Sumner and sister of the politician George Holme-Sumner. His father was an East India Company official in the Bengal Presidency. In 1801, James Lawrell senior having died, in 1799, Eastwick Park was sold by the family of the Earls of Effingham to the trustees of James Lawrell junior, still at that time a minor.
Lawrell had major building work done on the house, in 1806–1807. At this period he sold the estate and mansion attached to his father's other Surrey property, Frimley Park some way to the west, but retained the house Frimley Manor. He sold Eastwick Park in 1809, to Louis Bazalgette. Bazalgette, at one time tailor to the Prince of Wales, was a successful money-lender and financier.
"James Lawrell Esq. of Eastwick" occurs in William Carew Hazlitt's list of bibliophiles and manuscript collectors. Lawrell's library was put up for auction by Sotheby's long after his death, in 1860.

Education

Lawrell was educated at Eton College. While at Eton, he was one of the Eton XI flogged in 1796 for taking part in a forbidden cricket match: it was against Westminster School, on Hounslow Heath.. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1800.

Cricket

Lawrell was a member of Marylebone Cricket Club. Frimley had a cricket club from the 1820s. Lawrell was a sponsor of the Surrey county side, and played for them. He employed Robert Robinson, a Hambledon Club cricketer known as "Long Bob", as a gamekeeper.

Family

Lawrell married in 1802 Maria Anne Parsons, who was the only surviving child of John Parsons. She died in 1840.