# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nyren, John

Contains subarticle John Nyren (fl. 1830)
​NYREN, JOHN (1764–1837), cricket chronicler, son of Richard Nyren by his wife Frances, born Pennycud, of Slindon, in Sussex, was born at Hambledon, in Hampshire, on 15 Dec. 1764. The Nyrens were of Scottish descent, their real name being Nairne. They were Roman catholics and Jacobites, and were implicated in the risings of 1715 and 1745. When the Stuart cause was lost they emigrated southward, and for prudential reasons changed their name. Richard Nyren, a yeoman, who learned his cricket at Slindon under Richard Newland, was founder and captain of the famous Hambledon Club, which gave laws to English cricket from 1750 until its dissolution in 1791. He is also stated to have kept the Bat and Ball Inn at Hambledon, and was guardian of the ground on Broad Halfpenny ‘where the Hambledonians were wont to conquer England.’
Nyren was educated by a jesuit who taught him a little Latin, ‘but,’ he says, ‘I was a better hand at the fiddle.’ According to his own account of his early life, he interested himself in cricket at an early age, ‘being since 1778 a sort of farmer's pony to my native club of Hambledon.’ It appears that he was a left-handed batsman of average ability, and a fine field at point and middle wicket. His last appearance in a cricket match was in 1817, but he watched the progress of the game until his death, ‘with the growing solicitude of an ancient conservative to whom the smallest innovation meant ruin.’
In 1791 Nyren married Cleopha Copp, with whom he obtained a moderate fortune, and thereupon left his native village. He lived at Portsea until 1796, then at Bromley, Kent, where he carried on business as a calico-printer, and subsequently at Battersea, London. A delightful companion by reason of his geniality and sunny humour, he was also an accomplished musician, and his interest in music secured him the warm intimacy of the Novellos and their circle, including Leigh Hunt, Malibran, the Cowden-Clarkes, and ​Charles Lamb. In his ‘London Journal’ for 9 July 1834 Leigh Hunt prints a letter from Nyren describing a cricket match. He speaks of the writer as ‘his old, or rather his ever young friend,’ while of the letter he says ‘there is a right handling of it, with relishing hits.’
Nyren's securest title to fame, however, is of course the book published in 1833, and entitled ‘The Young Cricketer's Tutor, comprising full directions for playing the elegant and manly game of cricket, with a complete version of its laws and regulations, by John Nyren; a Player in the celebrated Old Hambledon Club and in the Mary-le-Bone Club. To which is added The Cricketers of my Time, or Recollections of the most famous Old Players. The whole collected and edited by Charles Cowden Clarke,’ London, 8vo. Prefixed is a ‘View of the Mary-le-Bone Club's Cricket Ground.’ The work, which was dedicated to William Ward, the champion cricketer of his day, seems to have originated in Nyren's admiration for Vincent Novello [q. v.] the musician, at whose house he was a frequent visitor. There he used to talk music with Novello and cricket with Novello's son-in-law, Charles Cowden-Clarke, who, like himself, was an enthusiast about the game. Clarke jotted down, with but little addition of his own, the animated phrases in which his friend related the exploits of the Hambledonians, and the result was this prose epic of cricket, which passed to a fourth edition in 1840. It was reprinted, with Lillywhite's ‘Cricket Scores’ and Denison's ‘Sketches,’ in 1888. A new edition appeared in 1893, with an introduction by Mr. Charles Whibley.
The style is often slipshod, but this is more than atoned for by the interest of the subject, the grave sincerity of Nyren's enthusiasm, and the frequency of the graphic touches. In its pages Tom Walker, of ‘the scrag of mutton frame and wilted applejohn face,’ with ‘skin like the rind of an old oak,’ the heresiarch who invented round-arm bowling; John Small, who once charmed a vicious bull with his fiddle; George Lear, the longstop, ‘as sure of the ball as if he had been a sand-bank;’ Tom Sueter, sweetest of tenors; Harris, ‘the best bowler who ever lived;’ William Beldham, alias Silver Billy, equally the best bat, who reached the patriarchal age of 96—these and the rest live again, and people once more Broad Halfpenny and Windmill Down.
Nyren died at Bromley on 30 June 1837, and was buried in Bromley churchyard. By his wife, who predeceased him, he left five children, of whom a daughter, Mary A. Nyren (1796–1844), became superior lady abbess of the English convent at Bruges. A portrait by a granddaughter is extant.
John Nyren (fl. 1830), author of ‘Tables of the Duties, Bounties, and Drawbacks of Customs,’ 1830, 12mo, with whom the cricketer is confused in the ‘Catalogue’ of the British Museum Library, was a first cousin.
[Lillywhite's Cricket Scores and Biographies, 1862; Nyren's Young Cricketer's Tutor, 1833; Blackwood's Mag. Jan. 1892; Gent. Mag. 1833 ii. 41, 235, 1837 ii. 213; private information.]
J. W. A.