Sports for All - Baron Hawke

A revelation.

Just been down to the Leeds Museum to see the new exhibition of costume - Heroes and Heroines (well worth the visit) - and happened to stray into one of the other galleries. I've wondered what these images on the Tapestry are, and where they come from. There's a whole collection of them on display and apparently they come from Baines of Manningham, Bradford.

The forerunners of collector's items such as whacky plaques and football sticker albums, they were sold at the turn of the last century (1890s onward) in packs of six for boys to collect. In the flesh they look similar to beer mats, but slightly smaller.

The subject of this particular card is 7th Baron Hawke (1860 - 1938) who was a noted captain of Yorkshire County Cricket. He was born in Gainsborough Lincolnshire, so presumably the rules for playing for the County were changed after he played for the team.

Hawke was first appointed Yorkshire captain in 1883 and held the post for 28 seasons until 1910, he remained the President of the club until his death in 1938.

I suspect the card came from Robin Dove's collection. An appropriate subject given that Muttiah Muralitharan has just taken his 800th wicket in test cricket today.

The embroidery was hand stitched by Joan Holah.