Book with Druit info (?)

[Magpie]

Playing around with Google Book, I ran across a tantalizing reference to MJ Druitt in a 1892 book called "Football: The Rugby Union Game" by Francis Marshall.

Sadly, the book has not been scanned in it's entirely, but the snippet suggests that it describes the process of negotiating the lease on Rectory Field.

It would be interesting to see if anyone can track this book down in their local library (page 334 is the relevant one, to save you some time).

[Robert]

Good find, Magpie. Here is a link

http://www.cliftonrfchistory.co.uk/internationals/england/budd/budd.htm

I doubt if the book would be in any normal library. According to the "in print" section, it looks quite pricey.

[Chris]

Worldcat claims that it's held by the London Library, in which case I should be able to look at it (and even borrow it) later in the week, if no one else has an earlier opportunity.

[Mike Covell]

I found some references to Robert D'Onston Stephenson's family on Google books, and it said there was a snippet view, however when I clicked on the link, the upper half the text of baan cut off, so I am left with half letters!

The book's were pretty pricey, so I will enquire about their availability on my next visit to the library.

As for the druitt piece, the link was fantastic with several rather shity looking chaps! I searched for the book but although there is a generic listing on a couple of sites, it's not available to buy.

[Sam Flynn]

several rather shity looking chaps

..."shity" ? That's neither one thing nor the other

[Magpie]

I found some references to Robert D'Onston Stephenson's family on Google books, and it said there was a snippet view, however when I clicked on the link, the upper half the text of baan cut off, so I am left with half letters!

I hear ya, Mike. It's very frustrating. Hopefully Chris can help fill us in on this particular passage though.

[Dan Norder]

That's one of the things that annoys me about Google Books. The book in question has to be scanned in its entirety for the search to pull up some random text in the middle of it; Google Books is just not letting you see all of it. They say that they only do that for books that are under copyright, but then the book in question, like many others in the Google Book Search database, is well out of any possible copyright coverage. Why do they even go to the trouble of scanning in books that they won't show to anyone and aren't available to buy?

And then contrast that with YouTube, also owned with Google, where probably half of everything on there (or at least anything anyone would actually want to watch) is under copyright and posted without the owner's permission.

[Mike Covell]

..."shity" ? That's neither one thing nor the other

That should have said "Shifty" but I was typing in the dark!

[Chris]

The reference to Druitt is in chapter 17, "Metropolitan Football", by "a Londoner", in the section on "The Blackheath Football Club" (pp. 330-337). This recounts that the club was founded in 1860 as the "Old Blackheathen Football Club". From January 1883 the club played on the Rectory Field. The account continues (pp. 333, 334):

The present Blackheath Cricket, Football and Tennis Company was formed in 1885. The Morden Cricket Club in 1884 found it was impossible to keep a decent wicket on Blackheath as the heath authorities would not allow them to re-turf and keep in order their own ground as they had done heretofore, so that M. J. Druitt, the secretary, and A. Poland, the treasurer, negotiated with G. W. Burton, the secretary, and Aub. Spurling, the treasurer of the Blackheath Club, with the result that a meeting of residents of Blackheath was called, the present company formed, and a lease of the Rectory Field obtained for twenty-one years.

[Robert]

Thanks for that, Chris. It would have been nice if he'd said "eccentric secretary" but there you go.

[Fisa]

druitt link

http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/articles/ArticlesDetail.asp?ID=428

At the time only a handful of people knew that Monty (who is buried at Wimborne) was a leading suspect for the Jack the Ripper murders – although James’s surgeon brother, William (Monty’s father), was one of them.


[James Druitt’s original memoirs are in the Red House Museum, Christchurch, but the Priest’s House Museum in Wimborne has a copy.]

[Scott Nelson]

William was dead by the time of the Murders. Doesn't speak much about the accuracy of the piece as a whole.