Going right back to the early days of North Down Cricket Club, we know that The Green was used as a bleaching green to spread out cloth to be purified and whitened in the sunlight. Around 1874 this activity ceased and the ground, owned by Thomas James Andrews was renovated to remove the undulations.
Thomas and his brother John Jnr. were the cricket loving sons of Isaac Andrews of flour milling fame and it was inevitable and probably well planned in advance that cricket would move from an area beside the old flour mill, known as ‘the lines’ to a new home here at the former bleach green.
The game was already well promoted in the town with John, the Spinning Mill supremo, forming a Spinning Mill XI and both brothers being an integral part of an Andrews XI that played an annual fixture against North Down.
We have some treasures in our archives; the scrapbook that was donated from a Dublin source, the Tom Pearson blazer presented by his children, and the little silver cricket bat presented to George Combe in 1891 for his century against Randalstown CC.
Now the original 1899 document, ‘Agreement for Letting the Cricket Ground at Comber’ has been unearthed and brought to your attention.
Six gentlemen, noted as the Tenants, held the Trustee positions from 1899, and on scrutiny of the margin, there are two names written in pencil and two of the Trustees have been ‘lined out’. Exiting their duties are Mr Crawford Lindsay and Mr Samuel Turner.
Their replacements were James Andrews and James Shean. When or why this change came about is unclear at present.
Thomas James Andrews is referred to in the document as the ‘Landlord.’
The document itself has seventeen paragraphs and included below is the first one and the map to which it refers.
Arthur M Andrews
Of Toronto Canada; solicitor born in 1869 and educated at Trinity College Dublin; married Sarah Black of Dundalk and died in 1920
Tommy Graham was President of the Northern Cricket Union from 1909 until 1914, Secretary of the NCU from 1891 until 1920 and, more relevant to us, was secretary of North Down Cricket Club from 1875 until his retirement in 1898.
