Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1874
| 1874 season | |||
| Captain | Samuel Richardson | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Most runs | George Frost | ||
| Most wickets | William Mycroft | ||
|
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Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1874 was the cricket season when the English club Derbyshire earned the title of Champion County in their fourth year playing as a club. Kent joined Lancashire to make the second County side to play first class matches against Derbyshire in 1874. Derbyshire won three first-class matches and drew one, making it the only season in which they never lost a match.
Derbyshire were considered Champion County with other teams because at the time the smallest number of games lost decided the order of merit. Through no fault of their own, Derbyshire were able to arrange matches only against Lancashire and Kent, three of which ended in victory and the other in a draw. In fact Derbyshire played four other matches in the season, and lost none of them either. They played two matches against Yorkshire United which were draws. The other matches were against Nottinghamshire and United South of England Eleven, which they won by 14 and 11 wickets respectively. Their convincing wins may be attributable to the fact that they had sixteen players to their opponents' eleven
Samuel Richardson was in his fourth season as captain. Abraham Shuker, a schoolmaster at Trent College, and John Tye, a blacksmith, made their debut for the county and went on to play several more seasons. There were also single match appearances for the 1874 season only from veteran Walter Boden, lace manufacturer, Edward Estridge, a Repton schoolmaster and John Frost, a joiner and John Cooke, both from Wirksworth. Additionally Henry Shaw and George Hay, who made their first class debuts in the following season appeared in Derbyshire's other matches as did CF Richardson.
Those who played their last season for Derbyshire were Thomas Attenborough and Joseph Davidson who played in Derbyshire's first match in 1871, and Richard Allsop, who joined in 1872.
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