The White Conduit Club, although short lived, was perhaps the most significant club in cricket history for it bridged the gulf between the rural and rustic Hambledon era and the new, modern and metropolitan era of MCC and Lord's, the two entities that it spawned.
We do not know for certain when the WCC was founded but it seems to have been after 1780 and certainly by 1785. The famous batsman William Beldham was hired while still a young professional by the WCC in 1785 and he told James Pycroft, author of The Cricket Field (1851) that his farming employer concluded a deal with George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea to allow Beldham time off his agricultural duties to go to the "new cricket ground" at White Conduit Fields in Islington and play for Hampshire against All-England. The score of the match has evidently been lost because there is no trace of an All-England v Hampshire game at White Conduit Fields in or about 1785. Beldham's first match in Scores & Biographies was for All-England v WCC at Lord's in 1787; but he was previously recorded as playing for Berkshire against Essex in 1785 (this match was reported by H T Waghorn in his Dawn of Cricket).
