'Sheer good luck baseball diary survived' - historian

It is "sheer good luck" that a diary which charts baseball’s early roots in Surrey survived, according to one historian.

William Bray, a Shere resident who kept detailed diaries of his daily life, wrote about a game being played in Surrey in 1755.

His entry on the game near Guildford confirmed baseball was played in the UK more than 20 years before American independence.

Julian Pooley, public services and engagement manager at the Surrey History Centre, said Mr Bray’s diaries contained accounts of "an endless round of teas, visiting people, evening parties and dances".

He also detailed the weather locally, nationally and internationally, Mr Pooley added.

The diary entry for Easter Monday, 31 March 1755, said Mr Bray had played at "Base Ball" with a group of people having visited Stoke Church in the morning.

"Drank tea, stayed till eight, weather cloudy," his diary continued.

William Bray lived from 1736 to 1832 and worked as a solicitor, a steward of Surrey manors and a Surrey historian.

Surrey History Centre took in the Bray archives in the 1950s on behalf of the family, but in 2008 a diary was found in a Surrey shed.

Tricia St John Barry, a neighbour of the owner, began to transcribe the diary, which turned out to be one of William Bray's.

When watching a news item on BBC South Today, which said the sport began in the 1790s, she remembered seeing the reference to baseball in the diaries.

Mr Pooley said: "It's just sheer good luck that [the diary] survived and that Tricia St John Barry recognised its interest when she first spotted it."

He said the diary does not explicitly state where the game Mr Bray took part in was played.

But he said "we could be fairly certain" that the game of baseball referred to in the diary would have taken place "somewhere on the open ground in the centre of Guildford".

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In 2019, a blue plaque was unveiled in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, making the world's first recorded baseball game in 1749.

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