Abstract:

       The sport of cricket has a global reach, and yet Canada is not widely known as having historically been a cricketing country.  Similarly, cricket has only a limited place in the conventional literature of Canadian sports history.  Yet detailed research on the history of cricket in the province of Nova Scotia before 1914 enables the reconstruction of a rich and complex cricket culture.  This lecture will present an analysis of three social configurations within which cricket was played: by middle-class and military players in an urban context; in rural areas and small towns; and by coal miners and other members of the industrial working class.  Cricket offered opportunities for negotiating social differences, while also expressing social tensions.  It was a sport that took an important role in the cultural and social history of the era.

Brief biography of the speaker:

     John G. Reid holds degrees from Oxford University (BA), Memorial University (MA), and the University of New Brunswick (Ph.D.). He has been a member of the History department at Saint Mary's University since 1985 and has held the rank of Professor since 1989. He is also a former Coordinator of Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s and is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Gorsebrook Research Institute. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, elected in 2004. Reid’s principal teaching and research interests include the history of early modern northeastern North America (focusing especially on imperial-Indigenous relations), the history of Atlantic Canada, the history of higher education, and the history of the sport. He has published books and articles in these areas, as well as writing two historical novels for teenage readers and two plays for radio. Reid has served on the Council of the Canadian Historical Association and the editorial board of the Canadian Historical Review. A current board member of three historical journals, in 2015 he completed a six-year term as Co-editor of Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region.  He is also founding Co-editor of the University of Toronto Press monograph series on the History of Atlantic Canada.  Among other international activities, in 2008 he held the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI) Visiting Lectureship in India.  Subsequently appointed as the Saint Mary’s representative to the Canadian Member Council of SICI, he became the organization’s Vice-President.