A hero in focus

And what is even more remarkable is that Wilfred Rhodes may never have played for Yorkshire at all, only opting for his home county when turned down by Warwickshire in 1897.

The autograph book alone is one of those rare, but cherished, documents the like of which will probably never be seen again, containing the signatures of 45 Test and county teams Rhodes played against in a Yorkshire and England career which spanned 32 years.

In only one season, 1908, 10 years after Rhodes first played for Yorkshire, the cricketer who, by then, would himself be used to being hunted down by an army of small boys with autograph books, became the hunter gathering the signatures of all that year’s county teams.

They include Colin Blythe, Kent left arm spinner regarded as one of the finest bowlers of his period, who joined the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry at the outbreak of the First World War and died at Passchendaele in 1917, just one of a number of great names of that time.

There is probably no finer collection. But it is the two photograph albums, one with 305 pictures taken by Rhodes in India in the early 1920s and never seen before outside his family, which lift the lid on the man and his times.

Rhodes was always regarded as a taciturn, impenetrable and rather dour man in cricket whites, ball or bat in hand. But in the often sepia-tinted photographs he comes over as bright, genial and impish-looking when dressed for a day’s sightseeing or social gathering on tour in India. And pictures of him in later life showing a dapper dresser holding his pipe bring out an avuncular side.

There are the usual collection of team photographs all seated or standing stiffly to attention, and individual cricketers in action, but there are far more of the people and places that he visited and of his fellow tourists off the field.

Among them is George Hirst who, like Rhodes, was born in Kirkheaton, near Huddersfield, and with whom he formed a notable batting and bowling partnership for Yorkshire.

Rhodes’s photographs also offer a fascinating insight into his times, particularly the scene in India where he toured with England in 1921.

This was the great era of the Indian Raj and Rhodes caught on camera maharajas, local cricket clubs and their players, tourist sites such as the Taj Mahal or the Victoria Monument in Lahore, a local man with a tiger cub and in one evocative picture, an elephant rolling the wicket at Patiala.

Rhodes is himself caught on film, holding his camera. Photography was one of his great hobbies, remarkable in itself in those times, and he converted an attic room into a studio at his home in Marsh, Huddersfield.

The autograph book and photograph albums are two of the most significant parts of a huge archive of Rhodes memorabilia given to Yorkshire County Cricket Club by his granddaughter, Margaret Garton, his last surviving relative.

She was wondering what to do with it all when, by coincidence, in conversation with a member of the Lords’ Taverners at a Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch in Harrogate, late last year, she mentioned the collection stored in her loft.

She offered it to Yorkshire, who were just putting in place their new, £300,000 long-awaited museum at Headingley, and when it arrived it was so vast it took three weeks to catalogue the 293 separate items. In fact there was so much (and with more still to come) that only highlights of the collection have so far gone on display.

Mrs Garton has also promised to give the club her grandfather’s collection of Wisden cricket almanacs and Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yearbooks.

Sadly, the archive arrived too late for any major showing in the club’s new museum as the displays were already in place and will be changed annually. However, room has been made for one or two items although the autograph book and photograph albums will have to wait their turn. But a significant part of it is on display in the East Stand Long Room.

It seems that Wilfred Rhodes never threw anything away. If it had his name on, whether a newspaper cutting or a prized memento given to mark some cricketing achievement or event in his life, it was carefully stored.

Even the strong box in which some of the items were stored has found a spot in the display, as a stand for one of the many exhibits. There are menu cards from assorted dinners and banquets that Rhodes attended, from civic banquets at Scarborough in the heyday of the spa town’s cricket festival, to a centenary dinner at Lords.

A table plan with the somewhat puzzling rearrangement of Rhodes’s name on the top table is the centre piece of a feature on the Wars of the Roses, Yorkshire versus Lancashire centenary dinner at Sheffield, in 1949. Rhodes’s name began on the outer reaches of the top table of more than a dozen guests, but was crossed out and inserted higher up the order with someone else being crossed out and relegated to a lowlier place. There is no explanation for his climb up the ranking.

The original letter from Warwickshire County Cricket Club in 1897 turning down his request to play for them is here. And, among assorted telegrams, one from Lord Hawke saying: “All at Wighill wish you a most successful benefit. – Hawke.”

One small, but fascinating insight into a long gone and much lamented period of the nation’s history is Rhodes’s passport. Enclosed in the traditional blue, hard-backed cover are a number of thin pages which open out concertina-style.

It was issued to Rhodes in 1920 and is covered with entry and exit stamps of assorted ports, another mark of history and the era of the long voyages for England players going on winter tours of far-flung cricketing countries.

The seeds of the new museum were planted about 10 years ago – although the aspiration stretches further back – when the club’s then president Robin Smith, suggested an archives committee should bring together and catalogue items important to Yorkshire’s history.

The old club offices below the Long Room at Headingley have now been transformed into what the museum director, David Hall, says is probably the most modern cricket museum in the country and one of the most informative.

The £300,000 venture funded by the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, with a generous donation from the Emerald Foundation, is devoted to the great and glorious past of Yorkshire cricket and packed with showcases and displays designed to capture the interest of all age groups.

The main contractors, Wilmslow-based Mather and Co, also did the museums for Wimbledon, Manchester United and Arsenal.

Visitors are greeted by the engraved words of Leonard Hutton: In an England Cricket Eleven the flesh may be of the South but the bones is of the North and the backbone is Yorkshire.

Len Hutton’s record-breaking 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938 is one of the features of the museum which also focuses on Yorkshire’s finest players going back before Lord Hawke – whose bust sits near the entrance – and forward to the present day heroes.

Great games and performances – from the 555 opening stand between Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe in 1932, Hedley Verity’s famous 10 for 10 (bowling figures which have never been equalled), to Darren Lehmann’s top score of 339 runs scored against Durham in 2006 his final Championship match for the county, with so much of Yorkshire’s glorious history in between – are all featured.

These days, points out Mr Hall, most players sell their kit and mementoes often before they have finished playing. For this reason alone, this collection will probably never be matched.

That’s not to say Yorkshire isn’t trying.

Committee chairman David Allan said: “There must be an awful lot of memorabilia belonging originally to ex-Yorkshire players and their families that we don’t have any connection with or access to. We would love to have some of this.”