The Parade Ground was a military parade ground and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

ground in

Georgetown, Guyana Georgetown is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Guyana. It is situated in Demerara-Mahaica, region 4, on the Atlantic Ocean coast, at the mouth of the Demerara River. It is nicknamed the "Garden City of the Caribbean." It is t ...

History

In 1812, the Lieutenant Governor of Demerara and Essequibo

Hugh Lyle Carmichael Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh Lyle Carmichael (1764–1813), was a British officer of the 2nd West India Regiment. He was Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces at the Siege of Santo Domingo. He was Lieutenant Governor of Demerara Essequibo fr ...

was concerned that the troops and militia of the colony had no place to parade. In October 1812, Carmichael accepted a grant of 16 lots of land from Thomas Mewburn in the Cumingsburg area of Georgetown in which to set up a parade ground. The parade ground was a site for executions of black slaves who had taken part in the

Demerara rebellion of 1823 The Demerara rebellion of 1823 was an uprising involving more than 10,000 enslaved people that took place in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo ( Guyana). The rebellion, which began on August 18, 1823, and lasted for two days, was led by slaves ...

. In 1843, representations were made by a Mr. Hackett to transform the parade grounds into an ornamental public gardens and build two temples named after

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

and Prince Albert, but this was not well supported. However, attitudes changed the following year when the local ''Gazette'' campaigned for the construction of a

Government House Government House is the name of many of the official residences of governors-general, governors and lieutenant-governors in the Commonwealth and the remaining colonies of the British Empire. The name is also used in some other countries. Gover ...

and public gardens. This was hastened by the destruction of the beach promenade in 1846 and its general condition being described as "a disgrace to a British colony". In 1851 the Town Council agreed to transform the parade grounds into a public garden, with a price of $1,000 being earmarked for the project, with the governor donating a further $500. A feature of the gardens was a

ground, was used as the homeground for the Georgetown Cricket Club, with the club having been granted permission by the Town Council and mayor to use the ground. The club erected a small

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

and played their first match there in 1860 against the 21st Fusiliers. The ground played host to

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

in 1865 when

Demerara Demerara ( nl, Demerary, ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state fro ...

played

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

. The ground played host to three further first-class matches for Demerara between 1871 and 1882. The 1882 fixture against

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

was notable for

Edward Fortescue Wright Edward Fortescue Wright (born 11 March 1858 in Coburg, Chudleigh, Devon, murdered on 23 November 1904 in Kingston, Jamaica) was an English cricketer who became a member of the Colonial Service in the West Indies. Life and career Wright was a ...

scoring the first

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

in West Indian domestic first-class cricket. The Georgetown Cricket Club moved on from the Parade Ground in 1884 to establish their own ground, free from the control of the Town Council, taking their pavilion with them. Although cricket is no long played at the ground, the public gardens (today known as Independence Park) still exist.

Records

First-class

*Highest team total: 168 all out by

, 1882–83 *Lowest team total: 54 all out by Demerara v Trinidad, 1876–77 *Highest individual innings: 123 by

for Demerara v Trinidad, 1882–83 *Best bowling in an innings: 8-33 by E. G. Penalosa for Trinidad v Demerara, 1876–77 *Best bowling in a match: 12-54 by E. G. Penalosa, as above

References

External links

Parade Ground
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

{{coord, 6.8155, -58.1619, region:Guyana_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Georgetown, Guyana Parade grounds Execution sites Cricket grounds in Guyana Defunct cricket grounds in Guyana

History

Records

First-class

See also

References

External links