Richard Mills (16 February 1798 – 25 January 1882) was an English professional

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 ...

er who played

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 ...

between 1825 and 1843, primarily for teams in Kent. He was considered one of the best professional cricketers of his era.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 388–389.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 2020-12-21.) Mills was born at Pump Farm,

Benenden Benenden is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The parish is located on the Weald, to the west of Tenterden. In addition to the main village, Iden Green, East End, Dingleden and Standen Street settlem ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1798.Richard Mills

CricInfo 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 d ...

. Retrieved 2018-12-10. He made his first-class debut in 1825 for a Kent side against one from

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

at Brighton, going on to play a total a total of 47 first-class matches. A left-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

and left arm medium pace

roundarm In cricket, roundarm bowling is a bowling style that was introduced in the first quarter of the 19th century and largely superseded underarm bowling by the 1830s. Using a roundarm action, the bowlers extend their arm about 90 degrees from their ...

bowler, Mills played mainly for Kent sides, including one match for the newly formed

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

in 1843 at

Hemsted Park Hemsted Park, historically sometimes known as Hempsted Park,
Benenden, Kent Archaeological Socie ...

near his home in Benenden.Kent against England, ''The Sporting magazine; or Monthly calendar of the transactions of the turf, the chace, and every other diversion interesting to the man of pleasure and enterprize'', 1843, p.264.
Available online
Retrieved 2017-12-02). He played six times for the Players in the

Gentlemen v Players Gentlemen v Players was a long-running series of English first-class cricket matches. Two matches were played in 1806, but the fixture was not played again until 1819. It became an annual event, usually played at least twice each season, exc ...

series, four times for England sides and for the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

in the

North v. South The North of England and South of England cricket teams appeared in first-class cricket between the 1836 and 1961 seasons, most often in matches against each other but also individually in games against touring teams, Marylebone Cricket Club (M ...

series.Richard Mills
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2008-12-04. Mills was considered one of the strongest professionals in the country.Cook TA (1914) ''The Curves of Life'', p252. London: Constable.
Available online
Retrieved 2018-12-10.)Notions on cricket in ''The Sporting Magazine'', 1839, vol.94, p.387.
Available online
Retrieved 2018-12-10.) Benenden produced a number of fine cricketers and, in 1836, Mills played with fellow Kent and Benenden man

Ned Wenman Edward Gower "Ned" Wenman (18 August 1803 – 28 December 1879) was an English first-class cricketer whose career spanned the 1825 to 1854 seasons. A specialist wicket-keeper, he was a prominent member of the great Kent team of the 1840s which a ...

against a full side of 11 players from the

Isle of Oxney Isle of Oxney is an area in Kent, England, close to the boundary with East Sussex. Up to the 13th century, the island was part of the coastline bordering what is now the Romney Marsh. As that silted up, and until the later 17th century, the Ri ...

on the border between Kent and

. Mills and Wenman won the match which had been organised as a wager.Mills T (1983
Runs in the family
''

The Cricketer ''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket. The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warner e ...

'', republished at

. Retrieved 2018-12-10.Ward A (2016) 'Two against 11 1936' in ''Cricket's Strangest Matches''. London: Pavilion.
Available online
Retrieved 2018-12-10.A brief history of Benenden Cricket Club
Benenden Cricket Club, 2014-06-16. Retrieved 2017-12-02. The event is recorded on the Benenden village sign.
Benenden. Retrieved 2018-12-10. Mills came from a cricketing family which on at least one occasion is reported to have played as a family side against Benenden. His brother,

George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...

, played occasionally for Kent sides between 1825 and 1829, making his debut in the same match as Richard.George Mills

. Retrieved 2018-12-10. George also played in the 1831 Gentlemen v Players match, possibly a match which Richard had been invited to play in but, due to the method of addressing professionals simply by their surname, the invitation is reported to have been misunderstood.Time Gentlemen, Please
''The Chap'', 2012-08-12. Retrieved 2018-12-10. A

benefit match A benefit is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question. Howeve ...

was played for Mills in 1861 at

Swifts Park Swifts Park is a former country estate and manor house north-east of the town of Cranbrook in the English county of Kent. Through its history, the estate has been variously known by the names Swifts, Great Swift, Great Swifts, and Swifts Place ...

in Cranbrook.Chairman's message - history telescoped
Elham Historical Society, vol.2, iss.5, May 2012, p.1. Retrieved 2018-12-10. He retired to

Rolvenden Rolvenden is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is centred on the A28 Ashford to Hastings road, south-west of Tenterden. The settlement of Rolvenden Layne, south of Rolvenden, is also part of th ...

in Kent where he died in 1882 aged 83.Census and Cricketers in the Leigh Area: 1881
Leigh & District Historical Society. Retrieved 2018-12-10.

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1798 births 1882 deaths English cricketers English cricketers of 1787 to 1825 English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 Kent cricketers Players cricketers North v South cricketers People from Rolvenden Left-Handed v Right-Handed cricketers Gentlemen of Kent cricketers People from Benenden Cricketers from Kent {{England-cricket-bio-stub