This is a list of English cricketers who were first recorded in historically important matches played between the 1787 and 1825 seasons. With the single exception of Thomas Lord, whose new ground was opened at the beginning of the 1787 season, players who were first recorded before the beginning of that season are omitted from this list, as they may be found in List of English cricketers (1701–1786).
The principal club throughout the period was MCC, which was founded in 1787, soon after Lord's ground opened. MCC organised the early Gentlemen v Players matches, and most of the games played by occasional XIs such as Charles Lennox's XI, Lord Frederick Beauclerk's XI, George Osbaldeston's XI, and others. Inter-county cricket was rare during the Napoleonic Wars, and there were no formally-constituted county clubs at the time. The main county teams were Berkshire, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex. Towards the end of the period, Cambridge University (CUCC) became prominent, especially through its series of matches against the Cambridge Town Club (CTC), which ultimately formed the basis of the original Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club. In the north of England, cricket was developing through town clubs which became the focal points of the game in their respective counties, especially Nottingham and Sheffield.
The game of cricket in this period had already acquired most of its modern features such as eleven-a-side, the three-stump wicket, the lbw law, and so on, though pitch preparation was rudimentary, and play was largely dictated by the weather. The main difference was in bowling which was still mostly underarm, the key development of the time being the movement towards roundarm which began in the late 18th century, and was gathering pace by 1826.
Note #1: The list is not necessarily exhaustive, as ongoing research is always likely to discover additional information.
Note #2: Where inline citations accompany a player's name, they reference his debut or earliest-known mention in the sources.
Note #3: Offline sources for the first quarter of the 19th century are much less plentiful than for the 18th century. Essentially, the one major source for the years 1801–1825 is Arthur Haygarth's 'Scores & Biographies' (Volume 1). While online databases were completely excluded from List of English cricketers (1701–1786), many entries in this list are sourced to CricketArchive, but: ONLY in respect of name, team, and years active; NOTHING statistical.
Therefore, all players are sourced either to Haygarth, or to CricketArchive from 1787 to 1825.
Note #4: Unless specified as single wicket, a "match" is eleven-a-side, and also historically important.
Note #5: Where a player's name is preceded by a † symbol, the article is a redirect to this list.