Kent County Cricket Club in 1906
After dominating county cricket in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, the players who made up Kent's great side of the 1840s had retired and by the 1850s the county had been reduced to often having to amalgamate with other sides to produce a challenging team. The formation of a County Club in Maidstone in 1859 and the amalgamation of this with the original Kent Cricket Club in 1870 to create the modern Kent County Cricket Club, provided the basis for re-emergence, although the club suffered from financial instability and Lord Harris's view was that Kent could not hope to compete at the level it once had throughout the 1870s and 1880s. When the County Championship was formerly established in 1890 Kent were initially able to finish only in mid table.
Kent county cricket teams
On 6 August 1842, formation of the original Kent County Cricket Club took place in Canterbury. The new club played its initial first-class match against All-England at White Hart Field in Bromley on 25–27 August 1842. On 1 March 1859 a second county club was established in Maidstone to support the Canterbury club. The two clubs were amalgamated in 1870 to form the present county club.