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
By the 1830s Kent sides began to dominate English cricket, winning 98 matches during the period and being declared the leading county side for six seasons out of the seven between 1837 and 1843. During this period the formation of county sides was initially focussed on Town Malling Cricket Club, backed by lawyers Thomas Selby and Silas Norton alongside William Harris, 2nd Baron Harris. Selby and Norton recruited "the best batsman in England", Fuller Pilch from Norfolk, to play at Town Malling, maintain the cricket ground and run the connected public house. Alongside other players such as Alfred Mynn, Nicholas Felix, Ned Wenman and William Hillyer, Kent teams selected by Selby played eleven matches at Town Malling between 1836 and 1841. The expense of running county games meant that Town Malling proved too small to support a county club, despite the large attendances that games attracted, and in 1842 Pilch moved to the Beverley club at Canterbury.