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.
List of Kent County Cricket Club first-class cricket records
Kent's highest score in an innings was achieved in 1934 against Essex at Brentwood. Their highest score at a home ground was set in 2017 at Beckenham with Northamptonshire as the opposition. This surpassed the score of 633/8 made in 2015 at Tunbridge Wells against Essex. The county's lowest innings totals all date from the 19th century.The highest partnership in Kent's history was 382 runs, set in 2017 at Beckenham against Northamptonshire. This surpassed the previous highest partnership of 368 runs set in 1995.