Talk:Joseph Miller (cricketer)

Joseph or Richard?

Apart from CricketArchive (never reliable about anything before the 20th century), virtually all sources agree that this man's name was Joseph or at least that his initial was J. Who knows where CA got the idea from that he was called Richard? The obvious explanation, as described in the text, is that somehow some confusion arose between Joseph Miller and the Richard Miller who made one single known appearance in 1774.

According to John Major on p.70 of his book, Miller was "Richard Miller" and "not Joseph as is sometimes stated". The "sometimes" is an understatement given the preponderance of other sources who say he was J or Joseph, but then that book was written by a politician, firmly rejected by the electorate in 1997 for getting things wrong, who presumably looked at CricketArchive before Haygarth.

Haygarth studied all of the old scorecards and probably some biographical or official data too and he was in no doubt at all, through numerous references culminating in his short biography of Miller (see S&B, p.58), that he was dealing with a man called Joseph whose initial on scorecards was always J (except where they used his surname only).

So, with 99% certainty, he was called Joseph. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 06:32, 27 June 2010 (UTC)