"'Devon Cricket' is a collection of my father's writings on the subject. His mother was a Devonian by birth, from a family with deep roots in the West Country and he had always been keenly interested in the cricket of the county. He may have planned to write a history of Devon Cricket but as with so many things in life, he never got around to it. Some years ago this Editor very nearly picked up the cudgels and began to plan for a 'proper history'; but again, it did not happen and besides, Devon Cricket was always close to my father's heart. His words say it best!

I have gathered together his 'finished' essays and articles on the subject, and put them together in this monograph. My father was a man who liked things to be placed in their rightful perspectives, ordered so that they made intuitive, intellectual sense and I hope I have achieved that in this, the third monograph in the James D. Coldham Series.

The centrepiece of the monograph is the essay: 'The Beginnings of Devon Cricket', which is accompanied by biographical sketches of that seminal figure in Devonian cricketing folklore 'John Henry Copleston', a shorter piece about 'Shaw: the Nameless One', and 'The Butchers of Devon', about a remarkable West Country cricketing family. In publishing 'Devon Cricket' I am doing what my father would have done had he lived in our marvellously inter-connected age – making this material available to the widest possible audience.

It is the editor's hope that the publication of 'Devon Cricket' will be of assistance to researchers and fellow 'cricketing history' aficionados everywhere.