Hubert Preston
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{short description|English journalist}}
Hubert Preston (16 December 1868 – 6 August 1960){{cite web|url=http://www.knights.co.uk/catalogue.php?pa=cl&cid=32|title=Autographed Cricket Ephemera Lot 15|website=Knights Auction House|access-date=15 January 2021}} was a journalist and writer who was editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack for eight years from the 1944 edition to the 1951 edition.{{cite web|url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-interest/wisden/about-wisden/editors/|title=Wisden Editors|website=Bloomsbury|access-date=15 January 2021}}{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/australasia-travel/australia/heart-and-soul-has-big-edge-over-cover-point-5bmpksnbll3|title=Heart and soul has big edge over cover point|author=Christopher Martin-Jenkins|work=The Times|date=30 April 2003|access-date=15 January 2021}}{{Cite news |date=8 August 1960 |title=Obituary - Mr Hubert Preston |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67893085/obituary-mr-hubert-preston/|page=4 |access-date=18 January 2021}} He contributed to 51 editions of the Almanack, and was the oldest editor of the publication, being 74 when he started in the position.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P3d5AgAAQBAJ&q=%22hubert+Preston%22+editor&pg=PT29|title=The Shorter Wisden 2013: The Best Writing from Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2013|date=19 April 2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Books|isbn=9781408192269|access-date=15 January 2021}} He became a partner in the Cricket Reporting Agency in 1920.{{cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/680283.html|title=Boy! Copy! Telegram|date=18 October 2013|publisher=ESPN Cricket Info|access-date=15 January 2021}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v7NRCgAAQBAJ&q=%22hubert+Preston%22+football&pg=PT730|title=The Shorter Wisden 2011-2015|author=Scyld Berry & Lawrence Booth|date=6 August 2015|publisher=Bloomsbury Books|isbn=9781472927330|access-date=15 January 2021}}
Career
Preston was educated at the City of London School and became a reporter on the Manchester Guardian newspaper. After a period in Canada as a farmer, he returned to the UK in 1895 and joined the Cricket Reporting Agency run by Sydney Pardon, which was responsible for the production of Wisden as well as reports for the Press Association and newspapers. He remained with the agency for 56 years until he retired as editor of Wisden in 1951 and was succeeded by his son, Norman Preston, who edited Wisden from 1952 to 1980.{{Cite news |date=8 August 1960 |title=Mr. Hubert Preston |work=The Times}}{{cite web|url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/swan-stops-play/|title=Swan stops play; How the cricketers' bible is being reinvented|author=Richard Tomlinson|publisher=TLS|date=24 June 2016|access-date=15 January 2021}} He also reported on soccer matches.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GrfCCwAAQBAJ&q=%22hubert+Preston%22+football&pg=PT861|title=Vain Games of No Value?: A Social History of Association Football in Britain|author=Terry Morris|date=3 March 2016|publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1504998512|access-date=15 January 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.wisdenblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/within-the-confines-of-lunacy-jonathan-rice-sifts-through-120-years-of-wisdens-notes-by-the-editor/amp/|title=Within the Confines of Lunacy: Jonathan Rice sifts through 120 years of Wisden's "Notes by the Editor"|author=LizzieatBloomsbury|website=wisdenblog|access-date=15 January 2021}} In 1944 he restored the "Notes by the Editor" feature to Wisden which had been stopped under the previous editor.{{cite web|url=https://www.wisdenblog.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/a-century-of-notes/|title=A CENTURY OF Notes By Tim Rice - Originally published in the 2000 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack|website=Wisden:the blog|access-date=16 January 2021}} In 1947 he introduced a full page profiles of four England Players in the 1946/7 tour, which was new to Wisden. His son Norman wrote these first reports, but subsequent full page profiles were produced by eight other writers that Preston chose. He never wrote a profile himself.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zbRLAQAAQBAJ&q=%22hubert+Preston%22+editor&pg=PA154|title=Wisden Cricketers of the Year: A Celebration of Cricket's Greatest Players|author=Simon Wilde|date=17 September 2013|publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1408140840|access-date=15 January 2021}}
In 1945 Preston wrote of the England Australia game "War meant the home side experienced difficulty in finding the best of the available players. Some of the chosen men, coming almost straight from battlefields, must have regarded the first encounter primarily as a reunion with old friends, so that a thoroughly serious view of the game, such as the Australians clearly held, was too much to expect".{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2006/apr/11/comment.gdnsport3|first=Frank|last=Keating|title=Hatter pulled out Easter bunny before vanishing act|work=The Guardian|date=10 April 2006|access-date=15 January 2021}}
Preston was known by the nickname HP or Deafy.{{cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152198.html|title=Norman Preston, MBE|website=ESPN Cricket Info|date=6 February 2006|access-date=16 January 2021}} He was deaf for much of his life, using an ear trumpet before battery-operated hearing aids became available.
He was a strong supporter of the County Championship becoming two divisions, according to his notes in Wisden 1949.{{Cite web |first=Hubert|last=Preston|date=1949 |title=Notes by the Editor |url=http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152893.html |access-date=2021-01-18 |website=Wisden Cricketers' Almanack|via=ESPNcricinfo}}
Upon Preston's death in 1960, Neville Cardus wrote that he was "with [Sydney] Pardon and Stewart Caine, the most courteous and best-mannered man ever to be seen in a Press Box on a cricket ground".Neville Cardus, "Hubert Preston", Wisden, 1961, pp. 157–59. His funeral service was held at St Bride's Church in Fleet Street, London, on 17 August 1960.