Editing Neville Cardus (section)

==Early life==

===Family background and early childhood===
Neville Cardus was born on 2 April 1888 in [[Rusholme]], [[Manchester]].<ref>O'Brien, pp. 23–25</ref> Throughout his childhood and young adulthood he was known as "Fred".<ref>Brookes, p. 3 and pp. 67–74</ref> There has been confusion over his birth date. The birthdate of 2 April 1888 is as given on his baptism record; and it is 2 April when he celebrated his birthday, albeit believing that he was born in 1889: Cardus himself hosted a dinner party on 2 April 1959 believing this to be his 70th birthday.<ref>Hart-Davis: ''Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters'', Volume 4: letters of 29 March and 5 April 1959, pp. 227 and 230</ref> His birth certificate shows a birthdate of 3 April 1888, but this has been argued to be incorrect, since the date of registration of 15 May 1888 was such that using the birth date of 2 April would have breached the requirement to register a birth in no more than 42 days.<ref>O'Brien, p. 24</ref> Some sources give the birthdate as 2 April 1889,{{#tag:ref|The research by O'Brien in ''Cardus Uncovered'', p. 23-25, sets out the reasoning for the birthdate of 2 April 1888. Both Cardus's ''[[Who's Who]]'' entry, and Brookes's 1985 biography, give 2 April 1889 as the birth date;<ref name= WW>{{cite web|title= Cardus, Sir Neville|url= http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U152980/CARDUS_Sir_Neville?index=1&results=QuicksearchResults&query=0|publisher= Who's Who Online edition|access-date= 26 November 2012}} {{subscription required}}</ref><ref>Brookes, p. 17</ref> the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', and Robin Daniels's 2009 memoir, give the date shown on the birth certificate.<ref name= ODNB/><ref name="Daniels, p. 3">Daniels, p. 3</ref>|group= n}} Neville's mother was Ada Cardus, one of six daughters of Robert and Ann Cardus of 4&nbsp;Summer Place, Rusholme. On 14 July 1888, when the baby was three months old, Ada married Neville's father, John Frederick Newsham, a blacksmith.<ref>O'Brien, pp. 30–32</ref> Cardus's autobiographical works refer to his father as a violinist in an orchestra, but there is no other evidence for this.<ref>O'Brien, pp. 33</ref> Four days after the wedding, Cardus's father left by boat for America, with the intention that Ada follow.<ref>O'Brien, p. 32</ref> However, Ada changed her mind and went to live with Eliahoo Joseph, a Turkish merchant and possibly a pimp, with Ada a prostitute.<ref>O'Brien, pp. 34–41</ref> John Frederick Newsham returned to England and divorced Ada in 1899.<ref>O'Brien, pp. 34–37</ref> It was said that within a few years Ada and Neville had returned to her parents' home in Summer Place.<ref name= ODNB>{{cite web|author-link= Gerald Howat|last= Howat|first= Gerald|title= Cardus, Sir (John Frederick) Neville|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30898|website= Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Online edition|access-date= 26 November 2012|year=2004}} {{ODNBsub}}</ref>

Robert Cardus was a retired policeman; Neville referred to him as receiving a small pension,<ref>Cardus, ''Autobiography'', p. 13</ref> although a search of police archives found no trace of this.<ref>O'Brien, p. 19</ref> The family took in neighbours' washing, and the household income was further supplemented by his daughters' earnings from part-time prostitution.<ref name= ODNB/> In his autobiographical writings, Cardus refers to his home environment at Summer Place as "sordid&nbsp;... unlettered and unbeautiful", yet enlivened by laughter: "Humour kept breezing in".<ref>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', pp. 18–19</ref> Commentators have suggested that Cardus tended to overstate the deprived aspects of his childhood; his biographer Christopher Brookes asserts that "Cardus was the product neither of a slum, nor a cultural desert".<ref>Brookes, p. 40</ref> Robert Cardus, though uneducated, was not illiterate, and was instrumental in awakening his grandson's literary interests. Theatres, libraries and other cultural facilities were easily accessible from the Cardus home.<ref name= ODNB/><ref>Brookes, pp. 55–57</ref>

Neville described his formal schooling as limited to five years at the local [[School boards in England and Wales|board school]], where the curriculum was basic and the methods of tuition harsh: "[T]he boy who showed the faintest sign of freedom of the will was caned".<ref>Cardus: ''Second Innings'', p. 82</ref> There is, however, doubt as to whether his schooling lasted only five years and whether he attended a board school or a Church of England school.<ref>O'Brien, pp. 42–43</ref> The experience did not curb Neville's intellectual curiosity; at a very young age he was expanding his cultural horizons, through the worlds of reading and of [[music hall]] and [[pantomime]]. When he was 10 years old he discovered the novels of [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]];<ref>Daniels, p. 10</ref> years later he wrote that there were two classes of person, "those who have it in them from birth onwards to appreciate Dickens and those who haven't. The second group should be avoided as soon as detected".<ref>Cardus: ''Second Innings'', p. 46</ref> His earliest creative writing took the form of a handwritten magazine, ''The Boy's World'', full of articles and stories he had written. He circulated it among his schoolmates, until it was discovered and torn up by an irate teacher.<ref name= Second83>Cardus: ''Second Innings'', pp. 83–90</ref>

===Manchester, 1901–12===
[[File:Albert Square Manchester 1910, Valette.jpg|thumb|upright|Albert Square, Manchester (depicted in 1910 by [[Adolphe Valette]]), where Cardus and his self-educated friends met regularly for discussion and debate]]
After Robert Cardus's death in 1900 the family moved several times, eventually breaking up altogether.<ref>Brookes, p. 47</ref> Cardus left school in 1901 and took a variety of short-term, unskilled jobs before finding more secure employment as a clerk with Flemings' marine insurance agency.<ref name= ODNB/><ref name= D11>Daniels, pp. 11–12</ref> He lived for a time with his Aunt Beatrice<ref name= D11/> with whom, according to Brookes, he had at an early age "embarked on a lifelong love affair&nbsp;... In his eyes she could do no wrong".<ref>Brookes, p. 22</ref> A flamboyant character, Beatrice brought colour into Cardus's life; she encouraged him to read worthwhile books and her memory, Brookes asserts, "remained a potent inspirational force" throughout his later life as a writer.<ref>Brookes, pp. 22 and 42</ref> She also bought him his first [[cricket bat]].<ref>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', p. 34</ref>

These years were a period of intense self-education. Cardus became an habitué of the local libraries, and extended his reading from Dickens to include many of the masters of literature: [[Henry Fielding|Fielding]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Joseph Conrad|Conrad]] and—with more reservation—[[Thomas Hardy|Hardy]] and [[Henry James]].<ref>Daniels, p. 8</ref> In due course he added [[philosophy]] and [[metaphysics]] to his curriculum; this began with his discovery of [[George Henry Lewes]], which led him on to the works of [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[David Hume|Hume]], [[George Berkeley|Berkeley]] and, eventually, [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]].<ref>Brooks, p. 58</ref> He supplemented these studies by attending free lectures at [[Victoria University of Manchester|Manchester University]],<ref name= autobiog49>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', pp. 49–50</ref> and met regularly with a group of like-minded [[Autodidacticism|autodidacts]] at [[Alexandra Park, Manchester|Alexandra Park]] or, in the winter, at the [[J. Lyons and Co.|Lyons café]] in [[Albert Square, Manchester|Albert Square]], to discuss and debate for whole afternoons. At first Cardus's schedule of self-improvement was random; eventually he compiled what he called a "cultural scheme" whereby he devoted a set weekly number of hours to different subjects.<ref name= B61>Brookes, pp. 61–62</ref>
[[File:Trumper driving.jpg|thumb|left|[[Victor Trumper]], whose batting was placed among "all the delights I have known" (''Autobiography'')<ref>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', pp. 182–83</ref>]]

Cardus's interest in music began with the popular tunes sung by his mother and her sisters in the family home. He remembered hearing for the first time the melody of the "Vilja" song from [[Franz Lehár]]'s operetta ''[[The Merry Widow]]'', which "curled its way into my heart to stay there for a lifetime".<ref>Cardus: ''Second Innings'', pp. 100–02</ref> In April 1907 he was "swept&nbsp;... into the seven seas of music" by a performance of [[Edward German]]'s operetta ''[[Tom Jones (Edward German)|Tom Jones]]''.<ref>Brookes, p. 83</ref> "I am unable to explain", Cardus wrote many years later, "why it should have been left to Edward German—of all composers—to release the flood".<ref>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', p. 53</ref> He began going to the [[Hallé Orchestra]]'s concerts at the [[Free Trade Hall]] where, on 3 December 1908, he was present at the premiere of [[Edward Elgar|Elgar's]] [[Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)|first symphony]], under [[Hans Richter (conductor)|Hans Richter]].<ref name= B61/> He regularly attended the fortnightly concerts at the [[Royal Manchester College of Music]], where students' performances were assessed by the principal, [[Adolph Brodsky]].<ref>Brookes, p. 59</ref> As part of his scheme of study, Cardus briefly took singing lessons, his only formal instruction in music.<ref>Cardus: ''Second Innings'', p. 122 and Daniels, p. 306</ref> In 1916 Cardus published his first musical article, "Bantock and Style in Music", in ''[[Musical Opinion]]''.<ref>O'Brien, p. 90</ref>{{#tag:ref|Cardus incorrectly dates this article to 1910: "It was written in the scholarly manner of the rationalist school presided over by [[J. M. Robertson]] and [Ernest] Newman. It contained footnotes, and was copious with allusions".<ref name= autobiog49/>|group= n}}

Alongside his intellectual pursuits Cardus played and followed cricket. As a small boy he had begun to visit [[Old Trafford Cricket Ground]] to watch [[Lancashire County Cricket Club|Lancashire]] matches: "The first cricketer I saw was [[Archie MacLaren|A.C. MacLaren]]&nbsp;... I can still see the swing of MacLaren's bat, the great follow-through finishing high and held there with the body poised".<ref>Cardus: ''Autobiography'', p. 3</ref> In 1902 he saw the [[Test cricket|Test match]] against Australia in which [[Victor Trumper]] scored a century before lunch and thereby won a permanent place among Cardus's heroes.<ref>Brookes, p. 46</ref> Cardus first played cricket on rough waste land close to his home in Rusholme;<ref>Brookes, pp. 49–50</ref> as he matured he developed as an effective medium-paced [[off break]] [[bowling (cricket)|bowler]], and for several seasons from 1908 onwards he played as a weekend professional in Manchester league cricket. "I am not ashamed to confess that I seldom hesitated, as soon as a batsman came to the [[Crease (cricket)|crease]], to let him have a quick one bang in the penis; after which a quick, simple straight one would invariably remove him from the scene".<ref name= Second83/>