suffering". Grace added that Hawke "is a splendid captain, inspiring his men by the example he gives them of pluck and resource". In a tribute to Hawke's captaincy policy, Stanley Jackson wrote: A personal interest in each individual player and his welfare, which was then begun and lasted to the end, gained for "His Lordship" a respect and loyalty from every member of the team which I think must have been unique. Jackson recalled that when Hawke began his career, Yorkshire had a "completely professional side including players whose names became famous in cricket history". Hawke soon realised that "such a team of fine natural cricketers, under sympathetic management and firm leadership, would develop into a most formidable and attractive county side". Jackson points out that: This happened: public interest and support throughout Yorkshire followed and continued to increase until today the Yorkshire County Cricket Club with its fine county side, receives probably, the most generous and loyal support of any in the country. Hawke's initiative, with the co-operation of an enthusiastic and competent committee, laid the foundation of Yorkshire County Cricket upon which the present position has been built. Although he was benevolent in his care of his players, Hawke would not tolerate any action that brought the game into disrepute or was perceived to be outside its "spirit". When Bobby Peel went out to play under the effects of too much alcohol, Hawke escorted him off the field and, as Peel himself sarcastically noted: "Lord Hawke put his arm round me and helped me off the ground – and out of first-class cricket. What a gentleman!" Hawke always carried himself as he thought a gentleman should and Bill Bowes, who first met him in 1928, recalled his "mannerism of pulling his shoulders back as he spoke, like a sergeant major in the Guards". It has been said that cricket was Lord Hawke's life whereas to the more talented Jackson, for example, cricket was only his sport. In Birley's view, when Hawke joined Yorkshire as an Etonian who had come down from Cambridge, he was "prepared to make cricket the most serious thing – almost the only thing – he did with the rest of his life". Birley criticised Hawke as an "autocratic, opinionated, utterly self-confident sprig of the aristocracy" and as "a disciple" of his friend Lord Harris. In a later passage, Birley states that Hawke was "not