Essential equipment for the umpire

As this advertisement says, this pocket stop watch is just the thing for umpires ‘when seconds matter’. The advert from J Arnold and Son, was placed in the Net Ball magazine in 1936.

The watch cost 15 shillings, and a direct conversion for that would be 75 pence. However, the value of money has changed so much that in real terms, this watch would cost about £48, which would probably be about the right price for a mechanical stopwatch today.