Richard Culmer (1597–1662), a Puritan clergyman who had been suspended from his duties in 1635, was restored to the clergy in 1638 as a curate. He was sent to the Parish of Harbledown to assist the Reverend Austin. Culmer, known as "Blue Dick" because he always wore a blue gown, was vindictive towards drunkenness and Sabbath sports. Cricket at this time was played at an inter-parish level only in the south-eastern counties but there had been a number of ecclesiastical cases in which people playing the game on a Sunday were prosecuted. Whereas Culmer had managed to suppress Sabbath sport in other places, he was less successful in Harbledown where the parishioners provoked him by "crickit playing before his door, to spite him".