Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Emmett first joined Yorkshire when almost 25 as a professional fast left-arm bowler with a near roundarm action, though in his later years he took to bowling slow-medium. Once discovered, however, Emmett climbed almost immediately to the top of the cricketing tree, playing for England against Surrey & Sussex in Tom Lockyer’s benefit match at the Oval in 1867, his second season. An even greater bowler, George Freeman, was approaching his best at the same time, and, from 1867 to the end of 1871, they dominated the English bowling scene. After 1871, however, business commitments took Freeman away from first-class cricket, but Emmett stayed on and found another able colleague in the excellent Allen Hill. In later years, Emmett shared the Yorkshire bowling duties with George Ulyett, Billy Bates, Ted Peate and Bobby Peel. He called his most famous delivery the “sostenuter”: after pitching on leg the ball would break back a long way to take the off-stump. As time went on, Emmett’s pace deserted him.

Emmett toured Australia three times and North America once. He played seven Test matches, including the first-ever in 1877, and was also the bowling mainstay for Lord Harris’s team in 1878/9. According to J.L. Carr in his Dictionary of Extra-Ordinary Cricketers, on one occasion he “politely asked of an Australian fielder who had crept in close, if he was wed. He explained that, although he had no compunction about killing him, the death of a husband and father would vex his peace of mind.” Emmett captained Yorkshire between 1878 and 1882, ending his connection with the eleven in 1888. He was the last professional to captain Yorkshire until Vic Wilson was appointed in 1960.

Emmett married a woman named Grace, three years his junior, and had four daughters (Clara, Frances, Evelyn and Edith) and two sons, (Arthur, who went on to play for Leicestershire in 1902, and Albert). He died in Leicester on 29 June 1904 (not 30 June, as is widely reported).