Brief profile of H.W.R.Bencraft by Don Ambrose

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Player:

HWR Bencraft

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BENCRAFT, Henry William Russell
Amateur.
Born at Southampton, Hampshire, 4th March 1858.
Died at Compton, Winchester, Hampshire, 25th December 1943.
The son of Dr.Henry Bencraft of Southampton, he was educated at St.Edward’s School, Oxford. He left to go on the St.George’s Hospital, in 1878 and qualified as a doctor (M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P.) 1885.
He first played for Hampshire in 1876, he virtually ran the Hampshire County Cricket Club in the coming years. He was treasurer of the Club 1880-1893, Secretary 1882-1904, captain 1880-82 and 1893-95, chairman 1919-34 and President 1911-12 and 1935. He played in 46 first-class matches and was also a noted rugby union player, and became president of the Hampshire Rugby Union as well as being President of the Southern Football League and the Hampshire Football Association.
He was a J.P., a County Councillor for Southampton and a member of the Committee of the M.C.C. and was knighted in 1924.
In the 1881 Census he was a medical student, aged 23 and unmarried, living at home at 153 St.Mary Street, Southampton, with his father Henry, surgeon aged 58, and his mother Grace, from Barnstable, Devon, aged 57. Lucy Deane, designated a lunatic, a married woman aged 59, born in London, was also present as were three domestic servants.
In 1937 he was living at 25 Winn Road, Southampton, having been married in 1889 to Kate Margaret, second daughter of Walter Perkins J.P., of Portswood House, Southampton.

(Article: Copyright © 2003 Don Ambrose)