5ft. 6 inches tall and weighing just over 10 stone, he was a lower order right-hand batsman and a right-hand round arm medium paced bowler, who usually fielded at long-leg or cover-point.

In June 1871 he turned out for Sixteen Colts of Lancashire against the Manchester Club and Ground, scoring 6 and 21 and taking two wickets. He was described as being from the Withington Club, but was already undertaking a professional engagement at Oxford University which lasted from 1871 to 1873. On the strength of his performance in the Colts Match he travelled with the Lancashire team to Gravesend and there played against Kent scoring 4 and 2, but was not asked to bowl.

At the end of May 1872 he played for the Fifteen Colts of Lancashire against the Manchester Club at Old Trafford, scoring 14 and 23 and taking 0/27 and 2/6. This time he was described as being from the Rusholme Club. In early June 1873 he again appeared in the Colts match - this time Seventeen Colts against the Manchester Club and Ground - and made a pair and took no wickets for 25 runs. He was this time described as being from Manchester.

In 1874 he was engaged at the Rusholme Club and from 1875 - 1877 at the Birch Cricket Club.

On the 5th and 6th July 1875 he played again for Lancashire, this time against Derbyshire at Derby, failing to score in his only innings.

During the latter half of the 1870s he lived at 6 Gaspard Street, Rusholme, and at the time of the 1881 Census was still there, aged 28 and working as a gardener, with his wife Elizabeth, aged 28, and their two sons Charles aged 3 and Thomas aged 1. His widowed mother, Elizabeth, aged 64, a laundress, is also present, as is his unmarried brother John, aged 40, an agricultural labourer, and his son William, aged 15, an errand boy.

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Don Ambrose)

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