Dimming of the Day

46 Westminster. He died on 4 August 1916, a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, still only aged 19. In the championship Middlesex (five wins out of eight) were still top, Surrey (seven out of ten) were second and, no doubt to their great surprise, Hampshire, who had just beaten the champions, Kent, were third with five out of nine. The next day Miss Sylvia Pankhurst turned up at Westminster where (according to The Times ) she intended to starve to death at the entrance to the House of Commons unless she was met by the Prime Minister, but he agreed to meet a delegation of six women from the East End, and Miss Pankhurst returned home to be arrested again. At Nottingham on 18 June Middlesex dismissed the home county for 190, but slipped to 39-4 themselves, though Tarrant was unbeaten on 25. Essex, with seven amateurs in the side, played Worcestershire at Castle Park, Colchester. It was the first time that they had played there and they scored 381-7, Captain W.M.F.Turner making 84. Hampshire scored 239 against Surrey at the Oval, the captain, E.M.Sprot, making 131. Sprot was one of those over-accomplished amateurs: he won the Army Rackets Challenge Cup, was a good golfer, a keen shot and fisherman and a noted billiards player, though by now he was 42. The first cricket report for 19 June was, of course, the Old Etonians v Old Harrovians match which took priority over county matches as far as The Times was concerned. Peter Johnson, a New Zealander who played for many years for Somerset, made 102 and Logie Leggatt 76. At the Oval Hobbs scored 163 in three and a half hours and Arthur Jaques bowled leg theory with only one fielder on the off side. Middlesex were two runs behind Notts on first innings. Notts reached 157-5 in their second innings at the close. Mr J.A.Sanger made 102 for Cheltenham against Marlborough. Sanger was to play for Lord’s Schools this year, but played only minor cricket after the war. By 20 June Essex had won at Colchester, with nine wickets in the match for G.B.Davies – six for 51 in the second innings. Geoffrey Davies was still at Cambridge, but the University had a break between matches and he turned out for Essex instead. Davies, regarded as academically brilliant as well as a fine cricketer, died in the Battle of Loos in 1915. On Monday 22 June the birthday honours list was announced. There was an earldom for Lord Kitchener, J.G.Frazier, author of The Golden Bough , was made a baronet. Joseph Cook, the Liberal Prime Minister of Australia (though he had started in the Labour Party) became a Privy Councillor: he had begun his working life as a coal miner in Staffordshire. Mr Asquith had received his delegation from the East London Federation of Suffragists and said that their arguments should have ‘careful and mature consideration’, and agreed to consider the release of Sylvia Pankhurst. The Manchester Guardian said, ‘of all the many talks on the suffrage that June 1914