History of Bucks CCC

Between the Wars: Bucks’ Golden Age The aftermath of War The county handbook was produced as usual in 1915. It made brief reference to the two matches played the previous summer, but its report gave greater prominence to the names of all Bucks cricketers who had ‘responded to the call of King and Country’. Already the war was taking its toll. Lieutenant BHG Shaw, the second son of ED Shaw, now Bishop of Buckingham, was the first Bucks player to fall, dying at Neuve Chapelle on 19 December 1914. Three days earlier Captain Stephen Ussher, the youngest son of the vicar of Westbury, had also been killed in the trenches at Givenchy. He had played in Club and Ground matches, while his two brothers, Beverly and Richard, had both appeared for the full county team. Tragedy would strike both families again. Captain Beverly Ussher, a regular Army officer like his brother Stephen, met his death on Gallipoli Peninsula on 19 June 1915, while Bishop Shaw’s eldest son Edward, who had bowed out in such splendid style in the final match of 1914, perished on the Somme in 1916. By the end of the war the list of those killed in action would extend. When publication of the handbook resumed in 1919 the names of DH Field, WG Garforth, ER Mobbs and P Broughton-Adderley were added to the Roll of Honour. All had played for the county team, but the last named has a special poignancy. In 1911 he played his only game for Bucks; he did not bowl and, entering at number eleven, he was out first ball. Despite the loss of young life a gratifyingly large number of those who had represented Bucks before the War survived the carnage, many earning citations for their gallantry. The Distinguished Service Order was awarded to AM Grenfell, AHC Kearsey and JT Weatherby, while the Military Cross was won by GEWBowyer, SG Fairbairn, H Jennison, HW Priestley and F Weatherby. None of these played many times for Bucks, Hubert Jennison, an opening batsman from Wolverton with eleven appearances being the closest to a regular player. Another to have shown promise was Sydney Fairbairn, an Old Etonian who had been in the Sandhurst Eleven in 1911 and toured West Indies with MCC in 1912-13. He had made his debut for the county in 1913, taking 23 wickets as an opening bowler. After the War Fairbairn spent some time in East Africa, and he accomplished the astonishing feat of crossing Equatorial Africa on foot. He was at one time commissioned to collect wild animals for British zoos, a venture that apparently met with little success. 40 SG Fairbairn