Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

25 So I set about looking for some answers. Origins The Who’s Who of Cricketers , published for the Association in 1993, tells us that Hyland was born on 16 December 1893 at Battle, near Hastings in Sussex, died at Hartford in Cheshire on 27 February 1964, and that he was a lower-order batsman who played as a professional in one match for Hampshire in 1924. His Wisden obituary in 1965 adds a note on the brevity of his one first-class match, and concludes with a sentence that inspired some of Ronald Mason’s speculations: ‘Hyland later earned a reputation as a nurseryman in Cheshire.’ Following up the sources that have assisted in the preparation of all the chapters in this book – local newspapers, census returns, certificates of birth, marriage and death, family history websites, other internet-based sources, and a huge range of sources spinning off from all of these – we find that only some of the above facts are true. Even some of the more detailed sources, such as the obituary placed (presumably by his family) in the Northwich Guardian edition of 5 March 1964, do not bear the closest examination. 36 But what follows is the result of checking and cross- checking all sources, and should, I hope, be accurate and reliable. His date of birth of 16 December 1893 is substantiated by his birth certificate. Fred, as he was known, was the seventh of nine children, and the third son of five, born to George and Frances Annie Hyland, who certainly lived in the registration district of Battle, but not in the town itself. Changes over time in the parish boundaries have confused the picture somewhat, but Fred was actually born in the village of Sedlescombe, about 2½ miles north-east of Battle. In 1893, the family home where he was born, known variously as Orchard Place or Orchard Cottage, was actually in the parish of Westfield, but physically it was and is clearly a part of Sedlescombe, and to say that he was born in Westfield (as his birth certificate implies) actually misleads to the tune of about two miles. 37 In the nineteenth century a number of Hyland families, no doubt related, lived in and close to Sedlescombe, but none was in any way affluent. Fred’s father was an agricultural labourer and sometime gamekeeper on the adjacent estate owned by the artist and landowner Hercules Brabazon. 38 The family had some local celebrity, not to say notoriety: In the later 19th century, Orchard Cottage was occupied by the Hylands, father and son. Both had been inveterate poachers, the father having got shot in the leg for his pains. George, the son [Fred’s father] followed his father’s example so expertly that Squire 36 This obituary appears to have formed much of the basis of a feature on Hyland by Neil Jenkinson in the Hampshire C.C.C. Yearbook for 2003, but here too, not all the details fully check out. 37 The parish boundary has since been changed, and Orchard Cottage is now firmly within the parish of Sedlescombe. 38 The estate, known as Oaklands, is now home to the Pestalozzi International Children’s Village, an educational charity set up for children from developing countries to live and study. Of the Late Frederick J.Hyland, again