Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

10 Boyhood born bowler and indeed some years after the death of the last of them. If one could include Haydon Smith, who was born a mile and a half up the road at Groby, Leicester did not overtake Ratby until 2001, 20 long after it became the practice for births to take place in big-city hospitals rather than at home. Six bowlers have taken over 1,000 wickets for the county: one was from Australia, and of the other five, all Leicestershire- born, two came from the south of the county, while one hailed from Ratby, Haydon Smith from a mile and half away and the sixth, the only one born in Leicester itself, was Smith’s nephew. 21 The largest town (after the city of Leicester), Loughborough, has produced only four players for the county team who took between them a mere 132 wickets. Even for runs scored Ratby stands easily second to Leicester itself. Perhaps 1910 was Ratby’s season par excellence: ten bowlers of various birthplaces dismissed 56 opponents between them, the trio from Ratby 22 232 or nearly 80.55% of the total. Among the Astills in Ratby, according to census records, an agricultural labourer named James Astill (born c 1813) and his wife Sarah (born c 1821, née Stinson) accommodated in 1851 within their home their children, Ann (aged 6) and John (aged 4), and also a 67-year-old Chelsea Pensioner from neighbouring Markfield, John Almon. At some time son John, in honour of the veteran of the Napeolonic wars, was given also the name Allmon (with double ‘l’). Sometime in the later 1860s this John Allmon Astill married Emma Geary (born 1849). 23 John Allmon was styled ‘stockinger’ in the 20 If one were mischievously to include nearby Thornton, Jim Sperry’s haul of wickets would leave Leicester still behind. 21 The six are, respectively, J.E.Walsh, J.H.King, G.Geary, Astill, H.A.Smith and C.T.Spencer. 22 Astill, Jayes and W.Shipman. 23 There appears to be no traceable connexion between the Gearys of Ratby and those of the south-Leicestershire village of Barwell, the most famous of whom, George, became a close County-colleague of Astill (and once also for England).  A certain Joseph Geary was a contemporary of John Allmon Astill’s son Ezra at the Methodist Sunday School (mentioned in Ezra’s letter to the school’s superintendents and teachers on which see below later in this chapter). A distant view of a cricket match can be seen in this 1910 view of Ratby.