Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

92 Tragedy 1881 he was back again in the county eleven for this fixture. He scored only nought and seven and did not keep wicket - not in the first innings at least, when that task was given to Harry Wood (later of Surrey and England); though whether Boys kept wicket in the Colts’ second innings is not revealed by the available scorecard. In that 1881 season, Kent were slightly spoiled for choice for wicketkeepers, but until Tylecote became available on a regular basis in late July no-one laid claim to the spot on a regular basis. They used four keepers in the five matches before Tylecote’s return: future Surrey and England cricketer Harry Wood, the Oxford University keeper M.C.Kemp, long-serving stalwart Edward Henty and, for the first match of the season, John Boys. The game was a return visit for Boys to Lord’s to play MCC, though he was less successful than he had been for the Royal Artillery in 1875. This time he scored just five and 21, though the latter was the highest innings (and one of only two double figure scores) in an all out total of 53. Perhaps it was military duties that caused him not to be selected again until the last match of the season, against Surrey at The Oval. He did not do himself any sort of justice with the bat (he made a pair), but at least he had the satisfaction of a catch and two stumpings as wicketkeeper, one of those stumped being Walter Read. He did not play at first-class level again. In 1882 and 1883 he continued to play for the Royal Artillery, though by no means in every match. The last game in which he is known to have played was on 28 July 1883, when he was 17 not out of an RA score of 66 for seven when their match against Ravensbourne (who had made 120) came to an end. Hard though it may be to think of love trumping any obligation to play cricket for a military team, perhaps that was part of the reason for Boys’ St Margaret’s Church in Plumstead, where Musician Boys was to have been married, was three-quarters of a mile from Woolwich Barracks where he died. The church was demolished in 1974.