Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

He served after the Second World War on the MCC Arts and Library sub-committee, as natural a role for him within the MCC set-up as can be imagined. Of greater significance, however, for the game at large was his work in 1944 with Harry Altham, his colleague from Winchester days, assisting R.S.Rait Kerr, the MCC Secretary, with the drafting of a new Code of the Laws of Cricket. The Code ultimately adopted in 1947 owes much to Rockley’s scholarly input to the drafting process. 95 In a more social context, Rockley was a frequent visitor to Lord’s, whether to watch matches or merely to use the members’ facilities, where he enjoyed the company of his wide circle of cricket friends and acquaintances. He continued with his teaching career at Winchester College, of course, and, until 1929, with his responsibilities for cricket and cricket coaching which he finally surrendered to Harry Altham, then ten years his junior, though he continued to bowl in the nets at Winchester until 1946 when he was 67 years old. He was a house tutor in Furley House and had ambitions to be housemaster but was considered unsuitable for such a position. He certainly had no obvious administrative skills and organisation, even of his own affairs, was not a strong point. In November, 1945 the time finally arrived for him to give up the teaching duties which he had willingly continued during the war years. After retirement, Rockley was a regular spectator at Winchester’s matches and took a close interest in the team’s performances, as ever quick to impart encouragement and advice and to engage in conversation and reminiscences. He contributed in other ways than cricket to the life of Winchester College. He was an active member of the Wykehamist Society, contributing occasionally to the Society’s journal, and on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, exchanging celebratory poems in Latin with Bob Arrowsmith in its pages. In 1956 he completed, with H.A.Jackson, a life-long friend, the laborious task of updating the 1901-1946 edition of the Register of boys who attended the school. He apparently had a yen for this kind of work, for in 1945 he had completed, for the Free Foresters Cricket Club, an up-to-date Members List and Club Records. During his early years as a teacher, Rockley lived in the school. After returning from the First World War, he bought a house at 16 Later Years 103 95 Referring to the contribution of Altham and Wilson, Rait Kerr said that both have “given up more time than they could possibly afford to help me over difficulties”: R.S.Rait Kerr, The Laws of Cricket , Longmans Green, 1950, p.xvi.