Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

There had been a chapel at Bolsterstone in the parish of Ecclesfield since the fifteenth century, originally the private chapel of the de Rockley family. In due course the chapel came to be used for village worship. Subsequently more substantial village churches were erected. Shortly after his appointment as vicar, William Reginald Wilson set about replacing the then existing church, known as Bland’s Church and described in a local brochure as “remarkable for its bare, ugly appearance” and “barn-like, cold and draughty” with a new building. Construction began in 1872 and the new church of St Mary’s was completed, at a total cost of £7,200, in 1879, the year of Rockley’s birth. Across the road from the church was the vicarage, a substantial two-gabled, three-storied building, set in extensive grounds with views across the moors to Broomhead Hall about two miles away. The vicarage provided ample accommodation and play area for the growing Wilson family. The building is now a private residence but is little changed structurally from the time of the Wilsons’ occupancy. The cricketing Wilsons William Reginald instilled in all five of his sons an abiding interest in cricket. Often one or more of the boys would accompany their father to watch matches at Bramall Lane or other local grounds. Rockley recalled watching some of the greats of cricket’s early years and being struck by the colourful attire of some of the players: “As a boy, I saw Mr A.N.Hornby play there in a starched pink shirt. Lord Harris used to wear an evening shirt and bow tie. P.J.de Paravicini, wearing a sweater with horizontal stripes of red, black and gold [the colours of I Zingari] was cheered to the echo every time he moved, and Middlesex players wore pink shirts. Certainly no players were more smartly turned out than Lord Hawke and Sir Stanley Jackson who used hunting paste to clean their pads.” Rockley also recalled his delight at being served with pudding in the public luncheon room at Bramall Lane by Louis Hall, the Yorkshire opener 4 – hardly a chore that would be undertaken by a professional cricketer today. Aside from watching cricket, Clem and Rockley, sometimes joined by an older brother, spent many hours playing cricket on the vicarage lawn. We can assume that it was here that Rockley began to develop the essentials of his cricketing skills, playing straight when batting, The Wilson Family 10 4 M.A.Marston, A Century of Cricket at Bramall Lane, 1855-1955 , Greenup and Wilson (published for Sheffield United Cricket Club), 1955, p.15.