Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

a fine cricketer all-round, as patient with the bat as with the ball, and he certainly struck me as having a very old head on his shoulders when he tempted the Marlborough boys to their ruin with his curly slows.” The school’s assessment was that Wilson had proved “a thoroughly keen and good captain under whom a moderate team developed into a good one. Began the season with some really fine innings but latterly was handicapped by a broken finger. Slow right hand bowler with considerable command of the ball and knowledge of the game.” 15 Clearly, Rockley Wilson was emerging as an accomplished batsman and highly promising slow bowler, and he was invited to play for privately raised sides in good class club cricket. In 1897, for example, he played for M.H.Marsden’s XI during the Spalding Cricket Festival, taking six for 63 in Spalding’s first innings, seven for 73 in their second, and scoring 73 out of 333 in the visitors’ only innings. This match was a forerunner to the many, later in his career, that Rockley was to play for invitation elevens at cricket weeks and festivals up and down the country. A point of interest is that Rockley’s brother, the Reverend R.A.Wilson, appeared for the Free Foresters against Rugby School in each of Rockley’s seasons in the First XI and on each occasion his bowling caused the schoolboys some difficulties. In the match in 1896, for example, R.A.Wilson took three for 31 and seven for 25 in the School’s two innings: his dismissals included that of his brother for a stubborn 38 in Rugby’s first innings. Rowland Alwyn had been a master at the school for a short time after he left Cambridge and before he entered the church. He had also helped with the organisation of cricket at the school. 16 With his sporting prowess and a sense of humour that could border on the mischievous, it is not surprising that Rockley was very popular with his fellow pupils. A contemporary at Rugby observed “nothing in which he was concerned could ever be dull.” 17 He was a keen member of the school Debating Society, revelling in the opportunities it provided for witticisms and welcoming the opportunity to propose radical motions. For School and University 21 15 The Meteor, 12 October, 1897, p.109. 16 PelhamWarner is quite clear on the point in his autobiographies, My Cricketing Life , Holder and Stoughton, 1921, pp.44-46, which are an appreciation of Warner by R.A.Wilson, and Long Innings , op.cit., p.30. Curiously R.A.Wilson does not appear in Rugby’s register of teachers, no doubt because his appointment was short-term. 17 Letter to The Times , 26 July, 1957, commenting on Rockley Wilson’s obituary in The Times on 22 July, 1957.