Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

most of the summer at Cambridge in lodgings with his brother Clem, who had gone up to Trinity College from Uppingham School in 1895 (and in 1898 was captain of the University side) rather than at home in Bolsterstone. We do not know how much cricket Rockley played that summer for other teams, but it seems very likely that he would have played some club cricket in the Cambridge area if not in his home village of Bolsterstone. Cambridge University Years Following the path of his father and his brothers Rowland Alwyn and Clement, Rockley entered Trinity College, Cambridge in the Michaelmas term of 1898. Rockley would surely have enjoyed his time at the University and the range of sporting, cultural and social activities that it offered. A serious illness had put paid to any ambitions in athletics, so it was upon his cricket that Rockley concentrated when at the University. Off the playing fields, it was at Cambridge that Rockley developed a passion for billiards at which he became a proficient player. When at home in Bolsterstone, he would have played at Broomhead Hall with his relation Reginald Henry Rimington-Wilson who was one of the outstanding amateur billiards players of his day. At school Rockley had also become fond of cards and at Cambridge he was an enthusiastic and skilful poker player. Once, at Cambridge, he took the bank at roulette with the cricket club’s subscriptions that he had just collected – he was Secretary in 1901 – and doubled them. In these rather raffish interests, Rockley was perhaps kicking against the traces of his strict upbringing in a very religious household. Academically Rockley did not do himself justice. There is no doubting his scholastic abilities, but he was inclined to idleness and found it hard to find time for his studies. He probably did not share the ambitions of most of his fellow students to use a Cambridge education as a springboard into the civil service, the learned professions or politics. When he graduated in 1901 in Classics it was only in the lower division of the Second Class. Probably, as was said of him at Rugby, Rockley treated his cricket more seriously than his studies. Certainly, his cricket career blossomed while he was at the University. He did well in the Freshmen’s match in 1899, scoring 60 runs and taking eight wickets and impressing the Cambridge captain School and University 23