Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

acquaintances both in and outside the game. Rockley was prepared to travel long distances by train or motor car to indulge his enthusiasm for the more social form of the game of cricket. Country house cricket appeared tailor-made for a man of Rockley Wilson’s background and personality. It was not necessary for a cricketer in Rockley Wilson’s social circle to commit himself to one cricket club – it was rather different in the Midlands and the North where league cricket had taken root by the end of the nineteenth century – and there were many clubs that were happy to have use of Rockley Wilson’s talents, even if not on an exclusive basis. Among the several clubs that Rockley Wilson appeared for while on the staff at Winchester were MCC, Old Wykehamists, Quidnuncs (a club for former members of Cambridge University Cricket Club), I Zingari, Free Foresters, Butterflies, Yorkshire Gentlemen, Northern Nomads and Hampshire Hogs. He became a member of MCC in 1904 and thereafter the club was to be an important part of his life. As already noted, he had first appeared for MCC in 1902 against Yorkshire at the Scarborough Festival 62 , but rather surprisingly he did not appear very often for MCC subsequently. His intermittent appearances for MCC and Ground 63 in outmatches, mainly against public school sides (including, on a number of occasions, Winchester College), were in 1904, 1911, 1914, 1915 and, after the First World War, 1920, 1921 and 1923. It is likely that Wilson treated these fixtures more as a social occasion than as a competitive match. His contributions with the bat were invariably modest and when he did bowl he contented himself with two or three wickets before coming off. Of his other clubs, I Zingari was surely a Rockley favourite. The club had an attractive fixture list, including many country house games, and the club’s mission – to promote the popularity of cricket far and wide – and its rather bizarre rules and customs, not to mention the striking club colours, would have appealed to him. Free Foresters, of which his brother Rowland Alwyn was an active member, was another all-amateur club that Rockley was pleased to play for before and after the First World War. As was the way with country house cricket and the travelling clubs, we find that Rockley Wilson played at various times both for and against I Zingari and Free Foresters, Winchester 56 62 Non-members can be selected to play for MCC; indeed, it is a way of qualifying as a ‘playing member’ of the Club. 63 Teams representing MCC and Ground included a mix of members and those employed as professional bowlers on the ground.