Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

Chapter One The Wilson Family One thousand feet above sea level in the southern Pennines, and nine miles north-west of Sheffield, lies the small and ancient village of Bolsterstone. In 1867 William Reginald Wilson was appointed vicar at Bolsterstone and during the ensuing 29 years his wife presented him with eight children, three daughters and five sons. Nothing remarkable about that: large families were commonplace in Victorian England. But what is remarkable is that all five sons were to make their mark in one capacity or another in the world of cricket. Two of the boys, Clement Eustace Macro, usually known as Clem, and the youngest, Evelyn Rockley, born on 25 March, 1879 and always known as Rockley, were to distinguish themselves in the first-class game. Both played for Cambridge University and Yorkshire and also for England, albeit only twice in the case of Clement and but a single time in that of Rockley. These are not remarkable achievements in themselves. What makes Rockley’s first-class cricket career remarkable is that it began in 1899 at the height of cricket’s Golden Age, went into abeyance when he became a schoolteacher at Winchester College in 1903 until, effectively, after the First World War, and ended 24 years later in 1923 when Rockley was 44 years old. Moreover, Rockley was one of the game’s personalities “in a day”, as The Times put it in an obituary, “when the word had not been debased.” With a ready wit and an impish sense of humour, there are more anecdotes involving Rockley Wilson than perhaps any other cricketer. It is this as much as his performances on the field of play that makes Rockley Wilson so interesting – and challenging – a subject for a biography. Family background From their beginnings as yeomen in the ancient Manor of Bolsterstone, the Wilson family had acquired sizeable estates in the area. By the eighteenth century the Wilsons were a family “of 5