Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

Preface It is always hard to write the biography of a cricketer who made his début over a hundred years ago and died over sixty years ago, whom nobody now alive saw in his prime and who rarely reached national consciousness and therefore much comment in the game’s history books. But there were many worthy county players who were far more than just artisans, having in their time a devoted local following which they delighted with their skill and artistry in an age when county patriotism was still strong and county teams were viewed as valuable in their own right and not as mere nurseries for national blooms, and when there were no cries for the retirement of a highly successful and popular cricketer in his thirties to make room for a callow youngster who might just possibly one day play a few matches for England. Sixteen years ago in a conversation with Mike Turner, Leicestershire’s Chief Executive at the time, I expressed the opinion that an interesting book could be written on the county’s all-rounders. Mike urged me to write such a book, overcoming my protests that I could not start until I had retired and that residence in the remoteness of Canada would fatally injure such a project; and on visits to England for other purposes I began to visit, through Mike’s good offices, those who had played with or otherwise knew my chosen Leicestershire heroes. This short book on John Herbert King is now the first fruit of that conversation. Philip Snowmade it possible by introducing me to King’s daughter, Margaret Wearn, from whom in two long afternoon visits and numerous letters I learned much knowledge otherwise unattainable. I hope that I repaid her in part for her kindness and friendship by taking her up early one morning to Leicestershire to wander through our mutual rural childhood haunts before going to Grace Road, where we were royally entertained by Mike and watched Leicestershire play Yorkshire, so often opponents of her father and on one memorable occasion victims of his greatest bowling triumph. No reader can be as aware as I of the inadequacies of the following narrative. I merely hope that I have rescued some scraps from the inexorable jaws of tempus edax rerum . A.R.Littlewood London, Ontario January, 2009 10