Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

Chapter Four From Journeyman to Master King’s chances of a permanent career as a professional cricketer were enhanced when, in addition to being employed by his county, he joined the enormous ground staff at Lord’s – that year numbering 58 – to which there already belonged the veteran Leicestershire players Rylott and John Wheeler and his team-mates Pougher, Woodcock, Whiteside and Geeson. He was to remain a member of the staff at Lord’s for the rest of his playing career. 23 It was probably in this year, 1899, that King first lodged in Lansdowne Road, Leicester, in a three-storey house owned by a Mrs York. Census returns of 1881 and 1901 show both King and his elder brother living in the parental home on Worship Street in Lutterworth, but this does not prove that during the cricket season he was not already lodging in Leicester. He retained friendly relations with his landlady’s family all his life. Around this time he was also working in the off-season for Mr A.J.Lawrence in Rugby as a compositor. King’s first full season was no triumph, although in mitigation it must be remarked that he suffered at times this season from ‘rheumatic gout’. In Championship matches he averaged a mere 15.17 for 349 runs, while his 17 wickets cost an expensive 43.23 each, Wisden commenting that he ‘looked very ordinary’; and he was deservedly dropped for the last three matches of the season. As ‘Reynard’ was later to write, ‘his talent only peeped out during his earlier years as a professional’. Nevertheless, there were sufficient encouraging signs for his county not to abandon him. He 45 23 MCC records list him on the ground staff for every season from 1899 to 1925. In the period 1899 to 1915, he played 115 one- or two-day matches for the club, scoring almost 4,500 runs at an average of just under 35. His busiest year was 1901 when he played in ten matches, some of two innings, scoring 564 runs at 35.25. He missed 1910, injured, entirely. The matches were with schools, clubs, District Associations and Minor Counties. The records are less comprehensive on his bowling returns, but he appears to have taken about 270 wickets at perhaps 15.00 or so. Sometimes captains held him back; he seemed to have bowled second-change quite often. He played in only nine matches after 1915, including one in 1917: it is possible that he umpired instead, but the scorebooks rarely give such details. In some earlier seasons where umpires’ names are available, older pros often stood in the club’s matches.