Born On This Day: 7th November

Hon. (later Lord) Lionel Tennyson was born in London, in 1889 and succeeded as 3rd Baron Tennyson in 1928. He was the grandson of the famous Victorian poet and went to Eton and Cambridge University although he played no major cricket there and did not take his degree, but became an officer in the Coldstream Guards and played cricket for the Army.

His achievements there brought him a first-class debut for MCC v Oxford University in 1913 when, with 110 in the second innings, became the only Hampshire cricketer ever to score a century on first-class debut. He was invited to play for Hampshire, and in his second match scored 116 against Essex and in the next, 111 at Trent Bridge. His exploits in that first season brought him the accolade as one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year, and he toured South Africa in the winter playing in all five Test matches.

He saw action at the front throughout the war, evidently heroically despite a lack of decorations, and was wounded and sent home on three occasions. Despite his lively, optimistic personality, he documented the horrors of his experiences in the trenches in some detail, and by the war’s end he had lost two brothers, and his mother, with whom he was close.

He captained Hampshire from 1919-1933, after which he played occasionally until the end of the 1935 season; from 1921-1926 Hampshire only once slipped below seventh. In 1922, he led Hampshire to what is probably still the most remarkable victory in Championship history, after Warwickshire had bowled them out for 15.

In 1921, after Australia had beaten England in the first two Test Matches he was invited to take on the captaincy, after CB Fry, who withdrew injured, recommended him. In the first match at Leeds he lost Hobbs to illness, unable to bat in either innings; then Tennyson split his hand in the field, used a boy’s bat, and scored 63 & 36 one-handed. England lost again but he arrested that sequence in the final two Tests, both drawn.

He played in 347 first-class matches for Hampshire, scoring 12,626 runs at 23.68, with a best of 217 v the West Indians in 1928. In that year, and previously in 1922 and 1925, he passed 1,000 runs. As an occasional and somewhat unpredictable fast bowler he took 43 wickets for the county. He died at Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex 6.6.1951.

Also Dr Anthony Henley.