Product Code Database
Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professional who played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and represented the England cricket team. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman and a left-arm bowler. He was also an outstanding close-in fielder and remains the only non-wicket-keeper to have taken more than 1,000 catches in a first-class career. His aggregate of runs scored is the second-highest in first-class cricket history, while total number of wickets places him 27th overall.
Woolley played 64 Test cricket for England between 1909 and 1934 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of the sport. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1911 and was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.
The family business was located close to the Angel Ground, the home of Tonbridge Cricket Club and a venue used annually by Kent County Cricket Club for festival matches.Milton 2020, p. 163–164. In 1899, the ground became the base for the Tonbridge Nursery, a training centre established to develop young professional cricketers for Kent.Milton 2020, p. 164. Players trained at the Nursery formed the core of Kent's four County Championship winning teams during the early years of Woolley’s career.Moseling & Quarrington, p. 2–3.Lewis, p. 33.
Woolley developed an interested in cricket at an early age. Frank Woolley, Cricketer of the Year 1911, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1912. Retrieved 26 December 2021. He played informally with his brothers behind his father's workshop and watched matches at the Angel Ground from a tree overlooking the field.Carlaw, p. 603.Milton 2020, p. 165. He was also a keen association footballer, playing for Tonbridge and later signing for Tunbridge Wells Rangers F.C. in 1906.
By the time Woolley reached his teenage years, his father's business, by then developed into a motor vehicle garage, was prospering, allowing Woolley the opportunity to attend the fee-paying Tonbridge School. His cricketing ability, however, had attracted attention. He assisted as a fielder during practice matches at the Angel Ground,Lewis, p. 320. and was later invited to play in a match to make up numbers by Tom Pawley, Kent's manager. Woolley did not regard himself as academically inclined and declined a place at Tonbridge School, instead leaving formal education at the age of 14.
In 1903, Woolley was formally engaged as a young professional by Kent and trained full-time at the Tonbridge Nursery under William McCanlis during the cricket season. His brother Claud Woolley joined the Nursery around the same time.Lewis, p. 113.
Woolley quickly impressed McCanlis and the other Nursery coaches. In 1905, he made his Kent Second XI debut against Surrey Second XI at The Oval. As Nursery professionals were made available to clubs upon request,Scoble, p. 19. Woolley for a variety of teams during the season, scoring 960 runs and taking 115 wickets.
He was coached and mentored by Colin Blythe, a Kent professional based in Tonbridge who bowled slow left-arm spin, the same style later adopted by Woolley.Scoble, p. 64–65. Blythe, who had been Woolley's childhood hero, appears to have influenced Woolley’s bowling action. Woolley approached the wicket with his bowling arm held behind his back; his biographer Ian Peebles later observed that the principle difference between the two bowlers was that Woolley delivered the ball from his hip, rather than from under the armpit, as Blythe's had done.Milton 1998, p. 7.
In Kent's second innings, however, Woolley scored 64 runs, and he retained his place in the side for most of the remainder of the season. He missed only the matches played during Canterbury Cricket Week, a major social event at which amateur players were more likely to be available for selection.
Woolley recorded his first five-wicket haul in his second match, against Somerset at Gravesend, before producing a notable all-round performance against Surrey at The Oval in his third appearance. In that match he took eight wickets, including 5 for 80 in Surrey's second innings, and scored 72 and 26 not out, performances that secured victory for Kent and established his reputation as a player of considerable promise. He followed this with his first first-class century in the next match, played at the Angel Ground, and by the end of the season he had been awarded his county cap as Kent won their first County Championship title.
Writing after the end of the 1906 season, Wisden said that "Good as he already is, Woolley will no doubt... go far ahead of his first season's doings. It is quite possible he will be the best left-handed bat in England."Quoted in Carlaw, p. 603 and Milton 1998, pp. 6–7. He had played 16 matches, scored 779 runs and took 42 wickets.Milton 1998, p. 8.Moore, p. 60. It was to be the only time he did not score at least 1,000 runs in a season in his career. Woolley achieved the feat 28 times, equalling WG Grace's record. He scored more than 2,000 runs 12 times and in 1928 scored 3,352; in every season other than 1919 he scored at least 1,000 runs for Kent.Lewis, p. 321. His total of 58,959 runs is the second highest of all time in first-class matches, beaten only by Jack Hobbs, and his 145 centuries is seventh on the all-time list.Lewis, p. 322.
As a bowler, Woolley was most effective before a knee injury in 1924–25. He took a total of 2,066 wickets and achieved the cricketer's double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season eight times.Wilde, p. 70. He took 132 five-wicket hauls and took 10 wickets in a match 28 times. His 1,018 catches as a fielder are the most taken by any non wicket-keeper.
Woolley played 64 test cricket for England between 1909 and 1934 and did not miss a Test match for the team between 1909 and 1926. He scored 3,283 Test runs at an average of 36.07 and made five Test centuries. He took 83 wickets and 64 catches for the team. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1911 and was the first winner of the Walter Lawrence Trophy for the fastest hundred scored in England in 1934. Fleming wins the Walter Lawrence Trophy and £5000, ESPNcricinfo, 23 September 2002. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
In total Woolley played in 978 first-class matches, including a record 764 for Kent, in a career which lasted until 1938. He holds the Kent records for most career runs, centuries and catches and for total runs in a single season and is fifth on the county's list of all-time wicket takers. Frank Edward Woolley, Kent County Cricket Club. Retrieved 28 December 2021. He retired aged 51, scoring 1,590 runs in his final season.Milton, p. 97. He was inducted into the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations Hall of Fame in 2000 Cricket's Hall of Fame welcomes five new members, ESPNcricinfo, 3 July 2000. Retrieved 28 September 2010. and made an inaugural member of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame when it was established in 2009. Ex-England aces dominate ICC list, BBC Sport, 2 January 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2021. ICC and FICA launch Cricket Hall of Fame, ESPNcricinfo, 2 January 2009. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
According to R. C. Robertson-Glasgow "when you wrote about him, there weren't enough words. In describing a great innings by Woolley, and few of them were not great in artistry, you had to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first over of his innings, perhaps, there had been an exquisite off-drive, followed by a perfect cut, then an effortless leg-glide. In the second over the same sort of thing happened; and your superlatives had already gone. The best thing to do was to presume that your readers knew how Frank Woolley batted and use no adjectives at all."Quoted by Hughes, p. 147. He went on: "there was all summer in a stroke by Woolley, and he batted as it is sometimes shown in dreams."Quoted by Hughes, p. 149. In his Wisden obituary, R. L. Arrowsmith wrote "his average rate of scoring has been exceeded only by Gilbert Jessop and equalled by Victor Trumper. His philosophy was to dominate the bowler. 'When I am batting,' he said, 'I am the attack'." Frank Woolley, Obituaries in 1978, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1979. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
Woolley was subsequently recruited by Jack Hobbs, who was also employed in the munitions industry, to play for Keighley in the Bradford Cricket League. Keighley , Bradford Premier League. Retrieved 28 December 2021. He also made several appearances in exhibition matches, including scoring a century for a Lancashire team against Yorkshire in 1916.
Later in 1916, Woolley was accepted for service with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). He began training in November and was posted to Dover in March 1917, where he was attached to a motor boat section. He was promoted to aircraftman first class and in February 1918 was transferred to Felixstowe, serving as the coxswain of a rescue launch.
In April 1918, the RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), and Woolley was transferred to the new service. He was posted to North Queensferry, Scotland, where he worked under Admiral Sir John de Robeck. A keen cricketer, Robeck attached Woolley to his flagship, HMS King George V.
Robeck arranged a number of cricket matches, including games held at the home of Lord Rosebery, a former captain of Surrey. During the summer of 1918, Woolley played in several additional exhibition matches, including appearances for England against a Dominions XI and for teams organised by Plum Warner.
Woolley was transferred to the RAF Reserve in January 1919 and was formally discharged in 1920. In 1922, he played a single first-class match for the Royal Air Force cricket team.
Woolley’s only son, Richard, was killed was serving as a merchant seaman oboard SS Beaverford during Convoy HX 84 in November 1940. The family home in Cliftonville was later destroyed during a bombing raid in 1941.Carlaw, p. 607.
During the war, Woolley took part in a number of exhibition matches intended to entertain the public and raise morale.Robertson-Glasgow RC (1941) 1940: Notes on the Season, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1941. Retrieved 28 December 2021.Birley, pp. 263–264. After the war, he moved to Tunbridge Wells, where he continued to coach at The King's School for a further ten years. In the easy 950s, he also spent a summer coaching cricket at Butlin's holiday camp. Woolley played twice for Old England teams, was elected a life member of both Kent Cricket Club and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), and served on the Kent General Committee between 1950 and 1961.
Following Sybil Woolley’s death in 1962, Woolley moved to Longwick, Buckinghamshire to live with one of his daughters. He remained active in later like, regularly attending matches at the St Lawrence Ground during Canterbury Cricket Week, and in January 1971 travelled to Australia to watch the final two Tests matches of the 1970–71 Ashes series.
Later in 1971, Woolley married Martha Wilson Morse, an American widow, and the couple settled in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Woolley died in 1978 at their home in Chester, Nova Scotia aged 91. A memorial service was held at Canterbury Cathedral, and his ashes were scattered at the St Lawrence Ground.
Cricket career
After a single Second XI appearance in May 1906, a match in which he played alongside his brother Claud,Lewis, p. 114. Woolley was selected for Kent's First XI for the County Championship match against Lancashire at Old Trafford, replacing Blythe who had injured his hand while fielding. Woolley’s first-class debut proved challenging: he was dismissed for a duck from the third ball he faced, dropped Johnny Tyldesley three times, who went on to score 295 not out, and took only just one wicket in Lancashire's first innings.Milton 1998, p. 6.
Style and technique
Writing for Barclay's World of Cricket, Harry Altham described Woolley as a "tall and graceful" figure who, with "a quiet air" was "unhurried in his movements".Swanton et al. p. 250. As a batsman, he had a gift for timing his shots and made full use of his long reach; he was especially strong in driving off his back foot against balls that other batsmen might consider good length deliveries. He was equally graceful as a bowler, making full use of his height to extract additional bounce from his deliveries. Altham pointed out that, although Woolley lacked the subtlety of Wilfred Rhodes, he was nevertheless a formidable bowler on any pitch whose conditions helped him. Woolley's long reach and his "large, prehensile hands" made him an excellent fielder close to the wicket. Neville Cardus described him as "the most stylish professional batsman in the country"Quoted in Bateman, p. 113. and wrote that no other cricketer alive "had served the meadow game as happily and faithfully as Woolley",From Neville Cardus (1934) Good Days. Reprinted in Hart-Davis R. whilst in his obituary in The Daily Telegraph, EW Swanton described him as "as graceful a batsman as ever played".Quoted in Ellis & Pennell, p. 14.
Wartime service
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the English cricket season continued, although public interest declined and the social aspects of the game were reduced.Renshaw, p. 23. Woolley married in September 1914 and did not immediately enlist in the armed forces. Instead, he worked in his father's workshop, which had been converted to the manufacture of munitions.Carlaw, p. 604. His three brothers all joined the Kent Fortress Royal Engineers in 1914, and in 1915 Woolley attempted to join them but failed his medical examination.
Later life and family
Woolley married Sybil Fordham, the daughter of a veterinary surgeon from Ashford, in 1914. The couple had three children: one son and two daughters.Carlaw, p. 604. Prior to his retirement from professional cricket, Woolley purchased a bungalow in Hildenborough, on land sufficiently large to allow him to establish a cricket school. He coached cricket at The King's School, Canterbury, but following the outbreak of the Second World War the school was evacuated to Cornwall. Woolley subsequently moved to Cliftonville, where he joined the Local Defence Volunteers.Carlaw, p. 606.
Notes
Bibliography
External links
Categories: 1887 Births, 1978 Deaths, British Home Guard Soldiers, Royal Naval Air Service Personnel Of World War I, Royal Naval Air Service Personnel, Royal Air Force Personnel Of World War I, Royal Air Force Airmen, Military Personnel From Kent, England Test Cricketers, English Cricketers Of 1890 To 1918, 20th-century English Sportsmen, English Cricketers Of 1919 To 1945, English Cricketers, Kent Cricketers, London Counties Cricketers, Marylebone Cricket Club Cricketers, Non-international England Cricketers, North V South Cricketers, Over 30s V Under 30s Cricketers, People From Tonbridge, Players Cricketers, Players Of The South Cricketers, Royal Air Force Cricketers, Wisden Cricketers Of The Year, C. I. Thornton's Xi Cricketers, L. G. Robinson's Xi Cricketers, L. H. Tennyson's Xi Cricket Team, Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team Cricketers, Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team Cricketers, Cricketers From Kent
|
|
