Arthur Cave Wathen (27 March 1841 – 14 March 1937) was an English school teacher and amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. Wathen was a right-handed batsman who fielded occasionally as a

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

during the 1860s.Arthur Wathen

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2020-08-14.

Life

Wathen was born at

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

, then in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, in 1841, the son of Hubert and Harriet Wathen. His father was a tea merchant in London and was the Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1850. Wathen was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School before going up to

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

in 1859.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 552–553.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-21.)Wathen, Mr Arthur Cave
Obituaries in 1937, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1938. Retrieved 2020-08-14. Wathen played club cricket for Surrey sides in 1861 whist at university, and played his first

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

match for the

Gentlemen of the South A gentleman (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man) is any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the ra ...

against the

Gentlemen of the North A gentleman (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man) is any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the ra ...

at Trent Bridge in the same year, scoring 42 runs on his debut.Arthur Wathen
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2020-08-14. The family lived at Beckenham in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and Wathen played most of his cricket for the Gentlemen of West Kent, as well as playing for other amateur sides, including the Gentlemen of Kent, Band of Brothers and Reigate Priory. He played for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

in nine first-class matches in 1863 and 1864, scoring a total of 147 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 8.64, with a high score of 42

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

. He also made three first-class appearances for the Gentlemen of Kent during

Canterbury Cricket Week Canterbury Cricket Week is the oldest cricket festival week in England and involves a series of consecutive Kent home matches, traditionally held in the first week in August. It was founded in 1842, although a similar festival week was first hel ...

s, playing twice against the Gentlemen of the MCC in 1863 and 1864, as well against MCC in 1866, playing some matches alongside his brother

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. After 1871 Wathen moved from Beckenham to run a school on Chesham Place in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. He married Agnes Richardson in 1883 and lived in Brighton for most of the remainder of his life. Despite being a teacher, he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers and was given the Freedom of the City of London, both through his family connections. Wathen died in 1937 at a nursing home at Bradfield in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. He was aged 97.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wathen, Arthur 1841 births 1937 deaths People from Streatham Cricketers from the London Borough of Lambeth Cricketers from the London Borough of Merton English cricketers Kent cricketers Gentlemen of the South cricketers Gentlemen of Kent cricketers