William Henry Ferguson (6 June 1880 – 22 September 1957) is one of the best-known

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 ...

scorers. For 52 years from 1905 until his death, Ferguson acted as the scorer and baggageman for Australia, England, West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand in 43 tours and 208 Test matches. He is often credited with two of the most revolutionary innovations in scoring. He developed the radial scoring chart, which shows the directions in which a batsman scored his runs. Originally called "Ferguson's charts", they are now popularly known as "wagon-wheels". He was one of the first scorers to use a linear system of scoring which, unlike the conventional system, keeps track of the balls faced by a batsman and off a particular bowler. In order to record such details, including the times of significant events during an innings, he designed his own scoring books – "which contain dat least twice as much information as any other in the world" – and had them printed at his own expense. At the same time he also filled in a conventional scoring book for official use. He retained his own scoring books. He received the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to ...

in 1951. He scored for the

West Indian cricket team in England in 1957 The West Indies cricket team toured England in the 1957 season to play a five-match Test series against England. England won the series 3-0 with two matches drawn. West Indies' spinners Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine were unable to repeat the ...

at the beginning of the tour, but had to give up during the tour after a bad fall. He died at his home in

Bath, Somerset Bath () is a city in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary area in the county of Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman-built baths. At the 2021 Census, the population was 101,557. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, ...

, a few weeks later. He published his autobiography, ''Mr Cricket'', a few months before his death.

References

*
Biography in The Cricket Country
1880 births 1957 deaths Sportspeople from Sydney Cricket scorers Recipients of the British Empire Medal {{Australia-cricket-bio-1880s-stub