Charles John MacDonald FoxSport, Cricket, Circa 1895, Charles John MacDonald Fox, Kent
Getty Images. Retrieved 27 April 2023. (5 December 1858 – 1 April 1901) was an English

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. He played 80 first-class matches, mainly 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 a career that lasted from 1876 until 1893.Charles Fox

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 10 March 2017.Charles Fox
CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 April 2023. A heavy scorer in club cricket, Fox played as an

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are consi ...

county cricket Inter-county cricket matches are known to have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship ...

Early life

Fox was born in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

in 1858, the son of William and Rebecca Fox (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Richmond).Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 177–178.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 7 August 2022.) His father was a school teacher at

Murshidabad Murshidabad fa, مرشد آباد (, or ) is a historical city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River, a distributary of the Ganges. It forms part of the Murshidabad district. During ...

,Fox, Charles John Macdonald, 1858–1901
Online Catalogue for Westminster School's Archive & Collections. Retrieved 3 May 2023. and Fox was educated at

Doveton College Doveton is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 31 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Casey local government area. Doveton recorded a population of 9,603 at the 2021 census. Doveton ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and, between 1870 and 1876, at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

in London.Mr C. J. MacDonald Fox
Obituaries in 1901, ''

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 ...

'', 1902. Retrieved 3 May 2023. He played cricket for Westminster between 1874 and 1876, scoring 87 runs against

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

in his first season and taking

five-wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Takin ...

s against the same opposition in 1875 and 1876.

Cricket

Fox made his

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 ...

debut for

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 June 1876 whilst still at school, playing against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

. He scored only four runs in the match, although his fielding was noted as "fine", and, despite playing other matches for the Surrey Club and Gentlemen of Surrey, this was his only first-class appearance for the county side. He played some club cricket for Crystal Palace Cricket Club in 1876 and 1877, but then returned to India where he lived until his father's death in 1884. After the family returned to England, Fox rejoined Crystal Palace and established a reputation as a good club cricketer, scoring almost 6,000 runs, including 14 centuries, between 1885 and 1888. He had qualified to play for

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 ...

by residence by 1888, and played his first match for the county in June, appearing against Surrey at The Oval―his first first-class match for 12 years. He immediately made an impact, being Kent's top scoring batsman with 42 runs in a tight victory against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

in his second match later in June, before going on to score 93

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 ...

on a difficult batting wicket against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

―an innings described as "altogether an excellent display of cricket". He went on to play regularly for Kent until 1893, making 74 first-class appearances for the side before playing his final county matches in 1893. As an amateur who did not need to work, he was able to play regularly throughout the season and was a valuable

for the Kent side.Kent cricket in December
Kent Cricket Heritage Trust, 24 November 2022. Retrieved 12 May 2023. As well as his matches for Kent, he appeared in first-class matches for the Gentlemen of England in 1888, for the South against the North in 1889 and 1891, and for CI Thornton's XI in 1890. In the same year he captained a Hurst Park Club side in a victory against the touring Australians, Fox top scoring in his side's first innings with 31 runs. Fox scored a total of 2,147 first-class runs and took 46 wickets. Despite his reputation in club cricket, he failed to score 500 runs in any of his first-class seasons. His only first-class century, a score of 103 runs, was made against

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...

in July 1891―an innings which ''

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 ...

'' magazine praised as "a most brilliant display of sound and judicious batting", noting that he did not give a chance during the innings. He scored a further six half-centuries, all for Kent, and took

five wickets in an innings In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Taki ...

three times, twice in 1889―including his best bowling analysis of five wickets for 21 runs taken against Surrey at

Blackheath Blackheath may refer to: Places England *Blackheath, London, England ** Blackheath railway station **Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England *Blackheath, Surrey, England ** Hundred of Blackh ...

―and once in 1890. His '' Wisden'' obituary described him as a batsman with "plenty of hitting power" who was, at times, "a very fast scorer" as well as "a useful bowler―keeping a good length and using his head well―and a splendid field". Despite this, Fox is considered to have "not ... taken cricket too seriously".Carlaw, p. 178. In 1891 he was one of Kent's not out batsmen in a match again

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

at lunch but did not complete his inning, returning late from lunch having been lunching with a widow.Sengupta A (2015
She was available and so I was not — how Kent lost to Sussex as their batsman sat wooing
Cricket Country, 19 May 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2023.

Later life

As well as cricket, Fox played

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, playing as a

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

. He lived at Beckenham and

Gipsy Hill Gipsy Hill in south London is a hilly neighbourhood spanning the southern parts of the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark characterised for its great views of the City of London and Dulwich. Historically, north of its traditional Westow ...

, later in his life describing his occupation as an "agent". Fox married Alice Robinson in 1896, but died from a heart attack in 1901 at the age of 42 at

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

on a visit to Australia.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Charles 1858 births 1901 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Surrey cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers North v South cricketers C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers Hurst Park Club cricketers British people in colonial India