Charles Joseph Harenc (3 August 1811 – 14 December 1877) was an English lawyer 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 in the mid-19th century. He played cricket for the Gentlemen of Kent, the

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 ...

teams of the 1840s and for MCC as well as a number of other sides and was regarded as the best Gentleman bowler of his era.

Early life

Harenc was born in 1811 at Foots Cray in Kent,Charles Harenc

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 2017-10-20. the second son of Benjamin Harenc who owned Foots Cray Place,Foster J (1891) ''Alumni oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886'', vol II, p.607. London: James Parker & Co.
Available online
Retrieved 2019-04-15. Als
available at Wikisource
Retrieved 2022-04-18.)Obituary - Benjamin Harenc Esq, '' The Gentleman's Magazine'', vol.95, 1825, pp.566–569.
Available online
Retrieved 2019-04-15.) an 18th-century neo- Palladian house built in the style of the

Villa Rotunda Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza in northern Italy designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. The villa's correct name is Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, but it is also known as "La Rotonda", "Villa Rot ...

which had been purchased by Charles' grandfather, also named Benjamin, in 1772.Foots Cray Place
Lost Heritage. Retrieved 2019-04-15.Foots Cray Place
London Borough of Bexley. Retrieved 2019-04-15. The Harenc family were originally Huguenot refugees from France and Harenc's grandfather established a silk mill at Foots Cray in 1775 and served as

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instrum ...

in 1777.Foots Cray Mill, Foots Cray
Mills Archive. Retrieved 2019-04-15. Harenc's father was an East India Company merchant and a keen cricketer, playing for Prince's Plain, a club which preceded the West Kent club; his mother Sophia was a member of the Berens family which was closely associated with the club.Carlaw, ''op. cit.'', p. 211. Retrieved 2021-12-29.The history of BCCC
Bromley Common Cricket Club. Retrieved 2021-12-29. Charles was educated at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

. He was a school monitor in his final year and played in the Harrow cricket team between 1826 and 1828, playing into two

Eton v Harrow The Eton v Harrow cricket match is an annual match between public school rivals Eton College and Harrow School. It is one of the longest-running annual sporting fixtures in the world and is the last annual school cricket match still to be pla ...

matches and captaining the side in his final year at school.Dauglish MG, Stephenson PK (1911) ''The Harrow School Register 1800–1911'', third edition, p.108. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Available online
Retrieved 2019-04-15.) From Harrow he went up to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, matriculating in 1829 and graduating B.A. in 1833.

Cricket career

Harenc is known to have played for the Gentlemen of Kent in non-first-class matches as early as 1827, whilst he was still at school. He made his first-class cricket debut for the side in a match against MCC at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

in July 1830, going on to play for MCC in club matches later the same year. He played for the

Gentlemen against the Players Gentlemen v Players was a long-running series of English first-class cricket matches. Two matches were played in 1806, but the fixture was not played again until 1819. It became an annual event, usually played at least twice each season, exc ...

in 1831 and in two matches for Oxford University against MCC the following year.Charles Harenc
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-10-20. Playing regularly throughout the 1830s and 1840s, Harenc made a total of 56 first-class appearances, most frequently for the Gentlemen of Kent or Kent sides, both before and after the formation of the first

in 1842. He played in seven Gentlemen v Players matches during the 1830s and made his final first-class appearance in 1849. In club cricket he played regularly for MCC, Old Harrovians and

I Zingari I Zingari (from dialectalized Italian , meaning "the Gypsies"; corresponding to standard Italian ') are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs, founded in 1845 and 1888 respectively. It is the oldest and perhaps the most famous of the 'wa ...

and was a member of the MCC Committee during the 1840s.Marylebone Cricket Club, ''Sporting Magazine'', vol.101, 1843, pp.418–421. London: Rogerson & Tuxford.
Available online
Retrieved 2019-04-16.) Harenc was a particularly successful bowler who was regarded as the best Gentleman bowler in the country during the early 1830s.Birley D (1999) ''A Social History of English Cricket'', p.69. London: Aurum Press.Boase F (1892) ''Modern English Biography, Volume I: A–H'', p.1335. London: Netherton and Worth.
Available online
(2018 reprinted edition). Retrieved 2019-04-15.) He took at least 130 wickets in his first-class career, twice taking ten wickets in a match. In his youth he bowled fast underarm deliveries, before converting to bowl slow roundarm later in his career.

Later life

Professionally Harenc was a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

at the Inner Temple in London in 1837. He married Ann Maria Powis at Cookham 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 ...

in 1868 and died in December 1877 at Bedford aged 66.Charles Harenc
Ancestors of Stephen George-Powell, 2016. Retrieved 2019-04-15. Three of his brothers, Henry,

Edward Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

and Archibald, also made appearances in first-class cricket.

Notes

References

External links

1811 births 1877 deaths English cricketers English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Oxford University cricketers Gentlemen cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers A to K v L to Z cricketers People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Members of the Inner Temple Gentlemen of Kent cricketers Cricketers from Greater London {{England-cricket-bio-stub