Charles Bray (6 April 1898 – 12 September 1993) 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 and journalist.Both CricketArchive and Cricinfo give his name as "Charlie Bray". However the profile accompanying his Cricinfo entry refers to him as "Charles Bray", and that was the name that he used for his book and his journalism. It is unclear which was his birth name. Bray played for

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

between 1927 and 1937. His highest score was 129, saving the match after Essex followed on against the New Zealanders in 1931. He captained the county intermittently and later wrote the volume ''Essex'' from 'The County Cricket Series' published in 1950 by Convoy Publications Ltd. He wrote for the '' Daily Herald'' from 1935 to 1964, and subsequently as a freelance for '' The Sun'', covering cricket and

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

. For his work as a war correspondent during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. He was chairman of the

Cricket Writers' Club The Cricket Writers' Club is an association for cricket journalists working in print, television or radio. It was established in 1947, and contains around 90% of those eligible for membership. During the 1946–47 Ashes series, the Australian and Br ...

in 1953. His brother,

Leslie Bray Leslie Lingwood Bray (14 January 1895 – 29 November 1957) was an English first-class cricketer who served as an officer in both the British Army and the Royal Air Force in both world wars. In the latter stages of the First World War, Bray was ...

, also played first-class cricket.

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* 1898 births 1993 deaths Cricketers from Brighton English cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 Essex cricketers British sportswriters Cricket historians and writers English male journalists English war correspondents War correspondents of World War II {{England-cricket-bio-1890s-stub