Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Tyrwhitt Drake Wilson,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(9 April 1876 – 19 March 1964) was a British Army officer and

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 who played minor counties cricket for

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

and first-class cricket for Army, Army and Navy, and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) sides. Born in Cottesbrooke, a small Northamptonshire village, Wilson was the oldest of three cricketing brothers, each of whom played for Suffolk in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

. The youngest brother,

Herbert Wilson Herbert Rees Wilson FRSE (20 March 1929 – 22 May 2008) was a physicist, who was one of the team who worked on the structure of DNA at King's College London, under the direction of Sir John Randall. Biography Early life He was born the son o ...

, went on to play for (and briefly captain)

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 ...

, playing more than 100 matches over eleven seasons at the club. The three brothers played together on numerous occasions, from the 1908 season through to the 1910 season. Francis Wilson was the last brother to debut for Suffolk, but on his debut against Norfolk in June 1908, which marked the first time the three brothers appeared together, he scored 183 runs. His last recorded appearance for Suffolk was a single match in August 1911, against Norfolk. By this time, he had made his first-class debut, playing for a combined Army and Navy side against a

Combined Universities The British Universities cricket team was a cricket team whose players were drawn from university students studying in Great Britain. The team played under the title of Combined Universities until 1995. The team played List A cricket from 1975 t ...

team.First-class matches played by Francis Wilson (5)
– CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 November 2014. Despite his earlier

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

for Suffolk, Wilson achieved more success as a bowler at higher levels. Bowling

leg break Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...

s, he took eight wickets on his first-class debut, which included a five-wicket haul, 5/60, in the second innings. Wilson's next two first-class matches came in the

1913 Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos (1913), Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not ven ...

and 1914 seasons, in the inter-services Army vs Navy games. He captained the Army to a 170-run victory in the June 1914 fixture, and was subsequently selected for the MCC in a match against Cambridge University the following month, played 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 ...

. Wilson's fifth and final first-class match came in the Army–Navy fixture during the 1920 season, after the conclusion of the First World War. Aged 44, he recorded his best bowling figures, 5/57, in the Navy's first innings, helping his side win by an innings and 14 runs. Wilson had been commissioned into the army as a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

in the

Suffolk Regiment The Suffolk Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army with a history dating back to 1685. It saw service for three centuries, participating in many wars and conflicts, including the First and Second World Wars, before bein ...

on 5 September 1896, and was promoted to lieutenant on 13 December 1897. He saw active service with the 1st battalion in South Africa during the Second Boer War, during which he was promoted to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

on 14 October 1901. After the end of this war in June 1902, the battalion returned home on the SS ''Canada'' in September that year. He reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel during the First world war. He was appointed an OBE in 1924, and retired the following year, settling in

Great Horkesley Great Horkesley is a village approximately 3 miles north of Colchester in the county of Essex, UK, and is part of the borough of Colchester. Horkesley is located in what is known as "Horkesley Heath", which is a combination of two villages: Gr ...

, Essex.Lt.-Col. Francis Tyrwhitt Drake Wilson
– The Peerage. Retrieved 27 November 2014. He played competitive cricket into his fifties, for the Free Foresters and for Gentlemen of Essex sides.Miscellaneous matches played by Francis Wilson (13)
– CricketArchive. Retrieved 26 November 2014. Wilson died in Great Horkesley in 1964, aged 87. His son, Colonel Nathaniel John Wilson (also an OBE), married a daughter of Sir

Pierce Lacy __NOTOC__ Sir Pierce Thomas Lacy, 1st Baronet (16 February 1872 – 25 December 1956) was an English stockbroker. Early life and education Lacy was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, the second of five sons (there were four daughters also) of Wex ...

, 1st Bt., a previous High Sheriff of Suffolk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Francis 1876 births 1964 deaths Army and Navy cricketers British Army cricketers British Army personnel of World War I English cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Cottesbrooke Suffolk cricketers Suffolk Regiment officers Military personnel from Northamptonshire British Army personnel of the Second Boer War Cricketers from Northamptonshire