George Grainger Brown (16 June 1821 – 21 March 1875) 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 active in the 1850s, making over forty appearances in

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 ...

. Born at

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, Sussex, Brown was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

and an

underarm The axilla (also, armpit, underarm or oxter) is the area on the human body directly under the shoulder joint. It includes the axillary space, an anatomical space within the shoulder girdle between the arm and the thoracic cage, bounded superiorl ...

bowler, who played for several first-class cricket teams.

Career

The son of the cricketer

George Brown George Brown may refer to: Arts and entertainment * George Loring Brown (1814–1889), American landscape painter * George Douglas Brown (1869–1902), Scottish novelist * George Williams Brown (1894–1963), Canadian historian and editor * G ...

, Brown made his first-class debut for

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 ...

against

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 ...

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 ...

in 1851, with him making a further three first-class appearances for the county in that season. In his first four matches, Brown scored 213 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 43.60, with two half centuries and a high score of 61. In the following season, he made six first-class appearances, though was less successful than in his debut season, scoring 186 runs at an average of 17.00, with a high score of 86 against Surrey, which was to be the highest score of his first-class career. In 1853, Brown made his first first-class appearance of the season for the United England Eleven (UEE) 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 ...

at Hyde Park Ground, Sheffield. He also made three appearances for Sussex in this season, against the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and

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 ...

, as well as making a second appearance for the UEE against the

Gentlemen of England Cricket, and hence English amateur cricket, probably began in England during the medieval period but the earliest known reference concerns the game being played c.1550 by children on a plot of land at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Surrey ...

. However, Brown struggled for form in 1853, scoring just 22 runs and averaging 3.14 from eight

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is bot ...

. Following on from three appearances for Sussex at the start of the 1854 season, Brown was selected to play for the South in the annual

North v South The North of England and South of England cricket teams appeared in first-class cricket between the 1836 and 1961 seasons, most often in matches against each other but also individually in games against touring teams, Marylebone Cricket Club (M ...

, a match in which he took career best bowling figures by taking 5/25. He made three further appearances in that season for Sussex against England, the UEE and Surrey, as well as making a single first-class appearance ''for'' England against Nottinghamshire. In his eight first-class matches in 1854, Brown scored 228 runs at an average of 17.53, with a high score of 55, while in what was his first season of bowling in first-class cricket, he also took 15 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 9.05, with two

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. Taking ...

s. His second five wicket haul came against

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. ...

and equalled his 5/25 taken earlier in the season for the South. His first match of the 1855 season for an

All-England Eleven In English cricket since the first half of the 18th century, various ''ad hoc'' teams have been formed for short-term purposes which have been called England (or sometimes "All-England"; i.e., in the sense of "the rest of England") to play against, ...

against Surrey, with him also making a further seven first-class appearances for Sussex in that season, as well as playing for the South against the North. Brown scored 135 runs in 1855, averaging 10.38 and top scoring with 35. In the following season, Brown made six first-class appearances for Sussex, as well as playing a single match each for a combined Kent and Sussex team ''against'' England, and for the South against the North at

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

. He struggled with the bat in 1856, scoring 66 runs at the low average of 5.50, while having bowled little in the previous season, Brown took 13 wickets in 1856, averaging 15.84, and taking best figures of 5/63, made against Kent. He made just two first-class appearances for Sussex in 1857, against Surrey at

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 ...

, and Kent at

Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...

. Brown's final season in first-class cricket came in 1858, with him making four first-class appearances for Sussex, the last of which came against Kent at the

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

. In total, Brown made 46 appearances in first-class cricket, 37 of which came for Sussex. For Sussex, he scored 772 runs at an average of 13.54, making four half centuries with a high score of 86. As a bowler, he took 19 wickets for Sussex, averaging 17.36 apiece for each wicket, with two five wicket hauls. In his three matches for the South he took 10 wickets, averaging 9.60, while making a single five wicket haul. In addition to his father being a first-class cricketer, Brown's brother

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

was also a first-class cricketer. He died at

Battersea Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park. History Batter ...

, Surrey on 21 March 1875.

References

External links

George Brown
at

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George Brown
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, George 1821 births 1875 deaths Cricketers from Brighton English cricketers Sussex cricketers United All-England Eleven cricketers North v South cricketers Non-international England cricketers All-England Eleven cricketers