Gerald John Villiers Weigall (19 October 1870 – 17 May 1944) 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.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 557–561.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 8 August 2022.)

Family

Born in

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

, Weigall was the son of a Victorian artist, Henry Weigall (best known for his portrait of

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...

in 1878–1879), and his wife, the writer Lady Rose Sophia Mary Fane. Through his mother, he was connected to several powerful aristocratic dynasties including the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

. A younger brother was Lieutenant-Colonel Sir

William Ernest George Archibald Weigall Sir William Ernest George Archibald Weigall, 1st Baronet, (8 December 1874 – 3 June 1952) was a British Conservative politician who served as Governor of South Australia from 9 June 1920 until 30 May 1922. Family Weigall was the fifth son of ...

, 1st Baronet, KCMG, a Conservative MP who was Governor of South Australia. Two other brothers,

Louis Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis ( ...

and Evelyn, were also first-class cricketers. He married, in 1897, Josephine Harrison, and they had issue.

Career

Gerry Weigall was educated at

Wellington College, Berkshire Wellington College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. Wellington is a registered charity and currently educates roughly 1,200 pupils, between the ages of 13 and ...

, before going up to

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

, in 1889. He made his first-class debut 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 ...

as an

opening batsman In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batters play through their team's innings, there always being two batters taking part at any one time. All eleven players in a team are required to bat if the innings is completed (i.e., if ...

against

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 ...

(MCC) in 1891; scoring a half-century in the second innings, before achieving his Cambridge

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

later in the season. An all-round sportsman, he also represented Cambridge in

rackets Racket may refer to: * Racket (crime), a systematised element of organized crime ** Protection racket, a scheme whereby a group provides protection to businesses or other groups through violence outside the sanction of the law * Racket (sports equ ...

, and popularised

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

— a sport he played into his seventies. A defensive batsman with a strong cut shot, he often batted down the order after leaving Cambridge and often added useful runs, including his highest first-class score of 138

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 ...

which helped Kent to victory over the

Gentlemen of Philadelphia The Philadelphian cricket team was a team that represented Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in first-class cricket between 1878 and 1913. Even with the United States having played the first ever international cricket match against Canada in 1844, t ...

in 1897. Following his playing career, Weigall became a coach, coaching young players from Kent's

Tonbridge Nursery The Angel Ground was a sports ground at Tonbridge in the English county of Kent. It was used as a venue for first-class cricket by Kent County Cricket Club between 1869 and 1939 and then for association football by Tonbridge Angels F.C., until ...

and the second eleven. He is credited with the discovery of

Les Ames Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (3 December 1905 – 27 February 1990) was a wicket-keeper and batsman for the England cricket team and Kent County Cricket Club. In his obituary, ''Wisden'' described him as the greatest wicket-keeper-batsman of a ...

; who went on to play in 47 Test matches for

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 ...

. He also coached

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 ...

's colts side for a time. As a coach, he was noted as a "stickler for orthodox batting", and would demonstrate a perfect technique with items ranging from borrowed bats to umbrellas. He was a great character. According to E.W. Swanton, "He always had a few pet bees buzzing around in his bonnet, and used to inveigh against the criminal folly of selectors and authority generally if their view did not match his own." When

Maurice Leyland Maurice Leyland (20 July 1900 – 1 January 1967) was an English international cricketer who played 41 Test matches between 1928 and 1938. In first-class cricket, he represented Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1920 and 1946, scoring ove ...

was preferred to

Frank Woolley Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professional cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and for the England cricket team. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman ...

in the touring party to Australia in 1928–29, he fulminated against the selection of a "cross-batted village-greener". When he scored 63 not out in the 1892

University Match The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. From 2001, as part of the reorganisation of first-class cricket, ...

, three of the best Cambridge batsmen were run out during his innings, including no less a figure than F.S. Jackson, his captain. When it appeared that one of them would have to go, Weigall is supposed to have sacrificed his partner by calling: "Get back, Jacker. I'm set." Swanton sums him up thus: "... he may well sound a rather preposterous fellow... I can only say that every cricketer was his friend, and that he never spoke an unkind word about anyone."EW Swanton, ''Sort of a Cricket Person'', Sportsman's Book Club edition, 1974, pp. 84–85. He died in a

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Hospital on 17 May 1944, "troubled by illness from the outbreak of war".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Weigall, Gerry 1870 births 1944 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Europeans cricketers East of England cricketers Gentlemen cricketers Non-international England cricketers English cricket coaches Sportspeople from Wimbledon Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge English racquets players English male squash players Gentlemen of England cricketers Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers L. H. Tennyson's XI cricket team A. J. Webbe's XI cricketers