Joseph Wells (14 July 1828 – 14 October 1910) 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 father of the noted author

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

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.)

Life

Wells was born at

Penshurst Place Penshurst Place is a historic building near Penhurst, Kent, south east of London, England. It is the ancestral home of the Sidney family, and was the birthplace of the great Elizabethan poet, courtier and soldier, Sir Philip Sidney. The origi ...

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 ...

. His uncle was

Timothy Duke Timothy Hugh Stewart Duke, FSA (born 12 June 1953)"Duke, Timothy Hugh Stewart"
...

, a Penshurst bat and ball manufacturer. He married Sarah Neal, a former

domestic servant A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...

who was housemaid at

Uppark Uppark is a 17th-century house in South Harting, West Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building and a National Trust property. History The house, set high on the South Downs, was built for Ford Grey (1655—1701), the first Earl of ...

in West Sussex between 1850 and 1855 (later she was re-employed as housekeeper from 1880 to 1893). Joseph was the head gardener at Uppark in 1851 and married Sarah in 1853. An inheritance allowed them to acquire a shop selling china and sporting goods, although it failed to prosper: the stock was old, and the location poor. Wells earned a meagre income, but little of it came from the shop; Joseph also received unreliable earnings from playing professional cricket for the Kent county team.Smith, David C. (1986) ''H.G. Wells: Desperately mortal. A biography.'' Yale University Press, New Haven and London Payment for skilled bowlers and batsmen came from voluntary donations after the matches, or from small payments from the clubs where the matches were played. Wells was the first bowler to take four wickets in four balls in a first-class cricket match: in 1862 he dismissed Sussex's James Dean, Spencer Leigh, Charles Ellis and Richard Fillery with successive balls. (Spencer Leigh was the great-nephew of

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

.) In 1866, while living at Atlas House, 46 High Street,

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

, the couple had their fourth and last child "Bertie", who later became the author . Wells died at

Liss Liss, Lyss or LISS may refer to *Liss (band), a Danish musical group *Liss (name), a given name and surname *Liss, Hampshire, a village in England **West Liss, the oldest part of Liss village **Liss Forest, a hamlet near Liss **Liss Athletic F.C. ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

References

External links

*
Wisden obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Joseph 1828 births 1910 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...