Laurence Cyril Hawkins (15 May 1907 – 4 October 2003) played

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 officia ...

for

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in 46 matches between 1928 and 1937. He was born in

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blyth ...

, Warwickshire, and died at

Padstow Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately northwest of Wadebridge, northwest of Bodmin and ...

, Cornwall. Hawkins was a middle or lower order batsman and an occasional right-arm leg-spin bowler who was a long-standing player for

Weston-super-Mare Cricket Club Weston-super-Mare Cricket Club is an amateur cricket club based in the town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England. Since the club's formation in 1845, they have nurtured a number of players who have gone on to play for Somerset County Cricket ...

and turned out as an amateur for Somerset in a few games every season for 10 years. In 1934, he appeared in 12 matches, but in no other season was he picked for more than seven games. Hawkins made a promising start to county cricket, hitting 65 in his first innings in the match against

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 trad ...

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

in 1928 and sharing in a ninth wicket stand of 89 in 90 minutes with

Wally Luckes Walter Thomas "Wally" Luckes (; 1 January 1901 in Lambeth, London – 27 October 1982 at Bridgwater, Somerset), was a cricketer who played for Somerset. Born on the first day of the 20th century, Luckes was a lower-order right-handed batsma ...

. But in 17 other matches in that and the following three seasons he did not pass 50 in any innings. It was against Nottinghamshire again that Hawkins played his next significant innings: in the 1932 match, batting at No 9, he made an unbeaten 63 and shared a last-wicket partnership of 67 with Bill Andrews. And yet again, Nottinghamshire were the opposition when Hawkins began the 1934 season with an innings of 82: Hawkins scored more than half of Somerset's runs and came in after six wickets had gone for just 31 runs to make what was then his highest score. This innings propelled Hawkins temporarily up the Somerset batting to a middle-order position, and it was from there, less than three weeks later, that he made his highest first-class score, 96 against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

at Lord's, sharing a seventh wicket stand of 125 with

Jack White John Anthony White (; born July 9, 1975), commonly known as Jack White, is an American musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo the White Stripes. White has enjoyed consistent critical and popular success and is widely c ...

that enabled Somerset to save a game where they had trailed by 207 on the first innings. Hawkins' absence, rather than his presence, produced a highlight of the 1935 season. As

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

put it in his obituary in the 2004 edition: "He was injured for the game against

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 Grea ...

Frome Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...

, which led to the call-up of 20-year-old

Harold Gimblett Harold Gimblett (19 October 1914 – 30 March 1978) was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. He was known for his fast scoring as an opening batsman and for the much-repeated story of his debut. In a book first published in 1982 ...

and the most famous of all debut innings." And Hawkins himself had one final good match for Somerset in 1936, scoring 79 and 43 not out against the Indians and taking four wickets for 39 runs, his best bowling figures in first-class cricket and including a spell of four wickets for 10 runs. He did not play for Somerset after the 1937 season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, Laurie 1907 births 2003 deaths English cricketers Somerset cricketers Cricketers from Solihull Cricketers from Warwickshire