Leonidas de Toledo Marcondes de Montezuma (16 April 1869 – 18 March 1937) 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 allround sportsman who also competed as a cyclist.

Life

De Montezuma was born at

Crowborough Crowborough is a town and civil parish in East Sussex, England, in the Weald at the edge of Ashdown Forest in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Royal Tunbridge Wells and 33 miles (53 ...

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 ...

, the sixth of nine children. His parents were born in England, although his father was at one stage a lieutenant in the Brazilian navy. He was a boarder at the

Royal Naval School The Royal Naval School was an English school that was established in Camberwell, London, in 1833 and then formally constituted by the Royal Naval College Act 1840. It was a charitable institution, established as a boarding school for the sons of ...

in London. He went into business with a brother-in-law, but the business was dissolved in 1892. At around the time of his father’s death in 1895 he became a patient at the Bethlem Hospital, Beckenham, probably suffering from

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

. He had a variety of occupations, and never married. At the time of his death in 1937 he was a patient at the City of London Mental Hospital in

Stone, Kent Stone is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England. It is located 2.5 miles east of Dartford. History Iron Age pottery and artefacts have been found here proving it to be an ancient settlement site. The 13th-century parish church, de ...

Cricket career

De Montezuma 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 ...

whose

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

style is unknown. He was a prominent batsman in the 1890s for the Norwood club in Surrey. He made his first-class debut for

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 G ...

in the

1898 County Championship The 1898 County Championship was the ninth officially organised running of the County Championship, and ran from 9 May to 3 September 1898. Yorkshire County Cricket Club won their third championship title, with Middlesex finishing as runners-up f ...

at the

County Ground, Leyton Leyton Cricket Ground (formerly known as the County Ground or the Lyttelton Ground) is a cricket ground in Leyton, London. The ground was the headquarters and main home match venue of Essex County Cricket Club from 1886 until 1933, and was also ...

. He made seven further first-class appearances for Sussex in that season, the last of which came against

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

Old Trafford Old Trafford () is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310 it is the largest club football stadium (and second-largest football stadium overall after Wemb ...

. In his eight first-class matches for Sussex, he scored 271 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 27.10, with a high score of 80

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 ...

. He later played a single first-class match for London County in 1904 against

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

Crystal Palace Park Crystal Palace Park is a Victorian pleasure ground located in the South London suburb of Crystal Palace which surrounds the site of the former Crystal Palace Exhibition building. The Palace had been relocated from Hyde Park, London after the 18 ...

. In Warwickshire's first-innings of 326, De Montezuma took four wickets, finishing with figures of 4/71, which were the best bowling figures in that innings. He scored 14 runs in London County's first-innings response of 249, before being dismissed by James Byrne. He wasn't called upon to bat or bowl again in the match, which ended in a draw.

References

External links

Leonidas de Montezuma
at

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Leonidas de Montezuma
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:De Montezuma, Leonidas 1869 births 1937 deaths People from Crowborough People educated at the Royal Naval School English cricketers Sussex cricketers London County cricketers