Montague Parker Bowden (1 November 1865 – 19 February 1892) was an English

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 ...

er, a

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

, who played two

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in 1888/89. Bowden was born in

Stockwell Stockwell is a district in south west London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated south of Charing Cross. Battersea, Brixton, Clapham, South Lambeth, Oval and Kennington all border Stockwell. History The na ...

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 educated at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2–19 independent, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

.Monty Bowden
CricketArchive. Retrieved 8 October 2022. Aged 23 years 144 days, he became England's youngest captain on 25 March 1889, when he captained England to victory in the second of his two Tests. Bowden had been deputy to

C. Aubrey Smith Sir Charles Aubrey Smith (21 July 1863 – 20 December 1948) was an English Test cricketer who became a stage and film actor, acquiring a niche as the officer-and-gentleman type, as in the first sound version of ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937) ...

, but Smith missed the second test through illness. Bowden stayed in South Africa to participate in the

Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of B ...

, went to Rhodesia with the

Pioneer Column The Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 and used in his efforts to annex the territory of Mashonaland, later part of Zimbabwe (once Southern Rhodesia). Background Rhodes was anxious t ...

, and ended up smuggling liquor. In 1892, he died in Umtali Hospital, Umtali, Rhodesia (now

Mutare Mutare (formerly Umtali) is the most populous city in the province of Manicaland, and the third most populous city in Zimbabwe, having surpassed Gweru in the 2012 census, with an urban area, urban population of 224,802 and approximately 260,567 ...

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

). Officially he died of

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical ...

, although a fall from his cart, leading him to be trampled under the hooves of his own oxen contributed to his death. Umtali Hospital was nothing more than a glorified mud hut, where his body had to be protected from marauding lions, prior to being interred in a coffin made from whiskey cases.

References

External reference

*
Daily Telegraph (UK newspaper)
1865 births 1892 deaths People educated at Dulwich College England Test cricketers England Test cricket captains English cricketers Surrey cricketers Gauteng cricketers Gentlemen cricketers Gentlemen of the South cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers South African gold prospectors Wicket-keepers {{England-Test-cricket-bio-stub