William Patrick Hone (28 August 1886 – 28 February 1976)
/ref> was an Irish

cricketer 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 ...

. 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 ...

and

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 ...

, he played six times for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland participa ...

between 1909 and 1928, all of which were first-class matches.CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
/ref>

Biography

The son of

William Hone William Hone (3 June 1780 – 8 November 1842) was an English writer, satirist and bookseller. His victorious court battle against government censorship in 1817 marked a turning point in the fight for British press freedom. Biography Hon ...

, himself an Irish international cricketer, Pat Hone was born in Monkstown, County Dublin in August 1886. He 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 ...

in England before attending

Dublin University The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...

for four years from 1907, where he captained their

cricket team 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 strikin ...

for two years.CricketEurope Stats Zone biography
/ref> He made his debut for the Ireland team on their tour of the United States of America in 1909, playing two matches against

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. He then played three matches against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1910, 1913 and 1914, scoring 92 in the second

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is bot ...

of the 1913 match, his highest score for Ireland. Hone served in the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, reaching the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

and being awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

in September 1918 for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty" when he extinguished the flames of his

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to fac ...

when it caught fire under heavy shelling. After the war, he spent time as a railway engineer in India before returning to Ireland in 1928. His selection that year at the age of 44 for a match against the MCC met with much criticism and ended in failure as he scored three and six runs in the match. This was his last match for Ireland. He continued playing club cricket and was featured in friendly matches even in his 60s. He served as president of the

Irish Cricket Union Cricket Ireland, officially the Irish Cricket Union, is the national Sport governing body, governing body for cricket on the island of Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), and oversees the national Ireland cricket team, m ...

in 1955 and published the first attempt at a history of Irish cricket that year, entitled "Cricket in Ireland." He died in 1976, and his obituary was in the 1977

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''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 ...

, which stated that he toured Canada with Ireland in 1908

, 1977
Obituaries
/ref> which is inaccurate.

Statistics

In his matches for Ireland, he scored 162 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 13.50. He took seven

catches Catch may refer to: In sports * Catch (game), children's game * Catch (baseball), a maneuver in baseball * Catch (cricket), a mode of dismissal in cricket * Catch or reception (gridiron football) * Catch, part of a rowing stroke In music * Cat ...

Family

Hone came from a cricketing family. As already mentioned, his father William played for Ireland, as did his uncle Nathaniel. Another uncle,

Leland Hone Leland Hone (30 January 1853 – 31 December 1896
Cricketarchive.co.uk. Retrieved on 2 May 2018.) was a ...

also played for Ireland in addition to playing one

Test match 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) ...

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 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hone, Pat 1886 births 1976 deaths People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire Irish cricketers Irish people of Dutch descent British Army personnel of World War I Royal Artillery officers Recipients of the Military Cross Cricketers from County Dublin Gentlemen of Ireland cricketers Wicket-keepers