The Honourable Robert Grimston (born 18 September 1816 at

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. ...

, London; died 7 April 1884 at Gorhambury House,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

) was an English amateur

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 a pioneer of electric telegraphy.

Career

Grimston was educated at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

and

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

. Ruskin, who was a fellow-undergraduate and Christ Church, described him as "a man of gentle birth and amiable manners, and of herculean strength, whose love of dogs and horses, and especially of boxing, was stupendous." He played cricket for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) and several other teams, making 63 known appearances in first-class matches from 1836 to 1855. He 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 ...

. He was one of the first members of

I Zingari I Zingari (from dialectalized Italian , meaning "the Gypsies"; corresponding to standard Italian ') are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs, founded in 1845 and 1888 respectively. It is the oldest and perhaps the most famous of the 'wa ...

, and held the post of honorary treasurer. He was also a member of the MCC, and for some time president; he frequently played in matches at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

, and preserved his interest in the game till his death. In 1846 he assisted in the formation of a Surrey county eleven, which began playing in

Kennington Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since it ...

, then a market garden. After Grimston's death, the MCC's annual report said of him: "His name has been for so many years connected with our national game, as well as with every other manly British sport, that his death must be deeply regretted by all past and present cricketers, but by none so deeply as the members of this club, with which he had been so long associated, and in which he was so justly esteemed as a true friend, a thorough sportsman, and the type of an honourable English gentleman." After graduating at Oxford, Grimston studied law and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1843, but he was not adapted for the law, and practically gave up the profession in 1852, and devoted himself to the then novel enterprise of electric telegraphy, joining the board of the

Electric Telegraph Company The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was a British telegraph company founded in 1846 by William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo. It was the world's first public telegraph company. The equipment used was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, ...

. Later he was a director of the

Atlantic Telegraph Company The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed on 6 November 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link. History Cyrus Field, American businessman and finan ...

and chairman of the

Indo-European Telegraph Company Siemens Communications was the communications and information business arm of German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, until 2006. It was the largest division of Siemens, and had two business units – Mobile Networks and Fixed Networks; and En ...

Family

Grimston was the fourth son of

James Grimston, 1st Earl of Verulam James Walter Grimston, 1st Earl of Verulam (26 September 1775 – 17 November 1845), styled Lord Dunboyne from 1775 until 1808 and known as the 4th Viscount Grimston from 1808 to 1815, was a British peer and politician. Life and career He was t ...

. Three of his brothers

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

Edward Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

and

Francis Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places * Rural M ...

all played first-class cricket, as did his nephews Walter Grimston and Lord Hyde. He was also a supporter of the boxing arts and in the early 1850s, he and his brother James frequented middleweight champion Nat Langham's Rum Pum-Pas club, a dining and boxing establishment in Westminster popular with the aristocracy.List of patrons, location and details of the Rum Pum-pas club in Thormanby, (1900) ''Boxers and their Battles; Antecdotal Sketches and Personal Recollections'', London, R. A. Everett and Co., pg. 267-8.

Grimston's Oak

An impressive

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

tree (''Quercus robur'') at the junction of several rides in

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London ...

, Essex is named Grimston's Oak after Robert Grimston. The tree had a girth of 4.95 metres in 2007 and its estimated age is 350 years. It stands between Fairmead Bottom and Connaught Water at

grid reference A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...

TQ 4042095658.

References

External sources

Arthur Haygarth Arthur Haygarth (4 August 1825 – 1 May 1903) was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club and Sussex between 1844 and 1861, as well as num ...

, ''Scores & Biographies'', Volumes 2-5 (1827-1857), Lillywhite, 1862 1816 births 1884 deaths English cricketers English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 Presidents of the Marylebone Cricket Club Oxford University cricketers Younger sons of earls Gentlemen cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club and Metropolitan Clubs cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English barristers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers North v South cricketers Non-international England cricketers Fast v Slow cricketers {{England-cricket-bio-1810s-stub