Henry Anthony Pawson (22 August 1921 – 12 October 2012) was an English sportsman who played

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 ...

and

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and was a leading fly fisherman. He worked as a cricket writer and journalist. He was the son of

Guy Pawson Albert Guy Pawson (30 May 1888 – 25 February 1986) was a British colonial administrator who incidentally happened to play a few first-class cricket games while at university. He was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford, a ...

, and father of scientist

Anthony Pawson Anthony James Pawson (18 October 1952 – 7 August 2013) was a British-born Canadian scientist whose research revolutionised the understanding of signal transduction, the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues, and how the ...

Biography

Pawson was born at

Chertsey Chertsey is a town in the Borough of Runnymede, Surrey, England, south-west of central London. It grew up round Chertsey Abbey, founded in 666 CE, and gained a market charter from Henry I. A bridge across the River Thames first appeared in the ...

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

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

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 ...

. During the Second World War he served in the

Rifle Brigade The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle ...

, reaching the rank of Major and seeing active service in Italy and Tunisia, being

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. He worked for Reed International where he became Personnel Director, and then as an industrial relations adviser. Pawson played a total of 69

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 ...

matches 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 ...

and

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

. He batted right-handed, scoring 3,807 runs (including seven centuries) 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 37.32. He captained Oxford in 1948 when they defeated

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

by an innings. Pawson was a good all-round sportsman and also played

to a high level. He won a

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

for Oxford University and played two league matches for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

, scoring on his debut versus

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

in December 1951. He was a member of the

Pegasus A.F.C. Pegasus Association Football Club was an English amateur football club that ran from 1948 to 1963, based in Oxford and composed of Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) university students. While the club saw success in the 1950s, they disbanded t ...

team that won the

FA Amateur Cup The FA Amateur Cup was an English football competition for amateur clubs. It commenced in 1893 and ended in 1974 when the Football Association abolished official amateur status. History Following the legalisation of professionalism within footba ...

in 1951Land and Water
Kent Cricket Heritage Trust, 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2018-12-13. and a member of the Great Britain football squad for the

1952 Summer Olympic Games The 1952 Summer Olympics ( fi, Kesäolympialaiset 1952; sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad ( fi, XV olympiadin kisat; sv, Den XV olympiadens spel) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952 ( sv, Helsin ...

although he did not feature in any of the team's matches. He became cricket correspondent of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' and chaired the Cricket Writers' Club, 1980/81. He was regarded as one of the world's leading fly fishermen and was individual World Fly Fishing Champion in 1984. He also won world titles as part of the England national team. In the 1988 Birthday Honours, he was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) for "services to angling". He died on 12 October 2012, aged 91.Kent batsman Tony Pawson dies

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

, 12 October 2012. Retrieved 4 June 2020.

Select bibliography

* ''The Football Managers'' 1973 * ''The Goalscorers: From Bloomer to Keegan'' 1978 * ''Runs and Catches'' 1980 * ''Gareth Edwards on Fishing'' 1984 (with

Gareth Edwards Sir Gareth Owen Edwards CBE (born 12 July 1947) is a Welsh former rugby union player who played scrum-half and has been described by the BBC as "arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey". In 2003, in a poll of international ru ...

) * ''Flyfishing Around the World: The International Guide for the Gamefisher'' 1987 * ''Two Game Fishermen: An Hereditary Passion'' 1993 (with John Pawson) * ''Kingswood Book of Fishing'' 1992 (with John Pawson)

References

External links

*
Cricket Writers' Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pawson, Tony 1921 births 2012 deaths Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Angling writers British Army personnel of World War II British male journalists British fishers Charlton Athletic F.C. players Cricket historians and writers English cricketers Military personnel from Surrey English footballers English sportswriters Footballers at the 1952 Summer Olympics Kent cricketers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Olympic footballers of Great Britain Oxford University cricketers The Observer people People educated at Winchester College Rifle Brigade officers Gentlemen cricketers East of England cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Association footballers not categorized by position North v South cricketers Sportspeople from Chertsey