William Bury (14 October 1839 – 21 May 1927) was a clergyman, welfare administrator and a

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 who played

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 ...

for

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

and

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 ...

between 1860 and 1862. He was born in Radcliffe-on-Trent,

and died at Borough Green in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

.William Bury at ESPNcricinfo
/ref> Educated at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, Bury played cricket as a right-handed middle-order batsman. He played for Cambridge University in matches in 1860, 1861 and 1862, appearing in the

University Match The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. From 2001, as part of the reorganisation of first-class cricket, ...

against

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 ...

in the last two seasons, though he made little impact. In both 1861 and 1862, Bury played for Nottinghamshire when the university cricket season was over, and in 1862 he played a final match for a "Gentlemen of the North" side against an equivalent team from the south of England, and in this, his last first-class match, he made a score of 121 in his second innings, almost doubling the number of runs he made in his career. Bury graduated from

in 1862 and was ordained as a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...

in 1863 and as a priest the following year. After brief incumbencies in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

and

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, he settled in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

in 1867 and was successively rector of Haselbech to 1882 and Harlestone until 1907. In both parishes, Bury was involved with the Brixworth

Poor Law In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of hel ...

union and was chairman of the board of guardians. As such, he was a leading figure in the implementation of a harsh local policy of "retrenchment" by which the Brixworth union attempted to minimise

outdoor relief Outdoor relief, an obsolete term originating with the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), was a program of social welfare and poor relief. Assistance was given in the form of money, food, clothing or goods to alleviate poverty without the requirement t ...

– payments made to poor people outside the central workhouse – eventually developing a series of "co-operative" welfare-to-work ventures, including subsistence agricultural work and a co-operative public house in Harlestone. Recent historians have argued that the policy was instigated largely at the insistence of the zealous

Albert Pell Albert Pell (12 March 1820 – 7 April 1907) was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician. Early life Pell was born in 1820, the eldest son of Sir Albert Pell, a judge of the Bankruptcy Courts and Margaret Letitia Matilda St John, d ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for South Leicestershire and a Haselbech resident, with the connivance of the dominant local landowner and church benefice owner, Earl Spencer; they argue that it forced the rural poor into greater poverty or into migration to nearby towns such as

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

. Bury was also the author of books on poor law reform that advocated the minimisation of outdoor relief and the establishment of welfare-to-work schemes. In parallel with his Poor Law guardianship, Bury was also chairman of the Brixworth Rural District from its formation as a unit of local government in 1894, though by that stage the dominance of the retrenchment view on the local Poor Law union was being actively challenged through the rise of the agricultural workers' union. After 1907, Bury moved to be rector of

Ickenham Ickenham is an area in Greater London, forming the eastern part of Uxbridge and within the London Borough of Hillingdon. While no major historical events have taken place in Ickenham, settlements dating back to the Roman occupation of Britain ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

, retiring from that post in 1919. An older brother,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

, also played cricket for Cambridge University and another brother, Frederick, played in the first first-class cricket match in the West Indies.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bury, William 1839 births 1927 deaths English cricketers Nottinghamshire cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Poor Law in Britain and Ireland Gentlemen of the North cricketers People from Radcliffe-on-Trent Cricketers from Nottinghamshire Cricketers from the London Borough of Hillingdon