William Knightley-Smith (1 August 1932 – 31 July 1962) was an English

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

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 between 1952 and 1961.

Life and career

Bill Knightley-Smith was educated at

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is an English co-educational, fee-charging, independent day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgate ...

in North London, where he was captain of the cricket,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and fives teams. Barry Norman, "The Last Days of August", in ''County Champions'', Heinemann/Quixote Press, London, 1982, pp. 127–38. After Highgate he went to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, where he won

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

for cricket and football. He played a full season for Middlesex in 1952 and was awarded his county cap, then played for Cambridge University from 1953 to 1955, and for Gloucestershire, where he was also Assistant Secretary, from 1955 to 1957. His highest first-class score was 95, the highest score in the match, for Cambridge against Essex in 1955. Knightley-Smith left first-class cricket after the 1957 season to take a teaching position at Highgate, his old school."Obituary", '' The Cricketer'', 18 August 1962, p. 448. He later became an insurance executive in Liverpool and Edinburgh.'' Wisden'' 1963, pp. 1034–35. He collapsed and died on the eve of his 30th birthday while playing tennis in Edinburgh.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Knightley-Smith, William 1932 births 1962 deaths People educated at Highgate School Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge English cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers Cricketers from London Middlesex cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Free Foresters cricketers Sport deaths in Scotland