William George Marten (5 September 1845 – 25 November 1907) was an English professional

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 in 45

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 between 1865 and 1872.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 361–362.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-21.) Marten was born at

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

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 ...

in 1845.William Marten

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. Retrieved 2018-12-17. He made his first-class debut for

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 ...

in 1865 before going on to play 15 times for the county between then and 1871. In 1871 he joined

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. ...

, playing 24 times for the team until 1872.William Marten
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-12-17. Marten was a professional bowler on the MCC ground staff 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 ...

.The Marylebone Club
''

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 ...

'', 1872. Retrieved 2018-12-17. He played for MCC sides between 1867 ad 1871, including making three first-class appearances for the club, and played non-first-class cricket for a wide variety of teams, including for Essex sides before the county had first-class status. One of Marten's matches for Surrey in 1872 saw the match completed in one day after the opponents, MCC, were bowled out for 16 runs in their first innings. Marten took six wickets for 11 runs in the MCC first innings, his career best bowling figures, but failed to take a wicket in his 21 four-ball overs in the second innings.Marylebone Club and Ground v County of Surrey, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 1872-05-15, p.10. Marten stood as an

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

in one first-class match in 1882. He died at

Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area occupying the north-west part of the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England. It is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington the ancient parish. The ...

in London in November 1907 aged 62.

References

External links

1845 births 1907 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Surrey cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Players of the South cricketers Professionals of Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Cricketers from Royal Tunbridge Wells {{England-cricket-bio-1840s-stub